getting reacquainted and some soup

Hi again, friends. I took a four-month sabbatical from blogging and I'm finally back. I figured I've put in my time and deserved that break. Kidding. There have been many, many things going on and I just couldn't find the time to "write" it all down anymore. One of the biggest changes was Wyatt's autism diagnosis in September. I think one of my last posts was about our struggle in deciding whether to seek an evaluation or not. But I'm glad we did. He immediately began behavioral therapy and an earlier start could mean earlier progress. And we are already seeing lots of it. We love that P-word around here. Progress. Progress. Progress. It's like a synonym for the word "joy" in our household.

Anyway, I'm sure I will get into more that later. For now, I couldn't think of a better segue back into the blogosphere than with a food post. Duh. Me and food are like BFFs. We go way back. And, plus, I got a cool new kitchen gadget that I was excited to use. It's been really chilly lately and I thought I'd share one of my favorite cold weather meals. Homemade, creamy, chunky tomato soup and grilled cheese. Mmm hmmmm.

I'm going to put the recipe at the end because I hate my view of delicious food photos being interrupted by words. Who cares if those words are telling me how to make said delicious food. I just want to see photos. I'm a visual learner. And also a visual eater. 

Chop chop chop.

The smell is incredible. Onion, garlic, carrots, celery and basil all stirring in harmony to become a glorious pot of soup. Add a can of tomatoes, chicken stock, and half and half and they may now all live together in peace. In my belly.

This is the new kitchen gadget that I acquired this Christmas - an immersion blender. I've never owned one, nor have I ever used one. *gasp* I know. But, I am now hooked. It definitely beats pouring the soup into a food processor and processing three cups at a time. The cleanup is much less, too, so that's an even bigger plus.

I did learn two things from this novel-to-me cooking method:

1) Do not lift the blender from the soup while it is running or sh*t will hit the fan. Literally.

2) I need an apron. I can't believe I don't have one of those, either. It's a season of firsts, my friends.

Just in case you aren't down with the get down on how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, please allow me to educate you on this very important life skill.

Simple ingredients: bread, two slices of cheese, a slice of ham, and butter. Please, don't forget the butter. No one wants to eat a profaned grilled cheese sandwich. Not even kidding.

 Spread the butter on the outsides of the sandwich and stick it in your Foreman grill. 

And no, I do not put harmonicas in my grilled cheese. It gives a metallic aftertaste that I'm not fond of. Though, with four little ones on winter break running around the house all day, you never know what you'll find in your meals around here.

The finished product. Pure bliss. 

I like to put hot sauce in my tomato soup, preferably the Hot & Spicy variety from Lauren & Jorge's wedding over two years ago. Hot sauce doesn't go bad, right? Oh well....

Creamy, Chunky Tomato Soup

Saute the following for about 10 minutes:

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 celery stalks, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

2 onions, chopped

2 tbsp chopped garlic

1 tbsp dried basil

Add the following and simmer until veggies are very tender, about 15 minutes:

28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, Italian-style has good flavor

3 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup half and half

salt and pepper to taste

When veggies are very soft, blend with immersion blender until smooth, but still a little chunky.0

Enjoy!

I said I'd never do this

I've always said I wouldn't put a child lock on the refridgerator door...until today. I was making my bed this morning and found a hot dog in it. I also found one on the train table and another next to the tv. Not to mention, the jar of salsa a little wandering barbarian named Wyatt rolled under the couch.

