A week ago we had a little photo shoot, since we had our east-coast-family visiting us. It was wonderful to have my brother share his talent and time with us! We got so many beautiful pictures of various poses and groupings… but here are just a couple that I can share with you here.
Photos courtesy of Colin D. Bennett Photography, (c) 2011
My little family.
Us with Steven’s parents.
All of us together.
This afternoon the newest member of our family made her entrance into the world of the officially air-breathing. Bringing next to nothing but dark wavy hair and long pianist’s fingers,
Clara Elizabeth
has graced my brother’s family (and thereby, ours) with her stunning presence. I stand amazed at life. Life that scrunches up its nose, stretches out limbs, and presses air in & out of lungs in rhythmic measure. Doesn’t it make you wonder how God ever thought of that?!
When Gabriel first heard that Uncle had a new baby, he told me, “uncle got a baby for you. Go get it. Mommy baby.”
No worries: I explained that this baby isn’t ours. She’s part of our family, but she isn’t ours.
Gabriel insisted, as we drove to the hospital this evening, that we were going to meet Baby Jesus.
No worries: he got it corrected once he met his new cousin, and we’ll work on nailing down his theology later.
Welcome to God’s green earth, Clara. Here, you will be mightily loved. You belong to a strong family. Generations of Christians hailed before you, and I trust that through you many more shall yet hail. From what your auntie knows, your name means “clear and bright” & “God’s promise.” May your Father in heaven ever reveal Himself clearly to you, make Himself clearly evident through you, and hold fast to His promise to bless generations through you even as you hold tightly onto Him throughout your days. Peace & blessings.
Gabriel, enjoying Grandpapa’s hat.
Marking out where we are going to build our house!! This was a big step for us. 🙂
A nice refreshing country dessert I made with this recipe (and freshly picked berries).
Happy (late) Independence Day, and Blessed Summer Greetings from our family to yours. 🙂
Today marks the third anniversary of the day that my Steven and I covenanted before God and 90-some witnesses to become one flesh. For better or for worse. In some ways it feels like so much longer than three years. They’ve been pretty packed full. 🙂 But in other ways, it feels like just yesterday that I slipped into that gorgeous Cinderella gown, and waited for the veil to be lifted so my love could kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine. (SOS 1:2) Wow.
I was thinking this morning about how Song of Solomon (8:7) says that “many waters cannot quench love, nor can floods drown it.” I feel like the rainstorms of our life are trying to quench us, and they are failing. Hurray! God is good. No matter how the storms may thrash, and no matter the floods that pool around us (trying so hard to cover our heads), our love will not diminish – it will only grow. Even in the downpours of devastating grief & pain. Because we are God’s. And we are one another’s.
My broken heart is far from happy today. But my heart is held by my husband, and that does make me happy. So very, very blessed. God is good. I am indescribably thankful for my husband. May the Lord graciously allow us dozens of more years together to celebrate His goodness, and to combat whatever rainstorms face us. Hand in hand.
I love you, Steven. Always.
Gabriel doesn’t know the world stopped spinning five days ago. And so from his perspective, today was positively perfect. Magical and full of wide-eyed wonder. Just as it ought to have been.
And God is good.
Mother’s Day
The men made our Mother’s Day feast!
The meal was wonderful! The best (and biggest) burgers, complete with herb butter in the beef and topped with lettuce, tomato, bacon, grilled onion, sauteed garlic mushrooms, cheese… my mouth is now watering, thankyouverymuch! We also had grilled corn on the cob, chips, baked beans, and an ice cream sundae bar for dessert!
Park day on Monday.
Gabriel loves running through the field, picking dandelions, and especially blowing the gone-to-seed dandies. So funny. So cute.
This was my attempt at getting him to smile, by asking, “Where’s Mommy?” and then “Where’s the sky?” 🙂
The challah I made for Easter dinner. So good! And I have a second loaf in the freezer. 🙂
The feast!
Playing outside and doing their first Easter egg hunt (with empty eggs, haha).
Did I mention that Noah & Hannah got handmade wooden carts for their birthday from Grandpapa? So we had all three carts, and let the kids have races together. Mostly, though, Hannah likes to be pushed by Gabriel; Pretty funny.
