Bianca's First ~Merry Early Christmas~

One of the highlights of Tuesday's early Christmas with my family was meeting my newest niece and finally giving her and her parents the little baby gifts and Christmas gifts I'd been collecting the past few months.  Ah, but let's back up long enough to acknowledge that the photo above of her is obviously one of the sweetest baby pictures ever.  ♥  The bright shining eyes!  The tiny fist!  The gnome-ish hat!  Bianca wins the family prize for Prettiest Eyes, I daresay.  My younger brother emailed the picture to me a few weeks ago, and I knew as soon as he mentioned it was his favorite oneof all time that it would need to be made into a Christmas gift.  :)  I had photo mugs made for him and his wife. 

I found the "sugar and spice" tin at a thrift shop over the summer and filled it with a onesie and Cardinals baseball-themed gifts for her and her Redbird-loving parents:  Pink Cardinals pacifiers, a Cardinals ABC book, and a Cardinals knit hat.  Fun finds, all of them, and we all laughed as my brother and his wife looked at everything Tuesday evening.  My lifelong Pirates-fan dad dryly commented, "Well, if that's the way you want to raise your kid. . . ."  which makes me laugh again every time I remember it. 

Bianca slept through all the hilarity. 

Her first Christmas gifts from Aunt Val and Uncle Mike were clothes:  A pink bunny sleeper, a "My first Christmas" bodysuit, and a pink sleeper with a red Santa Claus print and attached Santa slippers.  :)  Bianca's the first baby in the family to be born during the holiday season, and that's made her arrival especially fun for us all. 

She slept through those gifts too, though. 

We all only briefly saw her eyes Tuesday night, so every picture from that night is a Sleeping Bianca shot. 

Late Wednesday afternoon, her mom sent me a picture of my finally-wide-awake niece in her pink Santa sleeper.  There are those shining eyes again.  I have to wonder when I see a baby this alert what she's thinking and what she'll be like in the years ahead. 

Merry First (Early) Christmas, Sweet Bee.  ♥

In Mom and Dad's Yard

Having returned from a brief trip home to Mom and Dad yesterday, I've already enjoyed a big part of my Christmas.  This week's "Merry Early Christmas!" visit, as it's come to be known in our family, at least according to my older niece and nephew's now-traditional greetings, was one of the sweetest ever.  I had so much fun--I think we all did--everyone seemed to be happy with the gifts they gave and received, my newest niece was even tinier than she'd looked in pictures and just as cuddly as I'd imagined and spent a good deal of our meeting asleep snuggled into my shoulder, I did some cupcake-decorating for Mom, enjoyed a lasagna dinner with my parents, brothers, and their wives and children Tuesday evening, and exchanged gifts with my parents while watching the Waltons' Homecoming movie--one of my all-time favorites--until midnight Tuesday night.  Mom and I went to bed at two in the morning then got up three hours later to head to the bus station with Dad.  I said "I love you" to him at the same moment he said "A short Christmas is better than none," and I cried while I watched his and Mom's car pull out of the bus station parking lot a minute later.  All the snow--more than a foot--in their yard added to the magic of this Christmas.  Temperatures are warming up--it's supposed to be in the lower sixties here on Saturday--but while I was home, it was a winter wonderland, and after I'd finished wrapping the gifts I'd had shipped to my parents' address and before my brothers and their families arrived for dinner, I borrowed a pair of Dad's boots and clomped around the yard taking pictures. 

Mom always decorates the back steps.  The only shame of heading outside to take snow pictures Tuesday afternoon was that doing so temporarily scared away all the birds that come to my parents' trees and feeders.  Dad and I both love Chicadees best of all, and we spend a good amount of any wintertime visit standing still at the sliding glass door or one of the kitchen windows watching them flit around.  Chubby loves, they're such dear little birds. 

These are the steps I kept checking and worrying over before baby Bianca was carried up them for this first visit to my parents' house Tuesday.  Dad had kept an eye on them too, and I think they and the yard were more thick-with-snow than slippery. 

The Rhododendrons had had the sweetest cone-shaped piles of snow on top of each leaf cluster Tuesday morning, but by the time I ventured outside, the snow had melted some.  Off and on all Tuesday morning and afternoon, Mom, Dad, and I would call out bird updates to each other as we watched this feeder and a few others that can be seen from the kitchen.  "The female Cardinal's back!"  ♥  ". . .Look to your right"--"I'm still not seeing her"--"She's not the red one, the males are red"--"I know that, Dad, but I still don't--Oh, I see her now, yeah."  ♥  "Look how CHUBBY this one is!  Oh, I love Chicadees!  They look like little wind-up toys!"  ♥  "Mom, move slowly, but look at this Dove.  It's HUGE.  I thought a CAT had jumped into the tree."  ♥  "And there's that nasty Blue Jay, scaring them all away." --"It's so pretty, though, Dad."  ♥  On and on, all day Tuesday until it grew dark out. 