Driving. Me. Crazy.

lunch money and life lessons

buying a hot lunch at the cafeteria is, well, totally awesome. i get that. the boys get to choose two days every week to buy a hot lunch and on the other three days, i'll pack a lunch for them. it's always a huge, exciting ordeal for them to read the menu and choose which two days they will buy. dominos pizza on friday is usually a given.

i let michael buy a hot lunch on his very first day of kindergarten and he couldn't stop raving about it. then on the following days that he would buy lunch, i'd pick him up and he'd have a huge grin on his face. he'd say, "guess what i have in my hat?" and then yank his hat off of his head and a package of cookies or crackers that came with his hot lunch would fall out. then both of us would giggle about it the entire walk home. awesome.

wanna know why it's awesome? because he hasn't yet figured out that, on top of buying lunch two days per week, he has the entire spread of breakfast items and snacks and chips and anything in the cafeteria that his little tummy could wish for at his fingertips, literally. the kids access their lunch accounts with a fingertip scan, so they don't need punch cards or anything ancient like that.

isaiah, on the other hand, is a veteran hot lunch buyer and knows the ins and outs of this lunch account business. he knows that if he has time before the bell rings after i drop him off in the morning, he can go into the cafeteria and grab a muffin for breakfast. he knows that at morning recess, he can run into the cafeteria and buy a bag of chips. then, he'll go in at lunch time and buy his hot lunch.

tap. tap. tap. he goes finger tap happy. in the later part of last school year, we told him that he could buy a snack once a week with the money we deposit. if he wants snack on any other day, he'd have to use his allowance. he was totally ok with that and it worked out well.

i think we need to go over the lunch account rules with him again.

i dropped him off this morning and told him that he was buying lunch today, not by his choice but because i didn't have time to make his lunch this morning. he said, "aww, mom. i don't have enough money in my lunch account and i'm going to get labor." in third grade, the kids are expected to be responsible for their lunch accounts, know how much money they have left and replenish if they need to. if they need to "charge" a lunch, they get assigned "labor", which is wiping cafeteria tables and picking up trash.

i knew i deposited $20 just two weeks ago, which should last 8 hot lunches - four weeks if we followed our rules. it's only been two weeks. i immediately knew he was buying snacks. so i looked at him and said, "why don't you have any money left? i just put $20 in your account." he drops his head and replies, "i've been buying snacks." so i said, "then it's not my problem if you get labor." and he said, "okay." and shut the door and ran to his classroom.

so i drove off and immediately started to feel like a shitty mom. i thought about bringing a check to the cafeteria. i thought about packing him a lunch and leaving it in the office. but then i went online and checked his lunch account.

apparently, my kid has a thing for flaming hot munchies. or just munchies, in general, because he bought six bags in ten days. i don't know what a buttermilk bar is but is sure sounds good, so maybe i don't blame him.

but the point is, he's been spending his lunch money like it's going out of style. i immediately lost sympathy for him and decided to let him "labor". and anyway, i think one day of cleaning the cafeteria during lunch recess will serve a better lesson than me saving him by bringing a check to replenish his funds. mommy isn't always gonna be there to save your ass, buddy. you need to pay attention to where your money is going.

miscellany monday

1. kindergarten - two down, two to go for us! isaiah and michael are in the same classroom three years apart, and i love that the teachers do the same project every year. once we move, i'll have to continue this little hand print tradition on my own for liam and wyatt, if their new classroom doesn't make the same ones.

2. pinterest - i heart pinterest. seriously. wyatt recently started in-home ABA therapy and with his very short attention span, it's really hard to keep him interested in anything. we are constantly thinking up new and exciting ways to keep him engaged. pinterest is a one-stop shop where i can find endless ideas for things to do with him. one of his latest favorites is this cardboard house. and guess what...it's collapsible! it collapses flat and can be stored against a wall, in a closet, behind the sofa. find the tutorial here. and follow me on pinterest, too, while you're there!

3. soccer - michael loves soccer. really. except when there's practice in 104* heat.

4. rain baby - liam new obsession is algebra. isaiah reads basher books and he's currently reading the algebra and geometry edition, which means liam is reading it (and memorizing it), too.

4. dollar store win - i took a stroll through the dollar store and found these awesome 'staches, furry and all. i had to get them because i knew the boys would go town with them.

and i was totally right.

5. welcome - i usually unload the boys from the car and tell them to wait by the front door while i unload other things. lately, they've been sitting on the doorstep together waiting for me and i just love coming around the porch to find them sitting patiently like this. my sweet boys. 

