Jill's Cheesy Garden Soup

I made a comment yesterday that I was making my friend Jill's Cheesy Garden soup for dinner and was immediately bombarded with requests for the recipe. Here it is, the best soup EVER! There are a few changes that I have made, but it's mostly the same as Jill's. Melissa has made this and added ham or bacon, too, which would be tasty. Very kid friendly, too, Sydney loves it.

Cheesy Garden Soup

1 cup sliced celery
1 cup chopped onion
2 T margarine/butter
2/3 cup flour
4 cups water
2 T chicken bouillon or 6 cubes
1/4 t pepper
2 cups frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot combination
1 cup frozen hash brown potatoes (unseasoned)---I always use 2 cups!
3 cups milk
2 cups shredded Colby jack cheese, 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Cook celery and onion in butter until tender, stir in flour until smooth.
2. Gradually add water, then bouillon, pepper, and vegetables. Bring to boil.
3. Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 8 minutes, then add hashbrowns. Continue to simmer for 7 minutes for a total of 15 minutes of simmering.
4. Add milk and cheese. Cook and stir until hot and cheese melts. Do not boil.

This recipe freezes well. One recipe can easily be divided, we usually keep one half to eat (and it makes at least 2 dinners) and freeze the remaining half. When serving the soup after being frozen, it does need some pepper as it loses a bit of the flavor while frozen.
I do have to say that I make this recipe a lot and we absolutely love it, but it has never tasted quite as good as the time Jill made it for book club. Allow me to tell the story...it's no secret that I don't like vegetables. One day Jill was hosting book club and made this for the dinner and I politely declined, after all, it was full of vegetables. Everyone was raving about it, though, so I finally took a very small mug of soup, not even springing for the bowl. It was AMAZING!! You don't even really taste the vegetables because of the milk and cheese. What I can't reproduce when I make this soup, however, is the atmosphere of fun and family that Jill had when she made it for me that first time. To this day, that was my favorite book club, nice and cozy with all of us girls eating yummy soup on a cold night at her pretty house. She is an amazing cook, everything I've ever tasted of her's is wonderful and this is my favorite. There is a rumor that Jill might be someday moving back to the Portland area from the Eugene area where she currently lives and I hope she does. Enjoy!

Photography by Sydney

Here is the latest installment of photography by Sydney, aka, when Sydney steals my camera and takes random pictures around the house.

Our kitchen:


The desk chair:


The rug by the kitchen sink:


Stay tuned for the next installment of Photography by Sydney. If this is going to be a regular feature on this blog, maybe I should name it, like Sydney's Snaps. Suggestions?

Preparations Part IV

Last weekend Chris got Savannah's room all painted and I have spent the week washing everything and putting it all away. Her room is ready except for things hanging on the wall. I promise to post pictures of that soon once everything is hung up. Here are a few pictures of Sydney "helping" us to paint.



Here is a sneak peek at some of the artwork for Savannah's room. I found these prints on EBAY and they perfectly match the Pottery Barn Kids Penelope set that we are doing. There are four pictures, but here's a look at two of them.


I'm hoping to get things hung up in the next week or two, so stay tuned for pictures then.

Sunshine and Showers

The weather here has been wonderful lately. For me, at least, the native Oregonian who loves the rain and wind, and also who considers everyday that it's not sweltering hot while this pregnant a success. We've really only had a few nice days this spring, the rest has been blissfully rainy. On one of these days Chris was in Eugene so Sydney and I headed to the park for a while. On the way to the car she fell down and scraped up both knees (see the second picture) and it was actually quite tragic for her. You would have thought the Neosporin was poison the way she carried on. Here in this top picture is my little miss at the park with the Pez dispenser I gave her to make her feel better about her knees!


