Cameron's Birthday Feast- Part 1

I love my husband. Words can't even begin to describe how grateful I am for him. So this year for his birthday I decided to cook him a whole birthday feast as an expression of my love for him! And let me tell you, he did not complain.

Since his birthday was on Thursday, the same day as the Christmas party, we celebrated his birthday on Friday. We celebrated with a quiet, family dinner at home and then later in the evening had friends over for dessert and wine.

Herein lies the chronicles (in 2 parts) of my full day in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant .

Menu:

Braised beef short rib served on bed of creamy polenta
Roasted vegetables
Mixed Berry Cobbler
Chocolate Birthday Cake

Here's my excited face as I'm about to start cooking. Please note the cute Christmas apron I'm wearing, courtesy of Stephanie's mom.
Malone wanted a beginning picture too. Except she insisted on it being by the Christmas tree.

It all began with the recipe that I got from Pioneer Woman Cooks, one of my favorite food blogs. And indeed it was heaven on a plate.

I started by browning some Pancetta (Italian bacon) in my new LeCreuset dutch oven. After it was nice and crispy, I took it out and left the fat it rendered in the pot.

Here's the beauties themselves

I salt & peppered them then drenched them in some flour.
Then I browned them real good on all sides.
Don't they look pretty!
Then I chopped up a bunch of onions, carrots and a little bit of celery, the last of which was not called for in the recipe but I thought it would taste good and I had some.
Meanwhile, this is what Malone was doing. Isn't she sweet? And yes, I am the worst photographer in the world.
I added a little more Olive oil to the pot and cooked the veggies for a couple of minutes.
Oh and I added a couple of cloves of garlic. It wasn't in the recipe either, but everything is better with some garlic, right?
Once the veggies was cooked, I threw in some nice red wine. Please note the special 10th AS (Cameron's squadron) C-17 edition of this wine. Nice, eh? Oh yes, and there was scraping of the nice little brown bits off the bottom of the pot. Ooooh, double nice.
Then the beef broth, rosemary and thyme was added to the other kids in the pool
Once it cooked together for a couple of minutes, it was time for the stars of the show to join everyone else in the pot. Beautiful!
Into the oven it went for 2 hours at 350 degrees and then another 45 minutes at 325. Please excuse the dirty oven. Its leftover from Thanksgiving and possibly last Christmas....just kidding...maybe.
Then it was cleanup time. Yikes.
Ahhh...and that's where I leave you for now. I know, the suspense is just killing you. Come back tomorrow for the end result, dessert and friends.

Christmas Party

Thursday night was the long awaited Christmas party of Cameron's squadron. Long awaited, not because we were super excited about it, but rather because this year, Cameron had quite a heavy hand in planning it. So it was more of a labor of love, than an event to enjoy and look forward to. But, we did enjoy it nonetheless. It looked beautiful, the food (prime rib) was good and the company was fun!

Of course, the biggest stress for me was finding a cocktail dress that a) went over my 8 month preggo belly, b) didn't make me look like a blah tent, and c) didn't cost a million dollars. Target came to the rescue with a cute little, not even maternity, cocktail dress for only.... $20!!

The Mr. & Mrs.

Our fantastic and hot bible study girls, sans Sara (who kindly was watching Malone) and Leigh (who was soaking up the rays in Mexico)

Laura Glover and I. She just had twins 6 months ago. Can you believe it?

We clean up pretty nice, eh? This probably isn't a good representation of where my belly really is at...or feels at. :)

My excited face to take my high heels off at home

Malone playing in my high heels the next morning :) How does SHE walk in them when I barely can?

Christmas Traditions

Christmas Countdown: Less than 2 weeks away!

Oh, how I love Christmas. I love what it stands for, I love the decorations, the treats, the family feel of it all. And since Malone is getting a tiny bit older now, it is time for us to establish our own family Christmas traditions.

I started off this year by decorating our house just a little. A little garland on the mantle and hanging our stockings was first.

Putting up the wreath on the front door was next. My plans to make one was foiled when I realized it would be cheaper and easier just to buy one from Target.

Then one day, to my surprise Cameron said we needed lights on the house. Done. Sorry, no pictures yet. Its day time and the lights would look uncharacteristically lame. But rest assured, they are tactful and nice...no Christmas Vacation lights on our house. Wish I could say the same for some other people in our neighborhood.

The tree was set up, lit and decorated. It was a little bigger than we had remembered. It kinda takes up half our living room. But that's ok, because we're just trying to show our Christmas spirit, right? So what if you can't walk across our living room?

Lastly, we decorated Christmas cookies. We only gave a couple of cookies away, because it has become clear that here in the Schaefer household, art is not necessarily our gifting :) At least not yet. Plus, I think Malone was more interested in eating them than decorating them.