At our last apartment, Mike and I saw birds in our yard and on our fire escape all the time, but not so in this one--a couple Gold Finches spent some time in a tree out back months ago, and that was the last memorable bird-sighting--so it is always a joy to watch the trees and feeders while at my parents' house. 

Magical.  ♥

Such a gorgeous snow. 

One of my parents' neighbors kindly plowed their long driveway while I was trudging around taking these pictures. 

I stepped off to the side to get out of his way and ended up in snow almost to my knees, but oh!  It was all so beautiful. 

The Sumac trees out back are lovely all year long, but their drupes show so vividly against the winter sky. 

I think gardens are every bit as beautiful in winter.  It's easier to admire the tree branches' shapes and the flowers' forms when they're bare but for the snow.

I love winter skies.  Christmas decorations and cards always seem to feature greenery, but it's the bare trees that really say winter to me.  This hill is across the road from my parents' front yard and their view from the living room and my former bedroom. 

'Amazing that this all will have melted in a few day's time. 

From inside the living room--

--and looking toward my former bedroom's windows.

And back inside and looking out the kitchen window before beginning cupcake-decorating and table-setting. 

The one snow picture I didn't get was one I shared with my parents after I came inside:  While the three of us watched the birds for a few moments from inside the sliding glass door, the sun began to set over the sparkling field behind their house, and its last hurrah was to make it and the trees around it glow in the day's first--and last--truly golden light.  For a minute before my brief visit home's Tuesday afternoon became Tuesday evening, the entire backyard was a shining soft yellow, and those moments, while Mom, Dad, and I watched, standing together on the sheets of newspaper beside my dripping borrowed boots, was one of my favorites from this sweet visit.  Photographers call this the "golden hour" or "magic hour."  And it was.  It really was.  Merry Early Christmas, indeed.  ♥

Grandma's Fudge

If my brothers are reading, they should act surprised Tuesday night when they receive these little boxes.  ♥  Grandma's fudge was one of our favorite things she made.  She would mix up a pan of it for Christmas and other special occasions and "just because," as well, and keep it in a box on top of her dining room buffet.  One summer week as a kid while I was staying with her and Papa, I told her I wanted to learn how to make it, and she went along with it, showing me how quickly I needed to stir in the chocolate chips and marshmallow cream and reminding me to make sure my pan was at-the-ready when the time came, even though it was really too humid out that week to be cooking fudge at all.  That first batch, despite Grandma's patience and tips and tricks, didn't turn out, and I didn't try it again until after she died in 2001.  Someone needed to keep the fudge tradition alive, and at least a few pounds of the weight I gained during grad school in the next few years can be attributed to my determination to figure out the recipe.  (And the bread recipe.  And the meatball recipe. . . .)  

It isn't difficult--no candy thermometer involved--but took me a few tries to get just right.  The original recipe is here, but I go by the rewritten version in my little cookbook.  I need to update my little cookbook a little bit, though, because I've learned more since adding Grandma's recipe to it.

I knew I really had it down when I arrived home for my younger brother's wedding in July of 2011 and was greeted by my mom with a bemused "Brian's asked you to make some of Grandma's fudge for the reception."  That turned into another humid summer day of fudge-making, but by then, I knew enough fudge secrets to be successful.  I use butter not margarine.  Butter.  As soon as the 1.5-sticks-of-butter/3-cups-of-sugar/exactly-2/3-cups-evaporated milk mixture begins to boil, set your timer for five minutes and stir it all five minutes while it bubbles and makes your kitchen smell like Grandma's.  Five minutes.  All five minutes.  Have your ingredients open and your 13" x 9" pan greased/prepared ahead of time.  And begin washing your Fudge-Cooking Pot immediately after you're done with it.  

One of the things I wish I'd thought to save from Papa and Grandma's house was the deep saucepan Grandma used for this recipe.  This pot's another one of theirs, but I wish I'd had the foresight to take the other one too.  Dad made me the sturdy wooden spoon below.  It's extra-tall and perfect for stirring thick fudge with its big billy club handle. 