And there they are, the boo-boos themselves (and it's not upside down, she's sitting in her carseat). It was quite a epoch in her little life to have both knees scraped up. Every day, multiple times a day, she remembers she has them and starts to limp when she thinks we're watching her. She sighs very dramatically, too. And every day at bathtime we check the progress of the boo-boos to make sure they are going away. Like I said, it's been quite traumatic (and dramatic) for all of us. Anyhoo...we also went to a baby shower just a few days after the boo-boo incident and Sydney always loves a good party. It was at our church and while I didn't get a single picture of the shower, I did manage to snap these gems of my future American Idol winner.


Don't you love how into it she looks in that first picture?

Wordless Wednesday-Shoes

Preparations Part III (Sort Of)

So we've been working really hard to get Savannah's room ready. When I say "we" I really mean Chris because there isn't much up until now that I have been able to do. He and my mom painted the room last weekend a really cute pink color and then he put together the crib last night. All I did was hold one end of the crib for him and fetch a screwdriver (the tool, not the drink...although I think he would have preferred the drink). Today I have been very busy washing onesies, jammies, blankets, crib bedding, and tiny little socks. Some new, some hand-me-downs from Sydney. I even packed the hospital diaper bag. I promise there will be pictures soon, but I want to wait until it's all done to show you all. So, in the meantime to tide you over, here is something funny...

I found this on one of my favorite sites, Awkward Family Photos (click here). Love, love, LOVE this site, totally funny to look at and they update daily. I found this one recently and thought it was pretty funny. Then, I realized that that baby is in a CRIB, those guns are in his ROOM! I can promise that there are no rifles in Savannah's room!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

My little Taylor Swift fan.

Preparations Part II

Chris and I have been very busy trying to get the "back room" as we call it all ready for Savannah. It used to be an office, then it became a catch all room of all our junk. It was literally so full of crap that you couldn't even open the door without pushing really hard. We worked like dogs for a few weeks to get it emptied. I should have taken a picture of our garbage can because it was overflowing for a few weeks. After many a trip to Goodwill, the room is finally emptied out and ready to be painted. Chris will paint it next weekend and set-up the crib, then I can get busy putting everything away.

Here is the closet. It actually isn't bad. All the tubs up on top are old clothes of Sydney's to pass down to Savannah. The teal tub that's not on the top shelf is full of baby blankets, crib sheets, and onesies and will go away when I can put things away. That little white 4 drawer unit is full of shoes, baby slings/carriers, and misc things. Notice the stockpile of diapers we have started, too.


This is the HIDEOUS border left there by the previous owner. It's not the first time I've questioned her sanity. Look at it, isn't it terrible? Needless to say, it will be coming down.


Here's the rocking chair, which will of course be staying, and the butt ugly multicolored walls, which by next weekend will be painted a nice, light pink color.


More of the awful paint color, and there is the dresser. We used the dresser with Sydney, too, and I loved it. It has lots of small drawers that are perfect for diapers, tiny baby socks, and burp cloths. It was Chris' mom's and it's nice to use something of her's.

So there you go. I'll post pictures again after we paint and I get things put away. I am so excited to see it all done!

Preparations Part I

We have been very busy preparing for baby Savannah, and Sydney has been very involved in the process. I absolutely love the age span between them because Sydney is able to be involved in such a unique way. At least, most of the time...


...we got the exersaucer back from Melissa this last week and I set it up in the front room. Sydney immediately wanted to crawl in and rather than fight it, I let her. Sure enough, she liked it for about 2 seconds before her knees started to get sore and she wanted out. She has been really excited about the swing, the exersaucer, and the little baby toys I got out for our front room. Stay tuned for before pictures of the nursery.

The Black Thumb

Let me tell you about a conversation I had with Melissa today. Remember, she's my best friend, who probably loves me more than a lot of people do and knows me so well it's scary. We were talking this evening about how we spent our Mother's day and I told her I planted some flowers. It's a good thing she is a good driver because she was driving and it's a sign of her self-control that she didn't crash. She said, "You TOUCHED a flower?!" I'm not sure if she was surprised that I touched a flower or afraid for the said flower that after touching it it might immediately wither away and die. Either one is probably true. I do not grow things. Well, I grow babies, but I don't grow plants. I am not one to rummage through dirt and try to coax life out of a bulb that looks like a nasty onion or produce vegetables from a seed (I don't like onions or vegetables). I also don't tend to remember to do things like water my plants. But, our front deck needed some life this year and I knew Sydney would enjoy it, so we planted 4 small, inexpensive plants so in case they die I'm not out a ton of money. Sydney even bought her own little tools, which was adorable.