Expecting a big mess, we put Malone in an old t-shirt of mine. She apparently didn't like the mess as much as we thought she would and came out cleaner than we did. Oh, and here's her new "CHEEEEESE!" face. Where does she learn these things?
Malone and I feverishly working
Cameron feverishly working. Malone feverishly enjoying the cookie.

The end result

Can't wait until next year's new addition of family and family traditions.

Hello Cupcake

While my family was here, Malone had some good 'ole girl time with Mama, Ouma (my mom) and Auntie Telly (my sister, Christelle). We went to the Tacoma's Children's Museum, where we "made" sandwiches which we then had to buy from Malone, crawled in holes (yeah, yeah, have a good laugh at the thought of a 7 month pregnant me crawling...ha...ha), but mostly spent our time in the art room. We painted, drew on the windows, made stencil colorings, and washed our hands, a new favorite activity of Malone. Hey, she doesn't want to get H1N1, and neither do we. She loved it all! And to be honest, I think so did we.

After exhausting our creative juices, we needed a little pick-me-up. And what's better than cupcakes and milk? We went to the cutest little cupcake shoppe this side of Willy Wonka's, called Hello Cupcake.

Here's the progression of what happened:

We were all happy and excited to be at Hello Cupcake

See, look how happy Christelle and I are together. Ps: She just turned 16. Isn't it illegal to be so hot and stylish at 16?
Then Malone pushed aside the cupcake I was sharing with her. She was after one thing. FROSTING.
Take it easy, little Malone. You're looking a little fierce in your hunt for frosting from each of our plates.
Malone, annoyed that we're trying to take pictures in the midst of serious frosting eating business.
Satisfied but in an almost coma-like state.
Beware, if you eat too much cupcakes, you might end up with a belly like this. Obviously, Christelle didn't eat her whole cupcake.
The end.

Malone's Photography

Malone has inherited Cameron's entrepreneurial spirit and at the tender age of almost two, she is starting her own photography business. It seems like lately so many of my friends (Rachael Hope, Sara Joy, Audrey Hannah, Jacob, Melanie) are starting up photography businesses. And the funny thing is that they are all very talented photographers. What's the odds of that?

Well, Malone has jumped on the bandwagon and will be launching her own website soon. However, she specializes in a bit more artistic photography, so be forewarned that its not your average "family portraits" kind of photography. When I asked this new budding artiiiiste what her inspiration is, she replied, "Mama!" So there you go folks, I inspire young and old.

Here's a little taste of what's going to make us millions...ahem...I mean, my daughter's inner artistic expressions:

"View From Below"

"Crazy Woman Who Changes My Diapers"
"Dadda Dadda"

"Why is She Everywhere?"

"Windows to the Soul"
And last but not least, a little project called "Baby?" (said in a really sad little voice. Maybe an expression about her feelings towards the new baby coming?)

Our House

What Cameron and I hope for our house to be:

His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Thankgiving week

Oh friends, happy Thanksgiving. Here in the Schaefer household, we (yes, Cameron made it home!) celebrated with my parents and little sister. They came out for a week of food, football (a relatively new thing for my South African family...Roll Tide!) and good 'ole family fun. Its always so refreshing to visit with my family. Not to mention, the HOURS AND HOURS of fun Malone had with my parents, but especially her Auntie "Telly", as she says. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, she wanted to know where Telly, Ouma and Oupa was. Ahhhh, it warmed my heart. Here's a few other highlights of the week:

- My turkey turned out great. I brined it again this year with the William & Sonoma's Buttermilk Brine recipe. It took a bit longer than I anticipated, but came out so moist and wonderful. So good. Of course, I wanted to commemorate the wonderful occasion by roasting my hand along with the turkey. Ouch! I'm brilliant, I know. Not to worry, I just charred the top of my hand on the heating element, but can still type wonderfully. :)

- Saturday, we were official cheerleaders, complete with signs, noise-makers, cheers and refreshments (pictures and video to come). Cameron has been training for the Seattle Marathon for months now, however, since starting his hectic travel schedule again, he wasn't sure whether he'd be home for it (it was this past Sunday.) So he decided to run his own marathon. At 7:30am Saturday morning the Schaefer Marathon began. We all loaded in the car at 8:30am, wiping the sleepiness from our eyes, and set off to begin our cheerleading duties. We found him trodding along his 26.2 mile path, doing remarkably well. As the morning progressed, we met up with him a few more times, honking, blowing our noise-makers, holding our signs high, nourishing his tired soul with Wendy's chicken nuggets and Gatorade and attempting to encourage him as much as possible. The culmination was when he crossed the finish line (yes, we had an official finish line ribbon), surrounded by our family and friends. Oh, and he received the 1st Place medal. It was epic! Many thanks to Marc, Beth, Marc's parents, Sara, Karl, Leigh Anna, my mom, dad, and sister for your true friendship and dedication to Cameron on this cold Saturday morning. Cameron, you are my hero!

Alright friends, I better run my own type of marathon and make dinner. On tonight's menu, Turkey pot pie. Yummmm!