Sedona

Over Labor Day (yes, I am that far behind!), we went to Sedona, AZ with our friends, the Andrews. This picturesque redrock hippy town was a fun place to visit!

Coronado, 2010

Click on the picture to see a whole album! :)

Cousin!

Hi there, sorry it's been awhile since I've posted...I was knocked flat with a flu for several days, and it's been catch-up ever since!! Anyway, here's my darling cousin Tamara who I got to see for a few fun hours last Thursday. Just wish she lived closer - we had so much fun and probably fit in more words per minute than is humanly possible.

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 :)

They've seen the light!

In just a few short weeks, we Stewarts will no longer be the only ones from our bloodlines in the great State of Arizona! My cute cousin Kim and her husband Jared and son Boston are moving here!! Hip, hip, hooray!

They stayed with us as they were househunting, and we got to watch Boston. I hope he survived all the attention my kids showered on him! Lizzie and Eli keenly felt that "cousin" relationship and immedietly inducted him as a part of the family. He is such a cutie! :)

A Hankering for Haggis

So this morning I was curious about what exactly HAGGIS is, and so I went to the ever-trustworthy http://www.dictionary.com/ and here's what it said:

–noun Chiefly Scot.
a traditional pudding made of the heart, liver,
etc., of a sheep or calf, minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned, and boiled in
the stomach of the animal.
OR
n. A Scottish dish consisting of a mixture of the minced heart, lungs, and
liver of a sheep or calf mixed with suet, onions, oatmeal, and seasonings and
boiled in the stomach of the slaughtered animal.

I'm glad they included the word "slaughtered" in the definition, otherwise, we might think the "etc." meat was boiled in the stomach of a live animal, and for heaven's sakes, that would just be gross.

Why the sudden fascination with haggis? Well, James and Jennie decided to get married in a Scottish castle, this one, in fact, and I wanted to see what we would be up against, meal-wise.

New Motto for '09

Last year, the Stewart Family motto was taken from a trusted source, Guitar Hero.

The motto for 2008 was: "Less Talk, More Rock." It directed our year as we tried to do less talking about how we were going to live, and more doing. To me, it's the 21st century's "Just Do It."

This year, I have struggled to finally come up with a Family motto. Until Sunday. On Sunday, I was in Primary, listening to the scripture of the month. I've heard it many times before, but it hit me with a lot of force last week. Later that day, Lizzie mentioned that she wanted to highlight that scripture and asked for help to find it. We ended up talking about it.

The scripture is this:

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house,
even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house
of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God."

I've always read that scripture thinking, "Wow, wouldn't that be nice, to have a home like that? I wonder how you do that."

But it finally hit me - the prescription is right in there!! "Prepare Every Needful Thing!" I've mostly lived my life shooting from the hip. But this year, the Stewart Family motto will be: Prepare Every Needful Thing.

Now if we can just set that to some catchy rock music, we'll be all set.

Disney Characters, and Palmer Characters!

Time to say Good-bye

Feeling the magic

Did you know that the Blue Bayou Restaurant gives you dessert in the shape of a pirate ship and treasure box? And it's all edible - even the mast?

Did you know that even the parking attendants at Disneyland are incredibly competant and friendly?

Did you know that Ivy drives like Mr. Toad? She showed us today on Autotopia. :)

Did you know Eli was so excited this morning to go to Disneyland that he actually ran laps in the hotel room?

Did you know that by the time we had been in Disneyland for a couple hours, we'd spent an average of a dollar a minute?

Did you know that "mouse-ka-totally" is my new favorite catch phrase?

Did you know that it's not a great idea to play "Look-alike" in long lines when you might run into the daughter of the very person you were just about to call out as a look-alike? What is that? Karma? Fate? Bad luck? Are we the only family that plays this game? You know, "Look, it's Bill Clinton!" and then you all surreptitiously look at the Bill Clinton look-alike two rows in front of you and then giggle. Subtlety is the name of the game.

Did you know that we're pretty cheap, because we took a picture of our purchase-able Space Mountain picture with Adam's cell phone.

Did you know that there's no need to be unproductive in a long line: Matt was continually doing bar dips and pullups from every ledge and bar possible!

Did you that Adam scored 288,000 in the Astro Blaster game?? It didn't hurt that the ride stalled 3 or 4 times...

And finally, did you know that singing "Yo-Ho-Ho-Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me" at the top of your lungs in the dark Pirates of the Carribean Cave with your whole family is about the best thing imaginable? Yep, it is. :)

Dinner

We had an extra serving of salt-water tears at dinner last night. It was served with the main course, and efficiently passed down the table.

It started with Lizzie, who was stabbing at her lettuce and finally broke down crying, saying, "I can't pick up my lettuce!" We all just looked at each other in disbelief.

A few seconds later, Ivy said something to Eli that went like this, "Hey, DUDE." And I suppposed her emphasis and inflection on the word "DUDE" was sending negative vibes to Eli, because he promptly crawled under the table and started bawling. Lizzie, (fully recovered from the lettuce episode), saw the humor in this and looked at us wide-eyed before trying to stifle her laughter.

