Masses of Children

Today, our choir combined with musicians from around the valley to perform John Rutter's Mass of the Children. It is gorgeous music, similar to his Requiem in sound and style. Here's some pics from our dress rehearsal yesterday. What a fun concert!



Weston Noble of Luther College guest conducted:
Break Time!

Conductor Mommies:

This is from the concert today, right after the applause:

he's awake!

I was noticing that all the pictures that I take of Oliver are when he's sleeping, which I think is explained by the fact that I have a free second to take the picture, and also that babies are easier to photograph when they are holdiing still. Which is usually when they're sleeping. :) Here's what he looks like awake.

They do look alike, don't they? :)

Ivy's Big Day

Well, it was a Big Day for Ivy. She was the VIP, so we gathered some of her favorite things: Littlest Pet Shops, one of her best coloring pictures, her favorite book (Cordouroy), and a picture of her family. She shared her favorite snack, goldfish. AND, it was Crazy Hair Day! Whew! What a busy girl!

Chocolate Mousse Baby

When Oliver was snuggling in my sheets this morning, it reminded me of a chocolate mousse pie.

Soccer Champ

Lizzie's trying out soccer for the first time. She's learning a ton - and fast! Go Lizzie, Go!


This game was exciting yesterday because it started pouring rain about halfway through. We've had so much rain in the last six weeks - it's so fun, and so unusual. :)

Induction

No, this is not a post about labor and delivery, but a different kind of "induction." An induction to be a True Arizonan!

We Stewarts were inducted into the club tonight by the Andrews (native Arizonans), through the participation of preparing and eating the exotic side dish I like to call Cactus. Because it was just that - a Prickly Pear, to be precise. Here's the before, (notice the pricklies have been removed):

And the After (they've been grilled on the BBQ):
Tempting, no? Well, if it was really that good, I think we'd be eating it a lot more, because there's no shortage of cactus around here. To me, it tasted kind of like green chilies; Adam says like a sweet green bean. Which begs the question: Does Cactus fall into the Vegetable category? I just want to know if I can count this as part of my "5 a Day"...hmmmm.

We certainly had our "meat category" fulfilled tonight with all this Carne asada. Muy Delicioso! (You'll have to excuse me, sometimes we True Arizonans break out into a little Spanglish - it just happens.)

One month of love. :)

Daddy Daughter Dance

Lizzie said:
"First, so we danced for quite a while and we did songs like "Twist and Shout" and the "YMCA" and then we did more dancing and I saw my friends Nicolette and Quincy, and then we did raffle tickets; there were tons of treats there and the music was blasting, and there was a disco ball! We danced some more and there was water there, and we got very sweaty from dancing so much! Daddy swung me between his legs and popped me back up again! I'm gonna remember it for a long time and my feet are sore from dancing!

Oliver, meet Brooklyn!

Brooklyn Celeste was born to my cousin Kim just this past Tuesday. She was 7-13, 2 ounces bigger than Oliver when he was born. But look how much Oliver's grown in 4 short weeks!!

Baby Brother

One of the best things about a new baby in the house is seeing your older kids start a relationship with their new sibling.

Rock Me!

Baby Blessing

Oliver was blessed in church this beautiful day.







Made even more beautiful with family in town...

James and Jennie,


Vickie and Alan,

Connie and Shali, and Kim, Jared, and Boston,


and our dear friends the Andrews Lisa made this banner:Vickie made a fabulous lunch for us all.

I made these chocolate mousse delights to finish it off.

Babies + Family + Friends + Chocolate = Happiness :)