Not realizing when to begin the five-minute countdown for the boiling stage was my mistake with my first however-many batches of this fudge.  Set your timer when you first see bubbles at least as big as the ones below.  Stir constantly, and I mean it.  The sugar can get scorched if you don't, and the more you stir, the smoother the fudge will be.  Gritty fudge still tastes good but doesn't do Grandma proud.  Off-subject, Aunt Laurie sent me that sweet pot holder last Christmas, and I treasure it.  Grandma's recipe and pot, Dad's handmade spoon, and Aunt Laurie's pot holder.  This fudge recipe was brought to you by love, thank you.  ♥

And you will need to feel the love after you add the bag of chocolate chips, and then, most especially, after you add the marsmallow cream, because the fudge will already have the consistency of fudge at this point and will be hard to stir. I use the smaller (7 oz.) jar of marshmallow cream, but the fudge turns out with the large jar too.  It's just a bit softer in both color and consistency when the extra's added.

That my grandmother, even in her early nineties, made this fudge for us as often as she did--and voluntarily, and without complaint--is a testament to her love for us, truly, because the incorporating-chocolate-and-marshmallow stage makes the arms ache.  I marvel at her strength every time I cook this.  ♥ 

Quickly pour it into the pan, begin washing the pot, and let the fudge cool.  I've just opened the kitchen window and let the pan chill on the stove-top under it the past few times I've made it.  By the time I've finished all the boiling and stirring and am starting dishes and kitchen clean-up, a wide-open window feels like heaven anyway. 

Target had the little treat boxes in the top picture in their dollar section, so I picked up two and packaged some fudge in them to add to my brothers' Christmas presents.  Walnuts omitted for Brian.  Christmas sprinkles added to the top of the entire batch, although I'm sure Grandma would shake her head at this newfangled addition to her recipe and murmur, "Well, I suppose that's okay. . . ."  :)  Best Fudge Ever.  ♥  Love to you all this Christmas.  December's been a blur this year.  I see my family--and meet Bianca--Tuesday!  Life is sweet.  

Thanksgiving 2013

Our Thanksgiving was lovely and sweet and laaaaaaidback.  I had worked the overnight shift the night before, picked up a few groceries after work Thursday morning, since I had decided at the last minute to treat Mike to baked spinach-artichoke dip in a bread bowl and didn't have the ingredients for it, called my parents around 9:00 am to wish them a happy Thanksgiving while the store-bought frozen pies were in the oven ("Vally!  Why aren't you in bed?!  I thought you'd be asleep by now!" cried out my mom, as if she's never had to stay up too late or get up extra early to prepare a holiday), and finally went to bed.  Since Mike didn't care when we ate, my vague plan was to have everything ready by 5:00 pm, so you can imagine my near-terror surprise when I later woke up alone in a dark bedroom unsure what day time it was.  It was 3:30 in the afternoon, Thanksgiving afternoon, it turned out--"'It's Christmas Day!' said Scrooge to himself.  'I haven't missed it!'"--and he had let me sleep so long, Mike explained, because it was obvious that I was tired and needed it.  Righto. 

The turkey he had started in the slow cooker a few hours earlier was already almost done--Bless!--and the pies had been cooling since morning, so it was just a matter of making the spinach dip and side dishes--green bean casserole, our mushroom stuffing (a recipe I'll share before Christmas, the next time we'll make it--it is heavenly), mashed potatoes and gravy, a few heat-and-serve rolls for Mike, and Marie's zucchini gratin (another dish I could eat every day).  Neither Mike nor I like sweet potatoes or corn or cranberry relish, but rest assured that if you were joining us for Thanksgiving, we'd make them to add some color to your meal.  :)  I enjoyed a breakfast of cold spinach dip and sourdough bread chunks while I cooked.  I found a new Niece Bianca picture waiting for me on my phone.  Mike watched football and called his parents to catch up with them awhile.  At some point, I had decided it would be pictures of just the table this Thanksgiving and stayed in my pajamas.  Mike's been battling a cold the past week or so, so Casual and Comfy were two of the words of the day here. 

When the side dishes were almost done, I looked around the apartment for a few decorations for the table and ended up just gathering the angel from our mantel and a few pumpkins and a pinecone.  Our First Thanksgiving with Store-Bought Pies was also Our First Thanksgiving with Paper Plates, but I liked these bold orange square ones and they made life easier Thursday.  The idea of making a couple orange gingham napkin rings had occured to me, but the idea came and went.  We used plain paper napkins and lived to tell the tale. 

