Oliver's baptism

Oliver was baptized this past Sunday. It was a lovely day, and a beautiful service. Our priest gave such a wonderful sermon - he had me in tears. He's going to give me a copy of it, and I'll try to remember to post all or part of it here. Oliver was a little fussy leading up to the baptism part, but as soon as he was handed to Fr. Nicholas, he looked up at Nicholas and gave him the most beautiful smile. Then smiled every time the water was poured on his head. We had a lunch/party afterwards, and despite a couple of snafus (cake wasn't ready on time, then the damn deli tray dropped - Safeway replaced it at no charge, and had the new one ready in 15 minutes, great customer service), it was everything we could have hoped for, with our families and friends. Have to give a shout out to my good friend Sylvia too - as she has always done in all the years I've known her, she helped me keep it together. She took me to Safeway to pick up the cake and sandwiches, and helped me get the cake home, then went back to pick up the new tray, and somehow kept me from totally dissolving into a puddle of tears in the process. She rocks.


We were fortunate to have all of Jon's siblings and his mother fly in for the weekend! It was nice to have everyone together. Natalie loved having her aunts (she's Aunt Elizabeth's stalker), uncles and cousin around. She refers to Will (our nephew) as "Cousin Will", and was sad to see him go this morning. We're looking forward to seeing him again soon - he's a cool little dude. He has a wonderful smile and laugh.


Grandma Carol and Aunt Jamie got to see Natalie have a soccer lesson on Saturday, while Elizabeth and I went to Costco to stock up for Saturday night (we had a big BBQ with all of our out-of-town visitors, my parents, and Fr. Nicholas and his partner Rex), then we just played in the pool until cookout time.


I'll be posting pictures after I get this posted. We're heading to the mountains on Thursday, so I probably won't update again until early next week.


Here's Oliver smiling up at Fr. Nicholas.



Oh, and in other happy news... We heard from Sara and Kyle this morning - she is ten weeks pregnant and had an ultrasound this morning. They got a great shot of Baby H, which they shared with us! Nice strong heartbeat, and baby was moving and grooving! Can't wait for April '09, so we can meet the newest member of the family!