brother-in-law gets hitched!

 

It was a busy weekend here in the Garber family household... baby brother Jonathan got married!  Jonathan and Erika have known each other since 9th Grade and have been dating since their second year of college.  A long-awaited day! 

They chose the historic Rosemont Manor in Berryville, VA, for their wedding.  They planned to have the wedding on the lawn in front of the Manor House, but just for good measure the bridal party also practiced on the porch.  Good thing they did, because it rained throughout the entire ceremony, and so that's where the ceremony was held! 

Isn't it gorgeous?  It reminded us so much of Raspberry Plain, the beautiful old Virginia manor house that Elliott and I chose for our wedding.

Eden and I have matching shoes!

& Jess joyously jumping

The rehearsal dinner was at the Garbers' house (!), which definitely was a lot of work for the family to get everything ready, but was a total success and so much fun.  I took a million pictures of the rehearsal dinner at my mother-in-law's request and plan to share a few soon, after I do some editing.

As I was a reader in the wedding and Elliott was a groomsman, I couldn't take any photos for awhile once the wedding began, but it was so tasteful and so lovely.  The rain didn't detract from anything; instead it seemed to make it more intimate and unforgettable.  The wonderful reception included family-style dining on chicken and mashed potatoes, caramel apples for favors, Pumpkin Spice and Maple Walnut Crunch cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake, and plenty of dancing with a fabulous DJ.  Lena partied along with all of us... our little social butterfly!

 giggles and tickles with Daddy

& relaxing with her Grandpa

 "dancing" with her new friend Marisol

& the Cupid Shuffle, always a favorite

Congratulations, Jonathan & Erika!  We love you!

making a car seat swaddle blanket

Although you may not believe it, Sicily gets cold.  No snow, granted, but it's still in the 40s-50s F all winter long, and winter lasts from late November to late March.  I'm concerned about keeping our newborn baby boy warm and cozy this winter.  During our time here in the States, I have been buying up warm winter things, such as this darling little fleece bunting (found it for $10... perfect indoor lounge wear!) and have finally begun making a couple things for him, too.

Just the other day my mom and I made a hooded car seat blankie by following the instructions on one of my favorite blogs: The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.  (I'll be guest posting there in November!)  The steps in Kelly's hooded blanket tutorial are easy to follow and the results are so cozy for my little babe.  Follow along while I show you what we did...

I chose navy blue flannel for the inside of the blanket and a blue-and-red plaid for the outside.  We began by drawing a curved shape on a folded square meter of flannel.  I then cut along the shape I'd drawn.

Proof that we followed the tutorial every step of the way!  The fabric now has the shape that my final product will take.

We laid the flannel pieces out on top of some cotton batting and then flattened the flannel onto the batting.  

Note: We might have seriously damaged the ping pong table as we ironed on it.  Be a little smarter than we felt at 10pm that night and use your ironing board instead!

 

A break to admire the kitty cat, Luna. 

After we finished smoothing, ironing, and ruining the ping pong table, we pinned the flannel to the batting and then I sewed around the entire blanket.  We then flipped it inside out and...

... sewed a straight line across the top of one of the corners.  This, when trimmed and flipped around, made a hood!

So cute.  We're almost done. I top-stitched around the entire blanket to give it a beautiful finished edge.

Meanwhile my mom measured the distance between the straps in the car seat so that we could make holes in the blanket for the straps to fit through.  More tracing and measuring.  I then sewed around the markings.

My mom used a rotatory board and cutter to slice along the marking lines we'd made.  And that's it!

 
We put it into the car seat and the straps all fit through the openings we'd just cut in the blanket.  The blanket will wrap around my little boy so nicely and keep him snug and warm in trips in the car all winter.  Plus he'll look so handsome in warm plaid flannel! 

Now all I need is a baby to wrap up in it.  Baby boy, whenever you decide you're ready around January 30, I'm so excited to meet you!

life lately

Here are a few Instagram photos from our visit to Virginia thus far.   

fun times at a park near my parents' house

 no trip to the park is complete without a picnic in a basket, right?

how to keep a sick baby entertained in church for a very short time

& are you allowed on the dining room table, kitty cat?

a trip to Frying Pan Park Farm

when you're walking around the neighborhood and you get tired... by all means, lie down

& enjoying a book from her great-grandparents, Brother Sun, Sister Moon

so many fingerless glove orders, so little time!

& can you spy our baby bumps??  My dear friend Abi and I are due just 5 days apart!

"playing" Banangrams with Lena, wherein she dumps pieces out and I spell her full name
(and her baby brother's potential names, but I can't share those photos!)
& reading with her Poppy

learning to walk in Mama's new shoes 

& out on another walk in a sweater her mama knit her

Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Praline Frosting

(Thank you all for your excitement over Elliott's return! He arrived safely last night to sweet Virginia and found his little wife waiting for him outside customs with the promised Starbucks decaf soy mocha.  Lena couldn't believe her eyes when her daddy picked her up in his arms; the look of astonishment and joy on her little face will stay with me for a long time.)

Last week two of my cousins, Anna and Allie, came over for dinner.  Before the girls arrived, my grandmother spilled the beans that Anna had just received her Masters diploma in the mail.  (Anna is sorta brilliant and is in a PhD program at Johns Hopkins.)  So I know that a Masters is only a stepping stone on the way to a PhD, but... don't you think getting a diploma in the mail is a rather unceremonious way of finding out you have achieved a major milestone in life? 

Well, we thought so.   So... we baked a cake!  And not just any cake.  This cake was on the front cover of September's Southern Living Magazine, and I happen to have been dreaming of a bite of that cake for weeks.  Can you imagine why?

Lena "helped" me in the kitchen (and might have enjoyed a little batter along the way too!).