On an impromptu ice cream date with Mommy & Daddy after we went to the mall so Daddy could buy some clothes, and Gabriel could ride the escalators (over and over…) with Mommy. 🙂
Coloring, one of Gabriel’s new enjoyments.
Steven & I went on a date (the broadway show tickets were my birthday gift from him!) last evening.
My mom grew up in a Jewish community, so we’re thinking maybe we should give some of her old neighbors a call — and it just so happens that my grandparents are still good friends with one of the couples, so it’s actually a reasonable thought. 🙂 So maybe my mom will do that, and we’ll get some truly experienced input on Seder meals. 🙂 But for this year, I managed to simply look through some stuff online (primarily the links I’d shared earlier), and put together a Seder meal for 5 (the 3 of us, plus my parents). Although Steven ended up having to work late, so we didn’t have time to do much of the liturgy before we needed to head out to our parish fellowship night, we did a little of it. My mom lit the candles and said the opening prayer. We did the four glasses of wine (who would skip those?!), and the toasts (if you call them that) with those, and I read some of the extra stuff, like the explanations of what things meant, etc. And Steven read Psalm 113 as part of it as well. So it was a much shortened version, but it was still fun — especially for a first try. When Gabriel is older, he will really like it, I think. He loves liturgical things (he is so our boy).
Here is our [roughly] Seder plate, with the symbolic foods on it: bitter herbs, salt water, a bone (umm, yeah, so our lamb roast was boneless & I had to improvise by using a dog toy….), charoset (a sweet mixture of apples, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, sweet red wine, and honey), matzoh crackers (the matzoh balls were on a separate plate), and hard boiled egg.
Here are the child (Gabriel had brought home a communion cup a few weeks ago, so it was perfect for his wine glass) & adult place settings (don’t you love those small green wine glasses my mom has?).
The food, and the table. For the dinner feast part of the meal, we had grilled lamb (my mom did that part — I don’t really know how to grill!), a grain mixture I bought at Trader Joe’s last week (Israeli couscous, orzo, garbanzo beans, and quinoa), green beans from my garden last year, hard boiled eggs, matzoh bread, matzoh balls, and charoset.
Ready to eat!!
Loving the wine (are you noticing that he didn’t stay in his high chair, and didn’t want to use his tiny wine glass?) — it really tasted like [barely] spiked Welch’s, it was that sweet. I bought kosher wine, Manischewitz, and while not my favorite wine ever, it was great to have something authentic like that (it’s what the Jewish families in my mom’s childhood neighborhood used for Passover).
It was fun to do the Seder meal together, and I hope we can develop it more in future years.
Now I am looking forward to the Good Friday service tonight, where I am going to attempt to accompany the entire service on my harp. If I can muscle through the pain of my blisters, that’s my intent. And then I just won’t be able to play harp for a couple weeks, I think. 🙂 I also semi smashed my pointer finger in the car door two days ago (when delivering my harp to the church), so that is making it slightly difficult as well.
And then Resurrection Sunday!! I have to be at church at 8:30 to practice an anthem on organ with two trumpets, a trombone, and our little church choir. Then there’s brunch at church, but I think maybe I will just come home to get my boys, and not bother about staying for the brunch. I get to play organ for most of the service on Sunday, which Gabriel will love. And then after church we will head to the country for our Easter Feast! Tomorrow I will be making pineapple casserole (not using that linked recipe, but it’s similar: mine has cinnamon though!!) and challah for my part of the meal.
I will try to be selective and not post too many pictures… but there are so many good ones from our trip! 🙂
We’d just landed in CA, so I was able to smile – hehe. 🙂
Driving around…
Lover’s Point in Monterey.
Carmel Beach.
Hanging out at Great Grandma’s house.
San Francisco (where I was born).
Golden Gate Bridge.
Golden Gate Park.
Lunch at Scoma’s.
Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39.
Ghirardelli Square.
Having a low-key day while Steven worked at a conference.
Took my little boy on a date to the donut shop where my dad used to take me.
After visiting one of our sister churches (which was so great), we went to Big Basin to see the Redwoods.
A nap, a bath, and picking lemons about wrapped up our trip. 🙂
There… was that selective enough? 🙂
