Christmas joy in Alabama

Our hint of San Francisco for family far away. Merry Christmas!

Jackson enjoying his Christmas gift from Annie, William and JEB:

Mark's sweet gift for baby Holmes:

The highlight of Christmas gifts, Wii!! They guys immediately had a golf tournament in the den. We're all so excited for our fun, unexpected gift from Mama & Daddy.

Annie (5) picked out a special hat for Mark. Jackson & our little nieces seemed to enjoy it even more than Mark!

Caroline's excitement over the baby doll blanket and pillow I made:

Mary Beth, the seamstress, and the Squires' girls modeling their matching aprons:

Elle loving her new Leapster and sleeping bag:

This Christmas my siblings decided try a second year of giving no-cost gifts to each other. It was a fun challenge and really made the Christmas season so much more enjoyable without the retail shopping chaos. We had to get creative to sew, make, regift, find an internet deal, pass along a good book or DVD, etc. to creatively find a meaningful gift for Christmas. I wound up with a beautiful necklace and Mark got two cool architecture documentaries on famous artists. Mary Beth gets the award for thinking outside the box. She test drove a Chrysler to get a $50 gift card to Massage Envy for my brother-in-law. We really enjoyed our Alabama Christmas. We head back to Georgia tomorrow and will do a post from there in a few days.

Stegall Skating Spectacular 2009

Another fun year on the ice! It's amazing to think that this time next year there will be three new little babes added to the family from the Stegall cousins. We enjoyed skating, catching up, and spending fun time with cousins and our growing family.

Introducing Baby Holmes

This is little Holmes at 13 weeks.

Bouillabaisse and Ratatouille Dinner Party

The Southern girls: me, Sarah Nell (AL) and Beth (KY)

Chef German Lam was on hand to teach us how to make Ratatouille, Bouillabaisse and a rice dish for our dinner party. German was the chef at the Ritz Boston and elsewhere before opening his own personal chef/food consulting/nutrition business. I didn't know what Ratatouille was before the cartoon movie came out and had never eaten Bouillabaisse before. He teaches to use ingredients with natural flavors and avoid tons of over-spicing to have great tasting food. We had quite a few sous chefs/guests help out with the meal.

Mark's only hard work that evening was holding back his emotions during the Florida Gators and Tim Tebow loss to Alabama in a crushing end to their undefeated season.

I, on the other hand, won a co-prize for best sous chef. I think it's only because I stood over the hot stove for a long time. The chopping crew made it all possible!

Joann organized the fun evening of good food, new friends, and our coach/Chef. She doesn't know how to cook but she can certainly throw a great dinner party! Jin hosted and I'm quite jealous of the amazing kitchen renovation. We had a great time.

Thanksgiving with the Graves in RI

our 4th anniversary

Bunk, Jan, and us

Jan, Jennifer & Rachel

cousins having fun: Andrew & Cassandra

r: Bunk, Jan, Chris, Dave, Andrew, Mark

f: Scott, Rachel, Rebekah, Laura, Jennifer, Cassandra, Julia & me

We spent Thanksgiving at Chris & Rachel's house with great food, especially the turkey, dressing and cheesecake. Rachel and Scott both have a serious green thumb and hearing about their roses, Japanese maple varieties, and other plantings was a lot of fun. They've taken to stringed instruments in that family and I think Scott could put my cello playing to shame, even though we got them about the same time. The weather was good and we even took a long walk through the neighborhood, along the rivers, an the cute town of Barrington. It was such a treat to have time to catch up, enjoy good food, and see family.

NYC: Wicked on Broadway

M: The trip to New York City was fun. We saw a Broadway show called Wicked which was good. It was probably the best Broadway show I have ever seen considering the other show I had seen was the show called Rent which has terrible costumes and the set looks like a warehouse. The costumes and the set were really nice. I liked not knowing the story but being familiar with the characters. We also walked down to Greenwich Village and had dinner at this cool Italian coffee bar. It was really crowded on the streets.

Em: I loved the performance and a great time enjoying the music, surprising story, and fun costumes. I realized I don't really need another trip to NYC for a long while, unless it's for another fun Broadway show.