6. day on the green - the boys had soccer pictures for the fall soccer league last saturday. we now have three boys playing on this league. crazy how time flies. 

liam is playing in a program is called TOPSoccer, which is hosted by the local soccer league. it's a program for special needs kids that gives them to opportunity to play soccer, and in liam's case, the chance to play just like his big brothers do. it's an amazing program and we are so grateful to have this resource available to liam.

i had to sneak a picture of michael posing for his rookie card. super cute.

7. surprise - on our way to soccer pictures, we stepped out and found this nice surprise in the sky above our house. one of the many beautiful things we love about living in the "country". 

8. super fresh - liam's grandma gave him these super-fresh, bright green, skinny pants. he wore them to school one day and all of the teachers couldn't stop gushing about how cute he was and how he looked like such a rock star. he loved the attention, i'm sure of it. 

9. silver - michael's summer soccer team played their final games on sunday and they finished in second place. not bad for his first time ever playing organized soccer. super proud of these silver medalists - go team rascals!

embrace the camera ~ aug 22

i'm embracing the camera with my kindergartener and third grader today!

and this is how daddy likes to embrace the camera with his boys...

i just could not wait for school to start. last week was their first week, and with the temperatures hitting nearly 1,000*, i was happy that they were in their classroom doing something fun {under someone else's supervision} and not at home nagging me about who's coming over? or whose house we are going to? or what are we doing today? or whyyyy can't we play outside and attempt to get heat stroke?

i hope all the kiddos have a great start to their new school year!

skool is kool

the big boys started school last monday, so this post is a little late. what's new, right? (btw, i realize i haven't posted in over a month. but i'm just going to start right up again and pretend like my unplanned hiatus never happened. ok, thanks. i knew you'd understand.)

isaiah started third grade and, well, he's pretty much over me. i'm no longer allowed to walk him to class. i have to stop a minimum of three doors down from his classroom and use sign language to tell him "goodbye" and "i love you". then, i have to discreetly separate myself from him as to not draw any attention to ourselves in the hallway. i do all of that, as directed by my 8-year-old baby boy, and also shed sad tears of longing as i turn and walk down the hallway toward michael's classroom. i'm totally exaggerating. sort of. maybe.

michael started kindergarten and he was really excited about that. he hit the ground running when he stepped onto that kinder playground and was ready to take on the world. {insert sinister laugh here} i'm excited that he's excited. his excitement for school is all i could ever ask for. and at least he still lets me hug and kiss him goodbye. that's really all i can ask for.

mikey and baseball

mikey started with the summer baseball program a couple of weeks ago and had his first game last week. despite playing in 104* heat, the kids had a great time and they were so much fun to watch.

mikey was particularly entertaining to the spectators. it's not possible for mikey to just play ball. he has to do tricks, too. like sliding into home plate...except he didn't quite make it to home plate. he stopped about three feet short of it. then he kinda just sat on the dirt all confused, like he didn't know where he was. it was too funny.

he even had a chance to play pitcher. except it's tee-ball, so he didn't really pitch. the pitcher's job it to get the ball back from outfield after a play and throw it back to the umpire. 

of course, mikey couldn't just throw the ball. he had to do this spiffy, backward-over-his-head, throw-the-ball-without-even-looking smooth move and almost popped the next batter on the head. 

but the crowd went wild. and that's what mikey loves - to make the crowd go wild.

thanks for being so awesome, buddy.

i really love to watch you play.

embrace the camera ~ july 19

i've fallen off the embrace wagon. it's been a looong time since i last had an embrace post and i've been feeling a little guilty about it.  and i've also been feeling guilty about not doing a better job of blogging, documenting, picture-taking, memory-keeping...

the boys do and say really funny, random things all day long. just the other day, i told the mister i was going to start a twitter account for the boys and just tweet the random, funny stuff that comes out of their mouths all day long. it's like verbal diarrhea. but funnier. and not so gross, i think.