This cake is so good, in fact, that it inspired me to write poetry:

Lots of tastes along the way

Make baking a fun way to spend the day!

In the end, we ate the cake. 

Here's the recipe so you too can bake!

 Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Praline Frosting 

Hands-on Time: 40 Minutes 

 Total Time: 4 Hours, 10 Minutes 

Ingredients

• CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
• 1 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• APPLE CAKE BATTER:
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups peeled and finely chopped Gala apples (about 1 1/2 lb.)
• PRALINE FROSTING:
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Prepare Filling: Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended and smooth. Add egg, flour, and vanilla; beat just until blended.
2. Preheat oven to 350º. Bake pecans in a shallow pan 8 to 10 minutes or until toasted and fragrant, stirring halfway through. 
3. Stir together 3 cups flour and next 7 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in eggs and next 3 ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in apples and pecans.
4. Spoon two-thirds of apple mixture into a greased and floured 14-cup Bundt pan. Spoon Cream Cheese Filling over apple mixture, leaving a 1-inch border around edges of pan. Swirl filling through apple mixture using a paring knife. Spoon remaining apple mixture over Cream Cheese Filling.
5. Bake at 350º for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 2 hours).
6. Prepare Frosting: Bring 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter, and 3 Tbsp. milk to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly; boil 1 minute, whisking constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Gradually whisk in powdered sugar until smooth; stir gently 3 to 5 minutes or until mixture begins to cool and thickens slightly.  Pour immediately over cooled cake.

an almost-welcome to Daddy

This is our last morning together with just the two of us before Daddy arrives!  It's been three-and-a-half loooong weeks and Lena and I cannot wait to hug that boy as he walks out into Dulles airport.  I am planning to have a Starbucks decaf soy mocha in hand for him, but it's a surprise, so I hope he doesn't get to read this before he gets here!

Welcome to vacation in Virginia, Elliott, where we have a million things to share with you...

1. All Lena's new words!  Water (wa-wa), baby, walk, apple, clock, Bubba (grandpa), woof, meow, and moo... there's a new one every day.
2. Leaves turning the color of toasted cheddar cheese
3. Cider hot in our mugs
4. My preggo belly that went pop! here I am! these past couple of weeks
5. Apples are waiting to be picked
6. Air that is crisp with autumn instead of dry with the end of summer (hello, Sicily)
7. A few stacks of Trader Joe's pumpkin pancakes 
8. A long game of Settlers of Catan with your siblings
9. Cutting a rug at your baby brother's wedding this weekend!  

I want to do a happy dance just thinking about these wonderful two weeks of family, friends, and fall ahead of us.  Let's get this party started... come do some puzzles with us!

on babies, itty bitty clothes, and getting bigger

How cute is this?!  I accidentally hit the "Last 12 Months" tab on iPhoto and this picture popped up.  I don't even remember taking it, and then discovered that was because I didn't.  (Thanks, sister Jess!)  The photo is from last year around Thanksgiving when we were home in Virginia at Elliott's parents' house.  Lena was about 7 months old then and she's even cuter than I remembered.  Doll baby! 

Makes me so excited to cuddle another little baby of mine in just a few months.  Back here in the States I've been stocking up on baby boy clothing, as the pickin's are slim back in Sicily, unless you want to spend a small fortune on European fashions.  (Which, of course, I do!  But practicality and thrift prevail within me.)  I'm excited about the tiny striped outfits and little button down shirts I've found here, though, and it makes our little baby boy seem all the more real.  I'm looking for some suspenders next. 

Somewhat begrudgingly, I've begun pulling out my maternity clothes.  That time has come.  I'm 23 weeks on Wednesday (nearing 6 months), which is about the time I can no longer sleep on my stomach at night.  Last week someone I didn't know asked me for the first time, "Oh, when are you due?!"  So I've crossed the line into Obviously Pregnant.  While I don't welcome the growing feeling of rotundity, I do love being pregnant, and so... bring it on.  It is such a miraculous privilege to carry a baby within you, to wholly sustain another life as you also sustain your own, to nurture that little person long before you actually hold him in your arms.  I wonder what he will look like?  And what his name will be?  I can tell you one thing about names... we have no idea.  We're brainstorming a lot these days, though.  My favorite place to try out names for size is Nameberry's Vintage Baby Boy Names. 

How about Archibald? 

(jk)

October Saturday on Capitol Hill

Happy October, everyone!  My cousin Katie (visiting from Oklahoma), Lena, and I drove to my old 'hood of Capitol Hill on Saturday to soak up the season.  Have you ever been to Eastern Market in D.C.?  There is no place I'd rather be on a Saturday morning in the fall!  The market glowed with color and beauty at every turn.  The sellers' wares sparkled in the sunlight, hot apple cider wafted through the air, and the flea market was in full swing.  We crunched leaves underfoot as we bit into crisp apples from a farm stand.  We ate breakfast with my brother at Jimmy T's, met up with my brother-in-law as he headed into Peregrine Espresso for coffee and emails, and randomly ran into an old college friend as he walked out of Groovy with his wife. 

This is my neighborhood, my heart cried (and my mouth, as my cousin Katie will tell you).  I love Sicily, but I think I left a piece of my heart on the Hill.  It's bittersweet to come back to this place where I once belonged, where Elliott and I shared our newlywed days and memories, where I spent a long year while he was on an unaccompanied assignment in Egypt.  Lena's first home was our condo on Capitol Hill.  Every block between our old home, church, and Barracks Row holds a dozen memories. 

Will we come back to the Hill after our assignment in Sicily?  Will we choose to come back?  What do you prioritize in a home, in a neighborhood, in a community, in a city? 

Do you return to the places you know because they were good to you before?  Or do you choose the unknown?