He loves me, he really loves me

We haven't done much blog-worthy in recent weekends but we have SO much to look forward to in the next week!

Our forth wedding anniversary is on Thanksgiving Day. We're celebrating in Rhode Island at my cousin's house. It'll be nice to have all the traditional family Southern foods with a part of my family I don't get to see enough. We're both looking forward to it.

My husband is great. On Friday Mark's taking me to NYC for our anniversary to see the Broadway show Wicked. I've wanted to see if for years and he's so sweet to surprise me with a night away and fun show. Of all the trips we've been on I know this isn't on his top 10 places to go and that's why I know he loves me. He really loves to me to take me to a bigger city and sit through a musical. I'm thrilled!

Arnold Arboretum in Fall

We enjoyed a Fall stroll with friends on Sunday. The leaves were beautiful and weather crisp. It's raining now, so I bet we got the ideal day for leaf watching this weekend. Isn't Jackson so happy in our picture on the stone wall? He's loves being loose amongst the trees.

A call to prayer

It's ironic that during Breast Cancer Awareness month my mom is diagnosed with breast cancer again. She dealt with breast cancer the first time almost 7 years ago with surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. Today Mama found out that her breast cancer has shown up in other places. She won't have surgery, chemo or radiation at this point. She'll take 8 weeks of a hormone-suppression drug (daily pill) to hopefully stop what's there. In December they'll evaluate her progress and decide what else may be necessary. 

This all scares me and yet I know that worry won't make her better. Please pray that these pills will do their job and eliminate the need for more treatments or intervention. God's a miracle worker. I've seen many examples. Mama needs a miracle. I want my friend to be here, healthy, a LOT longer. She's blogging her updates at www.mstegall.blogspot.com 

U2 concert from September

The night after Mama's birthday weekend I went to see U2 in concert. Sadly, Mark had to go out of town for work and couldn't come. I went with my friend Sarah Nell and we had a fun time. They played great old songs that reminded me of my sister's days driving carpool listening to Joshua Tree on tape. There were new songs and others that we could all sing along with. I loved being there! She took awesome pictures and I'm just getting to the blog post. I had a great, great time!

Campton NH weekend

This weekend Mark and I rented a house with some friends about 2 hours north of Boston in Campton, NH. It felt a lot like Sky Valley--great mountains, heated swimming pools, hiking, streams, ponds and skiing in the winter. We took a 4 mile hike along a loop that had amazing views about 70% of the time. We saw the Franconian ridge, Waterville ski area, Presidential Mountain range and more. There was a very interesting 70 year old man who joined our group, knew the terrain well and had fun stories to make the steep granite rock faces less noticable. 



On the way back this afternoon is snowed and snowed. This is the second time in October I've seen snow. I hope this doesn't foreshadow our winter season!

Pear Upside-down Spice Cake

pear up-side down spice cake:

Cake:

3 c sliced peeled Bosc pears (about 3 - can also use Bartlett or Anjou)

cooking spray

2 c all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp instant coffee granules

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 c granulated sugar

5 tbs butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

3/4 c butter milk

Glaze:

2 tbs butter

1 tbs water

1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

3/4 c packed dark brown sugar

1 1/2 c tbs buttermilk

Preheat to 350 - Bake for 1 hour

Arrange pear slices on bottom of 9-in cake pan coated with cooking spray. Combine flour through cinnamon in a bowl. Combine sugar and butter in a separate large bowl, beat until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg and beat well. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternatively ending with flour mixture. Spoon over pears.

To prepare glaze, combine butter, water, and juice in saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until butter melts. Stir in brown sugar; bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add buttermilk. Let stand 2 mins then pour over top of cake.

Yields 12 servings

Enjoy!

I love Fall

My favorite Fall trees show all the glorious colors at once!

John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, was born and raised about an hour west of our house. He intentionally planted apples as food and cash crop for settlers to use. We drove along the Johnny Appleseed trail on Saturday to enjoy the foliage, sunshine and apples.

Mark caught 6 fish in this lake on Saturday. He was pretty happy about it.