Make this for supper tonight!

I haven't ever posted a recipe on this blog before, but this recipe is so very delicious it would be wrong to keep it to myself. Make this as soon as possible! I've tried different recipes for this, but this is by far the best!


Chicken Wild Rice Soup

6 cups chicken broth
2 cooked, boneless chicken breast halves, shredded
1 (4.5 ounce) package quick cooking long grain and wild rice with seasoning packet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
2 cups heavy cream

(I also added 1/2 cup of carrots, celery and onion that I sauteed in a TBSP of minced garlic, I think it adds to the flavor)

Directions:
In a large pot over medium heat, combine broth, water and chicken. Bring just to boiling, then stir in rice, reserving seasoning packet. Cover and remove from heat.
In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper and flour. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in contents of seasoning packet until mixture is bubbly. Reduce heat to low, then stir in flour mixture by tablespoons, to form a roux. Whisk in cream, a little at a time, until fully incorporated and smooth. Cook until thickened, 5 minutes.
Stir cream mixture into broth and rice(and add sauteed veggies). Cook over medium heat until heated through, 10 to 15 minutes.

Seriously, go make this now.

Cheese!!

Callie's new thing is, when she sees the camera, to scrunch her face into a smile and say "Cheese!" She actually says it. It's pretty cute. Here is her doing that and a few other pictures.
Eating the delicious snow ice cream we made yesterday.

There's a new sheriff in town!

Hunter's "tough face".

The boys like to lift up their shirts and put their stomachs on the cold fireplace tile....b/c its not already cold enough in our house?????!?!


Today we resume our weekly MAC playtime, and on Monday morning we start back at ECFE. I like having things to look forward to!

A little catch-up and Callie is 10 months!

Well, I've really enjoyed this blogging break. I don't anticipate blogging as often as I have in the past b/c naptime seems to be a thing of the past around here. Here's what we've been up to the last 10 days:

-Callie had her check-up/immunizations and weighs roughly 18 lbs. I can't remember how long she is, but she is percentile-wise tall and skinny, just as her brothers are. Everything looked fine.
-I got an X-ray done on my back that same day and found that I have spondylitis, and a few other problems with my back. This comes as no surprise to me, b/c I've been having terrible pain in my hips since having Callie. I'm not really sure the best route to getting to feel better, the chiropractor wants to do ultrasound, but it seems sort of temporary to me.
-I made the boys snow men for breakfast one day and they had fun eating them:
-Brent had some fun with his beard:(I did not care so much for this look)

-Callie came down with a fever on Thursday. She was very cuddly all day and slept a lot, and felt better Friday. I liked the cuddling.
-Hunter was suddenly hit with the fever/aches on Saturday and was miserable. He asked to go to bed and took a long nap. That was also the day of the Christmas parade/fireworks, and we weren't sure whether or not to go, b/c he'd been looking forward to it for so long. We decided to take him and I think he had fun.
The kids all liked the fireworks. We saw the parade from S&D's front porch and the fireworks from our van. Callie was mesmerized by them and kept saying, "Dat!" I think she was mimicking the boys saying, "Look at that!"
-We kept the kids home from church on Sunday so as to not expose anyone elses kids to the fever flu, so Brent went to church and I went to my Sunday school. I stopped by the store for a few things on my way home, and after I got home I couldn't warm up and...you guessed it...fever flu. I felt LIKE CRAP. Yikes, it was a miserable time, but Brent was awesome and took good care of me(and the kids...I'm lucky I got sick on a Sunday when he was home!) I felt better on Monday.
-I've used my crockpot every day this week. Here are a ">couple recipes I've used, and one I am making right now for the first time.
-Brent somehow managed to injure his knee, the same knee he blew out in high school playing football. He has bruises where his screws are, so we are heading to the hospital tomorrow morning for an MRI on it. Hopefully it is treatable and quickly recoverable.
-We've been getting a lot of sub zero temps and have a lot of snow on the ground. The boys liked playing outside last week:
-and we read a lot of books...



Callie is 10 months today!!! She has now reached the double digits of months. Here are some things about her at 10 months:


-we haven't seen any more teeth through yet, but she is working on a bottom one.
-she is getting more and more independent. She likes feeding herself more and more.
-she loves the sound of her voice. She screams and shouts all throughout the day. The boys will be singing or talking loudly and she comes over and joins in.
-she says, hi, Hunter, Tate(tate is more like Taa) dada. Notice she can say Hunter, but doesn't say mama.
-she likes playing peek-a-boo and So big!
-she's starting to wear 12 month clothes.
-really likes being near her big brothers. (They like being near her, too)

Here she is with her rabbit:

And I just love the way she smiles at me!

Making cookies with the kids

We are going to the cities early tomorrow morning for our nephew's baby shower. It'll be fun to meet him finally and get to spend some time(albeit SHORT time) with Brent's side of the family. We were asked to make cookies, so the boys and I made them this morning. They were great helpers. They take turns dumping the ingredients in, and they BOTH have to help hold the mixer every time we need to use it.
They really like to cook. Anytime Tate sees me taking anything out of a cupboard he immediately drops what he's doing and pushes a chair over to the counters.
Here they are "cheersing" each other with their beaters.
They then used them to sword fight.
They did a really great job pushing the stars in. Don't worry, they washed their hands with soap before touching the stars.And of course they had to make sure they were edible for tomorrow!
I've begun saying that Tate could get dirty taking a shower. Do you see why I think that??
Hunter said I was wonderful for making cookies.

Since Callie wasn't included(she was too busy getting into my Tupperware) here is a picture of her sleeping on me last night after I fed her...

Finally, a good nights sleep!!!

Callie fell asleep in her highchair while I was making the boys lunch yesterday, so cute!

Callie slept through the night last night AND took a two hour nap! I can't tell you how awesome that makes me feel. That was the longest nap I've seen her take in months, and I can't remember the last time she slept through the night. Brent and I determined that she is getting her top incisors and possibly her bottom ones as well. We've decided that is why she is constantly waking up, so last night we gave her some oragel before bed and she didn't wake up! Praise the Lord, I needed a nights sleep. This morning I woke up at 6:30, went down and read my morning Bible reading, made coffee and some muffins for the kids, it was a GREAT morning!

I decided today that fall is my favorite picture taking season. The leaves around here are still so pretty! I took more of the kids yesterday:





Brent got the dishwasher completely installed in our cabinets. It is SO nice having a little extra space to walk around. He is very handy. Also, yesterday I got a call from our grant guy, Jason, and he seems to think that our remodel could still happen this year after all!! He is working on our project list and hopes to mail it out next week and all we have to do is approve it and then we get to start looking for a contractor. He said lots of contractors are willing to work through the winter since its been such a slow year, so we are hopeful. It would be great to save some on energy costs this winter. I'd love the house to be less drafty(not to mention nice to look at on the outside). We decided we are going to just go ahead and build on a mud room. With three kids I really think we need one. Esp where our new door will be located. The grant won't cover it, but we are going to go ahead and do it ourselves b/c I know I will get frustrated with it pretty quick. It'll be nice to have a place for our shoes and coats and also a place for the sand:)

Well, I better go make use of the time I have!

Ta Da!

Here is the cake:



I'm on a little bit of a sugar high right now. Feeling pretty jittery from all the sugar I consumed while making the cake. It was a little tricky, but I think it turned out pretty neat. I'm off to make some cupcakes and sloppy joes. More pictures after the par-tay tonight!