There has been a lot to celebrate the past few days. My birthday (33 years old – yeesh!) was Tuesday and, of course, New Years was yesterday. And today? Today marks the one-year anniversary of the start of this blog. There has been a lot to write about this past year, and I anticipate 2009 will be filled with additional memories to share.
With the start of this new year, let me know what you think about Blog Full of Letters? What stories and photos would you like to see/read? What would you like to see more or less of in the future?
Category Archives: Family
The goldendoodle meets her match (in the form of a yorkie-poo)
As you may have read in my last blog entry, we had a lot of family in town for the holidays. Mainly, the family time was all about Oliver, with a dash of my parents, my sisters and their men thrown in. See, aren’t the sisters/men looking happy:
But in all seriousness, the past few days have been all about Molly and Smith. My sister and her husband brought their puppy, Smith, with them from Minnesota. He’s a yorkie-poo. A little, cute, energetic yorkie-poo. An adorable, yappy yorkie-poo. Did I mention he has a lot of energy? Doesn’t he look innocent:
Most of you know about Molly, our crazy goldendoodle. Anyway, we put Molly and Smith together for a few days. They got along well, but there was a lot of horseplay. Imagine dealing with this for 20-minute intervals throughout the day:
At least they eventually tired out. Good friends for life, don’t you think:
Lots o’ toys for the good little boy
Christmas may be officially over, but the holiday’s mark can still be found all over our living room. It was Oliver’s first, so I’ll give a quick rundown of what happened. Christmas Eve, he was the crankiest he’s been in months. So after dinner, we let him open a couple presents and then put him to bed . After he finally went down, we hit the wine bottle hard! Then Sarah and I opened presents from each other.
Christmas morning, we let Oliver open his bigger presents. We got him things like Mega Blocks and Little People play sets. Plus, we hot him this pretty cool zebra thing that he can sit on and swivel around. It’s almost like a mechanical bull, minus the toss-you-on-your-ass feature.
Then Molly got her presents from us. We put them into a stocking and make her pull them out herself. Here, she’s reaching in for her new purple Wubba.
Around 10 a.m., we headed to Sarah’s parents’ house for brunch and gifts with her relatives. Then, at 3:30 p.m., we went to my grandma’s for more. And if that wasn’t enough, we had more presents yesterday, as my parents saved their gifts for the privacy of our house (it was pretty hectic at my grandma’s). Yesterday was fun, with my parents over until late, plus my two sisters and their man-friends staying the night. We also had a chance to give Molly her gift from my sis. Check out the size of this biscuit from Three Dog Bakery:
All in all, it was a great Christmas. And a nice first one for Oliver. He made quite a haul. Lot’s of toys for the little guy. Plus, some good family bonding. Hope you all had a great holiday as well.
Merry Christmas (card)
For those who missed it, below is a scan of the Christmas card we sent out this year (though the light-green background color scanned in as a white!). Hope you all have a nice, safe and happy holiday.
Garbage Pail Kids version of the Lopinots
When my parents came into town for Oliver’s baptism a few weeks ago, they brought with them several boxes of my old stuff. I finally went through a few of them today, and I unearthed a few Garbage Pail Kids gems. I tried finding the names of my family members, but sadly there were no Sarahs, Olivers, Sharons or Jennifers. I did find a Justin (love the beer in his hand!), two Carries and a Neal (even spelled correctly). They made me laugh, and feel nostalgic. Anyway, for anybody who cares:
Oh Christmas tree …
Yesterday we headed out to Warrenton, Mo., then took a side road into “Deliverance-like” territory to visit a tree farm. Yes, it was our semi-annual Christmas tree-chopping trip. We went out with Sarah’s parents, brother and future sister-in-law.
It was flippin’ cold out. Probably in the 20s or low 30s with strong winds. We had Oliver layered up so much that he couldn’t really move. We just carried him around and he’d stare straight ahead.
Oliver was well-behaved (as usual). He had a lot to look at, including tractors hauling trees, kids visiting Santa and cold people sipping on hot chocolate.
It took a lot of walking and tripping over stumps, but we eventually found our tree.
Sarah’s dad took a picture of the (freezing) family as we waited for our trees to be prepped to take home. Don’t we look great?
Oliver’s baptism made for quite a party
Oliver’s baptism was Saturday. 
