Oh my... this soup is GOOD!

Last night I made a new soup recipe and it was definitely a keeper!

It was "souper" (haha) easy and "souper" good.  :)

Au Gratin Chicken Chowder

6 bacon strips, diced

1 small onion, chopped

1 pkg. au gratin potatoes (this was the first box of au gratin potatoes that I've bought in probably 8 years!)

2 cups hot water

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/4 cups chicken broth

1 can whole kernel corn, drained (I used a bag of frozen sweet corn from our patch this summer)

1 bay leaf

3 cups cubed and cooked chicken

2/3 cup evaporated milk

In a large saucepan, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp.  Remove to paper towels with a slotted spoon and discard the drippings.  Saute onion in drippings until tender.  Add the potatoes with contents of sauce mix, water, milk, broth, corn and bay leaf.  Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.  Stir occasionally.

Reduce heat.  Stir in chicken, evaporated milk and bacon; heat through.  Discard bay leaf.

a favorite

A favorite throughout the years of all three of our kiddos has been Fisher Price Little People or any miniature figurine.  We now have dozens and dozens of them and they get played with every single day. Every day, Audrey dumps the Little People tub out in either the living room or kitchen and plays with them throughout the day..   the boys even still play with them sometimes.  :)

I know, I know...

Y'all just love it when I go for days and days without blogging....      oh, you don't?  oops!

:)

I know most people are busy, so this probably doesn't even compare to a lot of people's lives....  

but this is what's going on here:

• D's loading hogs out of all 4 barns right now..  for those unfamiliar with the ag-world.. that's A LOT of hogs, a lot of hours, a lot of soar knees on my man!
• We're calving right now.. for those unfamiliar with the ag-world, that's a lot of extra hours checking on cows, calves, milking mamas whose baby isn't sucking, and we even had some twin pulling (but neither made it)   :(
• Wyatt had his 8th birthday..   I love it when birthdays fall on a weekend!  We spent the whole day doing things he wanted to do.  This included, donuts for breakfast, trip to get balloons and his cake, getting a smoothie from the coffee shop, and having a party that evening, and watching a movie until 11:00.
• I'm involved in 2 huge projects at church right now..  I love helping and love what I'm helping with but they are huge projects so they take a bunch of time.  :)
• One of those huge projects is doing our church directory..  so I've spent the past 3 weeks taking pictures of hundreds of people and editing all of those pictures..  Now is the part of designing and putting together the directory..   So much fun doing all of this, but it's a huge project!  :)
• In the midst of that, I have normal client sessions, so I'm getting those edited, getting orders put together, designing books and products, and trying to stay on top of communicating with those clients and with near-future sessions coming up.  Again, super fun and I thoroughly enjoy it all.. just busy!
• Another big project at church is some promotional things involving LOTS of pictures..   I think if I figured all of the Gigabytes on my computer dedicated to pictures right now, my head would spin off.  :)
• In the past 4 weeks, I have painted our bedroom, entryway, living room, and laundry room along with redecorating the bedroom, entryway and the laundry room.
• All of that is in between finding time for reading the bible (definitely need to make more time for this, especially when things are so busy!), going to church, being an attentive wife, being a mommy, running kids to school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, picking up toys, bathing a little girl who gets lots of yucky stuff in her hair.... 
• Aside from a few moments of being overwhelmed, I am thoroughly enjoying doing everything that is going on right now..   I'm just wondering how I've found the time to get it all done!
• I'm pretty behind on editing personal pictures so hang in there..   They are coming!  :)

1:13am thoughts and ramblings

It's 1:13am and I'm laying here in bed and can't sleep.  *note to self:... stop eating sugar before bed!*  Every night we try to do devotions with the kids before bed..   tonight's devotion was centered around using our God-given gifts and talents.  So we started naming what we thought the gifts were that God gave us..  

... Wyatt says my gifts are sewing, laundry, cooking and doing dishes..   Okay, I do all of those but sew ( I am NOT a sewer.. that definitely skipped a generation!)  Anyway, after thinking about what he said, I am so glad that those are the gifts that he sees that I have..  he must see me taking care of them and our home.  I may not always do those chores cheerfully but maybe I should start seeing them through the eyes of our eight year old.

Yes, an eight year old..  it is officially Wyatt's 8th birthday now..  Are we really old enough to have an 8 year old?  Crazy how fast time flies!  We'll be married for 10 years in August.  A decade.   Sheesh!  :)

But with it being his birthday and all, I got to thinking about Wyatt's God-given gifts and while at 8 years old those aren't all visable to him or us but we can for sure see things that God has blessed Wyatt with.  He thinks his gift is sports.  Wyatt is definitely athletic and excels at any sport he tries and I pray that down the road he'll be able to use that love of sports to honor God and bring glory to Him.  But I also see a gift of helpfulness in Wyatt.  Of course he's 8 years old and doesn't always want to help his brother and sister, but when he does, he is so patient and kind and I can tell he enjoys helping others.  He talks in the sweetest voice when helping Audrey do things.  :)  Wyatt also loves helping do chores with his dad, loves helping me in the kitchen, loves to help clean, etc.  

I'll write about Landon and Audrey's gifts another time, but thought it would be appropriate to do Wyatt's since it's his birthday and all.

some loves of Wyatt:

any sport

Broncos

Iowa State

granola bars

baseball and football cards

making everything out of paper

milk

Looney Toons

drawing

animals

showers

reading

PE

tractors

snacks

photography

trivia

jokes

books

pop from Grandpa's shop

Loopy

fishing

macaroni and cheese

pancakes

hats

watching movies

cucumbers

strawberries

apples

carrots

tomatoes

black olives

and LOTS more!  :)

Happy Birthday to our special boy!

happy heart day

Around here, we try to make Valentine's very special for the kiddos...   D and I don't get too much out of the holiday, but it's fun to spoil the kids!  Their day started out with heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes, chocolate milk, chocolate candy, gumballs and games.

Landon made this pretty sun-catcher in Sunday School yesterday and it looks great on the kitchen window with the morning sun streaming through it.

D even surprised me with roses this morning..  

I was NOT expecting them at all so it was a wonderful surprise!

hope you all can spoil the ones you love today!  (and everyday!)

regression????

Is she regressing?

We dug the walker out of the storage room when William came over one evening and for the next two days Audrey spent most of her waking hours playing in it!  :)

she is always dancing like no one is watching