Stegaliuniverse

We had a big weekend full of outings and adventurous cooking which Patrick may or may not get around to posting about but in the meantime here’s Ms. Madeline Pawlbright doing her favorite thing…ruining her eardrums.

The fates aligned for my birthday weekend/week!  Amy and Nick were in town long enough to have brunch, it was restaurant week in Philly, our rained out game from the Girls Weekend visit in May was rescheduled for Sunday and I was far enough along to get the sonogram to find out we are having a girl!!!  Libby and Nell came down from NYC to join Erin, Patrick and me for a prix fixe Restaurant week dinner at Jose Garces’ AMAZING Amada.

Afterwards we sat through what was possibly the most boring baseball game I’ve ever witnessed (1 run in the 1st and then no one even got to 3rd base the rest of the night!) but we still won!

I’m so glad I was able to spend the day with my besties!  Hey look! finally a prego shot of me!

And here’s a nice shot of our little beauty!

Patrick is so happy it’s a girl that he keeps playing the song Daughter by Loudon Wainright III.  It makes me smile every time I hear it.  I recommend a download of it as well as many of his other songs.  They make great, non-nerve grating kids music.

I’m assuming everyone who reads this blog has already seen these but I figured they should be posted for posterity anyway.

Meet miniStegaliu!  See!  It’s waving at you!  Look at the little hand!

More pics coming at the 20 week ultrasound in Septemeber.  And then the real thing in January/February.

We rung in Memorial Day with a lovely picnic at Resevoir Park with Marty and Taylor.

Patrick made some yummy ciabatta (his best yet!) bruschetta with two of the basil’s from our garden to go along wit the pasta salad, strawberries, hummus, wine and beer.

T and Marty played hide and seek. T was a good counter for hide and seek.

And he learned how to climb a tree.  Well, Marty climbed and T watched.

Patrick lulled us into our food coma’s with some guitar.

So the only excuse I’ll give for the lack of posting is busy schedules and exhaustion. We’ve certainly had a nice end to winter and beginning of spring and we’ll try to catch up and post some things. On that note, here’s some fun pics from Bear and Addison’s wedding.

Bear and Ad were old roommates of mine and Nikki’s when we lived on 11th and 2nd in the Village.

Bear is from PA so they came back to Philly for the event.  It was at the gorgeous Curtis Center downtown.

The spread was amazing.  Above is just a small part of the cocktail hour.

Bear and Ad designed the wonderful table settings, handprinted handkerchiefs to wipe dab our eyes and sweet menus with their own little icon.

They went to Connecticut the week before in order to make it legal but having their bestest friend Shauna officiate really made the event special for everyone.

Congratulation to Bead and Ad!  Thanks for letting me be part of your special day!

Last night I went over my friend Erin’s for a clothing swap party.  Many of you may have heard about these parties on the news or online but we had such a fun time I figured there was no harm on touting the idea on the blog too.  A clothing swap party is exactly like it sounds.  You go through your closet and gather up all the things you dont want, aren’t wearing, bought and never wore, always meant to take back and never did, etc  and get a bunch of your similarly sized girlfriends over with their items and “go shopping” in their cast off piles.  Wine, food and your choice of music (ours was early 90’s girl rap with som Al Green thrown in) and it’s a party!  I ended up with a nice flutter sleeve black t-shirt and a very cute white sundress.  I also emptied out 2 whole drawers of stuff I had been meaning to bring to Goodwill and just never had the motivation to.  In this economy, not spending a dime and getting “new” clothes sounds like a great deal to me!

Everything else we didn’t want was going to go to Goodwill but as fate would have it, a family friend of Erin’s house burnt down just last week leaving a family of high school/college-age girls and a mom with no clothes.  They are going to get everything to choose from (a huge amount a stuff even after 8 girls went through it) and then anything they don’t want will end up at GoodWill.

Who doesn’t love recycling AND giving to those who need it?

Back in January Amy, Nick, Patrick and I made our yearly MLK Day weekend trip to the Poconos.  This year we were joined by Lindsay and Dennis.  There was many rounds of MarioKart, Apple to Apples, champange toasts and fire tending.  Unfortunately the camera battery died during the first day so we didn’t get very much of it.  Here’s a few snippets:

Maddie experiencing her first fire.  She wanted to sit here all day.

Patrick was constantly tending to the fire.  And by tending I mean fussing over it.  He can’t leave well enough alone.

The girls being traditional and making the menfolk some lunch.

Well, except Amy.  She let’s Nick fend for himself.

Maddie being her silly self…

…and then curling up next to Amy’s boobs.  It’s warm there.

I recommend everyone head over to StegaliuRecipes for our latest installment, Butternut Squash Quinoa Gratin.  It is by far one of the best recipes we have made recently.  Patrick and I nearly licked the baking dish clean.  It wasn’t pretty.  But it was delicious.

Butternut Squash Quinoa

Just a quick link to one the the most fun and sweetest description of a growing girl.  Cadence is the daughter of our friends (and former housemates) Kate and James.  Since the day she was born I knew she was going to be an especially sweet child and Kate’s stories of her exploits the past month only prove me right.  We miss you baby girl!  Tell Mama and Baba to come visit Philly on the way to NYC sometime!

TigerBug

Right before we were to leave for my parents house to celebrate Thanksgiving I walk into the kitchen and see this:

I’m pretty sure prepping your baguettes in reverse-Donald Duck is not kosher with the health department but hey, they still tasted delicious and he didn’t get his nice clothes all flour-y.  Smart guy!