anyway, like i said, i want to do better at keeping my family's memories. i want to stop letting the big, messy things in life get in the way of seeing the little, awesome things. so with this post, i pledge to be a better memory-keeper. and i'm committing to posting once a day - even it's a single photo with no words uploaded from the blogger app on my phone. though, i hope to be able to do better than that.

so here i am, embracing with my sweet wyatt last weekend. he looks like he sure loves his mommy, no?

finding joy

most days i don't even have to find the joy. it's always just there and easy to see. but some days, it's a little harder to find. on those days, i have to consciously not let the difficulty of the moment cloud my view of the joy. because the joy is always, always there - even amidst struggle.

last weekend, we decided on a whim to drive up to pine mountain lake and spend the weekend at a friend's cabin for his birthday. we thought it would be fine. no - more than fine. we thought it would be FUN. but it was...different. it was a weekend full of struggle. liam and wyatt's autism was "showing" and they had a hard time coping with the different environment and schedule, or lack thereof. there were lots of meltdowns, lots of tears. liam was up all night screaming, "i don't like this bed! i hate this bed!" wyatt cried for pretty much the entire time we were there and wouldn't sleep without me rubbing his back. and if i stopped, he would wake up and start to cry again. it was just difficult. plain and simple. so difficult that we cut the trip short and only stayed one night instead of two.

in between the meltdowns, tears, and struggle, i had to fight hard against my own emotional weakness and find the joy. but, like it said, it was always there. lots of it. 

i found joy in waking up on saturday morning to birds chirping 

and cool, crisp air coming through the patio door.

i found the joy in the big boys having the time of their lives in the woods. 

i found joy in the ease my presence brought to wyatt.

i found joy in the mister starting a bbq with pizza boxes and flint because we didn't have lighter fluid.

 i found the joy in liam squealing in delight when he saw the deer roaming right beside the cabin's deck.

  

 i found joy in watching cooper relaxing on the ottoman, just like he does at home. 

i found joy in watching wyatt sleep with his little bumbum in the air.

i found joy in our hike to the playground.

 

i found joy in the cute little diggers they had in the sandbox.

i found joy in liam's curiosity.

and i found joy and serenity in the beauty of cabin life.

we bought a house!

we signed the purchase contract for our very first home purchase last saturday! yippee skippee! we are really excited for more space for the boys and the boys are just excited to have stairs. that was their sole request for our new home - too funny.

as excited as we are, this will be a true test of patience because the house is still being built. it's not scheduled to be complete until september 25. so for now, all i can do is drive by and gawk at it every few days until it's done. that is, until the construction workers call the cops on me for stalking them.

this picture was taken when we found out that the house was reserved for us. june 30, 2012.

this one was taken the day we signed the papers. july 7, 2012. 

i also took some pictures of the model home, so i could share what the house will look like when completed! {{{{{squeal}}}}}

the exterior of the house. 

it will be the same color scheme and the same elevation, which is basically just what the house will look like from the outside. ours will have the stone at the bottom of the pillars and the shutters on the windows. our particular house is also a corner lot, so it will have a wrap-around porch.

view of the formal living room and dining room from the top of the stairs. i've already told the boys that they aren't allowed in this area. hahaha

the stairs feed into the kitchen.

and here is the kitchen, the most important part of the house, in my opinion. :) 

i spend a ton of time in the kitchen - prepping, cooking, baking for bake sales, making lunches, blah blah blah. i'm SUPER excited for all the space and the kitchen island. and that door on the left? a WALK-IN pantry. lord knows we need it, for all the food these four boys consume.

my favorite part of the house, and also what drew me to this floor plan, is how open the kitchen is to the family room.

it is, literally, one big great room. the kitchen and family room are the two rooms where our lives are lived, so lots of space in those areas is really important to me. i can't wait to fill it with big comfy couches for the boys to lounge around in.

now, i'm trying to wrap my head around paint colors for the bedrooms. it feels like choosing a color is harder  than choosing the house i wanted! insane...