Adam looked exasperated as he asked Ivy to apologize to Eli for calling him a "dude," but our sensitive little Ivy, not realizing she had done something so terrible, crumpled into tears.

Once everyone got it out of their system, we had a perfectly unemotional dinner!

And the Winners are...

I'm sure you all had walls that looked like this over the Christmas break:

It is now February 3rd, and I have finally come to grips with the fact that it's past time to take down my Christmas cards and letters.

Truly, it is one of the highlights of the season for me to hear from so many old friends from all over the country from so many facets of life over so many years! I just love it.

As I was pulling your awesome cards and letters off the wall finally today, I decided that there were several Christmas cards worth mentioning. I would even go so far as to say "award winning" worthy. You people went all out this year! And so, I now present to you the categories and winners of the Christmas Card Contest.

First Card Received:

This award is very prestigious. I mean, you have got to be On. The. Ball. to be able to accomplish this. I was impressed. I'm not kidding, on Dec. 1, I open the mailbox, and BAM! there it was.

Congratulations, Jesica and Evan Eastman! (and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that a homemade card as well?) Wow. Extra bonus points for that!

Next we have the Best Family Photo Award. This was a competitive category, no doubt. But, I just loved the Ashton Family Picture! It's just Fabulous.

Okay, moving on to the Most Exotic Card. I had to make up a category for this card because it was so freaking awesome. Congratulations to Jack and Allison. They win because all these pictures were taken by them within the past year. Now that's Exotic! whoa.

Now for a potentially controversial and highly subjective category: Cutest Kids. Come on now, let's be honest. All of us send pictures to each other of our progeny, trying to capture just how insanely cute our own children are. And there were a LOT of cute kids. But, Heidi, seriously, it's just not fair. Two girls with blonde ringlets and then TWINS! And then there's their cute names! Lucy, Chelsea, Eliza, and Jillian! No competition. Congratulations!

Next up we have the Cleverest Letter Category. This is a highly competitive field with many many strong contenders, which is why I have personally dropped out of this race many years ago. This year, though, the winners definitely go to Alan and Vickie Eastman. Their whole year described in hilarious detail around numbers. It was clever, informative, and very funny!

For the category of Card from the Longest-Lost Friend, the winner is Kim Taylor! Holy crap! Last time I saw her I was 19 years old on a study abroad in Jerusalem. And I'm pretty sure she didn't have 5 kids then, but she looks EXACTLY the SAME! How did she do it?! Seriously, though, Kimmie, I'm so glad you tracked me down and sent me your card!

Now, for one of the highest honors of the night, we go to the category of Funniest Letter & Picture. Every year, this couple pulls it out, but this year, they surpassed even their own usual greatness. If I may be so bold as to quote for you their closing line,

"We hope you find ways this season to roast metaphorical chestnuts on the open fire Wall Street has made of our tax money. Happy Holidays!"

Nothing put me in the spirit of Christmas quite as quickly as this card did. Congratulations, Erin and John (who are posing in their picture as a Democrat and a Republican, respectively). Nicely done.

But then there is the category of "Most Elaborate Card" and some of you, (you know who you are), go a little crazy in this competition. But seriously, what is the point of trying to win this category when you've got Lisa Andrews in the competition.? Just go home and email it, people, you'll never even get close to this:

Mm, hmmm. That is why she is the Creative Scrapbook Goddess. Don't even try, people.

On the flip side, we have those who don't bother with the family photo, or even a "Card" at all in any form, and put all their eggs in one basket: words. This is a daring move. You have to be a powerful writer to have no bling but your semantics to draw the distractable Christmas-time- letter-receiver in. It has to be GOOD. The winner in this category knows he's so good, he doesn't even bother with a special font, borders, paper, clip-art - nothin. And every year when I open John and Jean Muir's Christmas letter, I stop whatever I'm doing, nestle into a comfortable position, and read the 2-page letter in its entirety. Yes, it's that good.

Don't believe me? Take this paragraph, for example:

"...Jean admitted that she too had made a great step out of her comfort zone by creating a family blog. When I queried her about its location and content, she admitted that, consistent with her private nature, she didn't have anything to say, so it is completely blank. That's OK with me since I don't want her blog to steal my Christmas letter mojo. Someday I may visit our family blog site to contemplate its emptiness in a Zen-like silence. If you ever stumble across it, you might consider it a rest stop on the information superhighway."

Like I said, no clip-art necessary!!

And finally, we have the Latest Christmas letter Received. I do not have this category to mock. I genuinely love all cards in all their arrival times. This way, I get to savor them longer. And for heaven's sake, if you know me, you know I could never knock down someone who is late. So, yes, Janet, even though you called it a "Valentine's Letter" you still qualify! And it's a good thing I kept my Christmas card wall up this long - you made it on for several days before they came down! :)

A sincere thank you to all our family and loved ones from all over the country for sending us Christmas cards! I miss you and love love love getting your fabulous cards, pictures and letters each year! If you didn't win this year, you may submit your entries again starting on Dec. 1st 2009. :)