We decided to have it at Trinity Lutheran Church in the Soulard area of St. Louis. Pastor Dave Marth is, well, pretty awesome. Many of you will remember him as the paster who handled the keynote duties at my wedding to Sarah in May 2005. For the baptism, we had a small, private ceremony. Pastor Dave was nice enough to keep the men informed on the Mizzou-Kansas football score (blech!) throughout the time we were there.
Once things got under way, we were called up to the front of the church. The god-parents, my sister Carrie and Sarah’s brother Aaron, stood with us. Oliver was really quiet the whole time. He did try to grab the hymn book several times.
For the actual “baptism” deal, we headed to the back of the church. There, Pastor Dave poured water over Oliver’s head. We all laughed a bit, as he used more water than we expected. Oliver took it all in stride, smiling the entire time.
Afterward, we posed for pictures. Oliver and his godparents stood for one. Speaking of … it was really an excruciating decision to select the godparents. Sarah and I each have two awesome siblings, and picking just one of my sisters and one of her brothers was no easy move. Any of the four would be excellent god-parents for sure! Our picks, Carrie and Aaron, will be great for the boy.
As I wrote above, Oliver was well-behaved the entire time. He got noisy a few times before and after the ceremony, but only because he learned that if he made loud noises, they would echo in the more than 150-year-old church. Oliver got to spend time with many folks, including his cousins Nathan and Kaitlyn.
We also posed for a group picture, which was taken by Pastor Dave. We were excited to have most of our local relatives present, including Oliver’s great-grandmothers Carol, Frieda and Lillian.
Afterward, we drove out to Wildwood (home of grandparents “Grannette” and “Grodney”) for a little party. We had some great food, including a pretty cool cake from Federhofer’s. Speaking of, we had looked at several bakeries for baptism-themed cakes, but most were either really cheesy (wow, cool, a fake stained-glass window on my cake!) or just plain goofy (100 giant icing flowers in the shape of a cross). The party was a lot of fun, hanging out and celebrating the day. Oliver was really tired by the time we left, sleeping for the entire 45-minute ride home.
Happy birthday, beautiful
Today’s my wife’s birthday, so I’m using this space to say some mushy stuff. Feel free to stop reading here if that’s not your thing.
Sarah’s my special lady (cheesy, but true). Though she’s entering her (gulp) mid-30s today, she’s as beautiful as the day I met her. I say that with complete honesty. If anything, seeing her tender side from the sideline as she cares for our son makes her even more beautiful in my eyes. What a ride this past year has been for us. I know that her 34th year will be full of even more joys and excitement. It all starts today. So to Sarah, I say this: “Happy birthday, beautiful!”
Exhausting weekend
It’s almost time for bed on Sunday night, and it’s safe to say that it’s been quite an exhausting weekend. My day job has kept me extremely busy lately, and I’m in the middle of grading papers pretty much nonstop until this semester ends for the classes I’m teaching. I spent several hours on Friday, Saturday and today grading papers. Between that excitement, I did spend a lot of time with Oliver. The little guy is pretty pooped out himself. Below are a few pictures from his part of the weekend (sorry, no pictures of me slouched over a keyboard).
Saturday afternoon, we decided to take Oliver to the grocery store. On the way, we decided to stop by a department store. Next thing we knew, we had hit four stores, the grocery store and Bread Co. for dinner. Oliver was out cold by the time we got home:
Today, we took Oliver for a walk up to the local elementary school where we goofed around on the playground:
After we got home, we gave Oliver a bath:
Then he crashed for the night:
World travelers stop in St. Charles to visit Oliver and Co.
We were visited by some world travelers recently. Well, they had reason to be here: one of them is family. Yes, my little sister and her boyfriend were in town for a few days. Carrie and Eli are both in the medical field, and they work in different cities for a few months at a time. So far, they’ve been in Florida a couple times, Seattle, Kansas City and Chicago. They also recently went to Mexico. For their current gig, they took positions in Carrie’s hometown of Springfield, Mo., so they could be close to family through the holiday season. You can read about their travels on Carrie’s blog, The Nomadic Life of Carrie, though she needs to start posting some new stuff (hint, hint!). All the while I’ve been here in St. Charles. Oh well…
Anyway, we had a good time. Oliver was excited to see his Auntie Carrie. Here are a few pictures from the visit.
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