Ah spring – it brings warmer temps and a strong desire to be outdoors. Of course, it also brings with a plethora of projects.
In addition to the usual lawn and landscape stuff, this year we’ve decided to make some upgrades to the backyard play structure for our kids and to add a vegetable garden.
I’ll be posting some of the vegetable garden project details here and in our new garden page.
The play structure plans and upgrades will be posted here for everyone to follow.
Heavenly Father, thank You for my beautiful family and for the love we have for one another. Thank You for loved ones near and far.
Thank You, God, for first loving us.
Thank you for all of our gifts and blessings. Please guide us in sharing them with others.
Please open our hearts, freeing us from all that hinders Love and casting out all that is not Love.
Please, Lord, fill us with Your Love and make us instruments of Your Love and Peace.
Amen.
On January 31, 2011, we made a yummy chicken tortilla soup. We started with a CrockPot Tortilla Soup recipe from Stephanie O’Dea’s blog A Year of Slow Cooking and made a few changes.
Ingredients
| Original | Revised | Notes |
| 3 cups of chicken broth | 6 cups of chicken broth | The soup was too thick for our liking with only 3 cups of chicken broth, so we doubled it. |
| 1 ½ cups cooked chicken | Same | Needs a little more chicken. |
| ½ onion | ½ onion | |
| 1 cup frozen roasted corn | 1 cup frozen corn | Might try doubling the corn next time. |
| 2 green onions | skipped | |
| 28 oz can of tomatoes and juice | Same plus one can of Rotel | Diced or crushed tomatoes might work better. |
| 1 cup chopped up vegetables that you have on hand | 2 ½ cups of diced veggies:
1 cup carrots, ½ cup celery, 1 cup peppers. (We had red and orange peppers on hand, but green and yellow would work, too.) |
Some more veggies might be nice, or maybe some black beans. |
| 4 cloves of garlic | Same | |
| ¼ t crushed red pepper flakes | Same | |
| ½ t cayenne pepper | Same | |
| 1 t cumin | Same | |
| salt to taste (especially if using a no-salt broth like I was) | No additional salt added | |
| optional garnish:
tortilla chips parmesan cheese sour cream |
We ate the soup with tortilla chips (but rice would be nice, too), and we skipped the parmesan cheese for this Mexican-inspired soup. |
Directions
The original recipe also had different directions. Here are our directions:
Here are some pictures from our snow day, Feb. 4, 2011.
Welcome to my hangar!
Many of you must be asking- “why a hangar?” I mean most guys have a garage, or a den, or the more current “man cave.” Well, if you know me the answer is quite clear (more…)
Do you love a kid who L-O-V-E-S fire trucks? ? I do! Matthew thinks they’re “beautiful,” so I asked the local Fire Department if we could stop by for a visit. I was delighted that the answer was “yes” and that we were able to invite some friends, too!
Our Fire Department Field Trip took place on Thursday, July 15th at 9 a.m. Each family brought something yummy to share with the FD staff as a thank you for their time and efforts. The firemen were absolutely amazing with the kids, and I am so grateful for their time, patience, and enthusiasm. After the tour, we gathered at our house for some playtime.
Firefighter Danita Thomas – Early readers learn about neighborhood workers in Sholastic’s Community Club.
USFA Kids – Website for the U.S. Fire Administration for Kids
Sparky the Fire Dog Website – A fire safety resource for kid and families from the National Fire Protection Association
Firefighters – An interactive, on-line story from Pre-school Library (Just ignore the opening part where the firefighters appear rather nonchalant.)
Adelaide has invented a new spa treatment, the chicken nugget foot scrub. My feet feel so refreshed already!
Adelaide’s latest interest is walking backwards. She’s been practicing every day. Sometimes, she likes to play the harmonica while walking backwards. The amusements are endless around here.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” — Henry David Thoreau
In case anyone’s wondering what’s on the mind of Jesus today, Matthew has informed me that Jesus wants Daddy to play with us in the playroom when gets home from work.