We ended up eating around 7 pm, and everything was wonderful.  "Hunger is the best sauce," as Ma Ingalls would say, but everything really was good.  Watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles has become one of our Thanksgiving traditions, and surely, the amount we laugh during this film burns off half the calories consumed during the meal. 

And little Stuffed was in a strange mood all evening and could be found in a different spot every thirty minutes staring at who-knows-what but looking cute while he did it.

Love to you all, and a belated happy Thanksgiving.  ♥

Two Days Before Thanksgiving

If counting my blessings counts as being in the Thanksgiving swing of things, I'm all set, but the thought of decorating a table and baking pies from scratch isn't delighting me this year the way it usually does.  We bought pies--BOUGHT! pies, and Maple-leaf-shaped cookies, to boot--but we have my homemade fudge and my mother-in-law's homemade sugar cookies too.  I'll get home from work around 8:00 Thanksgiving morning and will have to sleep at least a few hours while Mike begins the food.  Maybe by afternoon when I get up and smell the turkey and whatever-else-he's-started, I'll feel more jazzed-up for pretty-table-setting and cute-dessert-making, but in the meantime, it seems good enough--more than good, really, and more than enough--simply to be grateful for the meal and the time with Mike.  I spent Thanksgiving at work and then alone last year, after all.  

This past weekend, Mike rented a car to make the trip to see his family back home, where they had eighteen inches of snow, and returned yesterday before the storm hit us.  My own family, baby Bianca now included,  ♥ will gather for their dinner Thursday afternoon but all live within about twenty minutes of each other, so I don't have to worry about any of them driving or flying a long distance in the snow this week.  Ideally, Mike and I could be here, there, and everywhere for Thanksgiving, but work schedules and weather issues equal a table for two this year.  Opposite work schedules and a frugal and car-less life mean we've only ever spent one holiday with each other's family--Easter 2008 with mine--so our holidays are not quite what I wish they could be, obviously, but I have really learned to appreciate the time I do have with Mike and with my loved ones, and regardless of how or when or with whom I spend the holidays, I always know I'm blessed.  Still, my dream dining room for years has been one large enough that I can keep it set up restaurant dining room-style year-round, with a round dinner table with comfy chairs and high chairs for any babies, a long Waltons-style wooden dinner table with benches at either side, a square table with more painted chairs seats, a couple overstuffed wing chairs at a table for two, maybe a high-backed restaurant booth in a window, and a Pottery Barn Kids catalog-style kids table with sweetness and color in abundance.  I've had this vision for my future dining room for years, and someday, someday, I hope to make it happen and enjoy the sight of both our families gathered in this crazy room catching up with each other in all its mismatched chairs and over all the mismatched vintage tablecloths.  I can picture it so clearly, it's like it's already happened and is an actual memory.  It makes my heart ache, I want it so. 

We are supposed to have nine inches of snow by Thursday morning.  I walked around the neighborhood taking pictures last week before the last of this year's vibrant leaves were snowed-over and took a few more pictures this morning while Mike and I walked to the store for our Thanksgiving groceries.  I love this time of year.  One of the news shows played a recent segment from "Saturday Night Live" in wich one of the cast members ran around Manhattan screaming, "Take down the Christmas decorations!  THANKSGIVING'S FIRST!  It's not time for all that yet!  THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  Mike and I laughed like loons over that and have yelled it at each other a few times since seeing it.  While walking home from work one morning last week, I noticed the city had put up its giant Christmas candle lamppost decorations along the streets overnight, and I thought of Mike and the skit and laughed again.  "THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  What a beautiful time of year. 

Welcome to the World, Bianca

 Beautiful and bright-eyed, she's finally here, and my baby brother's become a dad.  :)

The happiest days are when babies come. ~ Melanie to Mammy in Gone with the Wind

A text message from my younger brother woke me up this morning.  His baby is due tonight, his wife is now in labor, and my first text back was "Wow!  My baby brother!" before I gathered my wits and wrote a little more.  I've received a couple more messages from him since then, my mom's called me once, and with emails and phone calls and texts and prayers--and later, for the locals, hospital visits--we're all sending each other love and wishing my brother, his wife, and their baby a smooth night.  Surely, the baby already knows and feels she's part of this sweet family.  Surely, my grandparents are watching over us all and are here with us in their way.  I walked over to Rite Aid a few hours ago to buy this year's Christmas cards--buy one pack, get two packs free!--and started crying as I walked back, thinking about tonight and how it changes and expands and deepens all these bonds.  Ah, dear family!  So much love!

♥  with my younger brother in 1983  ♥