Sorry these are so dark, it started to rain so we moved our project to the garage.





I let sydney water the plants with her squirt gun, which I figured would be gentle enough for the plants and still give her the satisfaction of helping.


We even bought a new doormat for the porch. Isn't that cute?

I'll let you all know how long these plants live. They have to put up with me and my black thumb, but hopefully Sydney's TLC will help the plants to thrive this year.

Photography by Sydney

Once again, while uploading the pictures from my camera to the computer, I found more pictures that Sydney had taken without my knowledge or permission. I am thinking of making this a regular feature on this blog.

A close up of a book...


The handle of the end table that holds our printer...


An abstract shot of the master bathroom...


And finally one that I took, Miss Sydney in her favorite get-up these days, a Snow White dress. She spends the majority of most days in this dress.

Never too Late for Easter

I know it is WAY past Easter, but I am so far behind on posting that here it is, Mother's Day, and I am finally blogging about Easter. We had a very nice day, Sydney loved the Easter baskets. Church is always so much fun on Easter with all the kiddos dressed up in their fancy Easter clothes. Sydney had on her pretty little Easter dress with lacy gloves, purse, and ruffle socks. We went the day before to my mom's work for the annual Easter egg hunt. It was freezing cold and pouring down rain, but Sydney still managed to clean up with tons of candy that we are still eating.

Nothing Much

My mom reminded me/pestered me today about the fact that I haven't updated this blog in 2 weeks. I'm sorry, but we really haven't been up to much of anything fun and I have no new pictures to share. Here's what we have been doing:
-I woke up last weekend with the sudden urge to re-arrange large pieces of heavy furniture. Actually, every piece of heavy furniture that we own. Poor Chris. He was such a great sport about moving the large dresser, the piano, the TV, Sydney's kitchen set, the piano again, the toy cupboard, a large table, and once again, the piano. All in all, our master room, Sydney's room, and the front room are now all completely different, and much more open and spacious. Thank you to my dad who came and helped!
-Nesting seems to be in full force as this evening I was gripped with a determination to clean the oven. And no self-cleaning cycle would do, I was half-way in there, scrubbing every nook and cranny. Then I did the same thing to the microwave. Then I swept and mopped and scrubbed the appliances and cleaned out the deep freezer in the garage. The only reason I didn't move on to organize the laundry area was because I needed to stop for some ice cream.
(Am I boring you yet? Aren't you glad I don't have pictures to post of these thrilling activities of mine?)
-I went on a trip to a spa last weekend with Melissa and some friends. Melissa treated us all to lunch, then a complete day at the spa with massages, facials, and mani-pedi's as a thank you for the last year of help with bedrest and twins. It was so much fun! I had never been to a spa before. While it was completely unnecessary because I love Melissa and her kids to bits and pieces, it was very much appreciated!
-Chris went down to Eugene to see some friends and played at a poker game. He came in second and bought Sydney and I Red Robin with the winnings.
-Savannah's room is still not cleaned out, but a lot of Sydney's old clothes that will be passed down to her are washed, sorted by size, and ready to be put away. We have 3 boxes of diapers and a box of wipes so far, with my goal being to buy something each paycheck to stock away.
(Have you fallen asleep yet? Except for the spa, nothing much fun here.)
-Sydney continues to be adorable. She is becoming a little tyrant at bedtime, though, which is a surprising and challenging struggle. We are trying to work through it without going completely crazy. She is becoming more of a girly-girl every day, and I couldn't be happier! With the exception of bedtime or when I am on the phone, she is sweet and loving and sings and dances her way through each day. We are blessed to have her!

I think that's about it. Hopefully we'll be doing some more things in the weeks to come with the warmer weather and I'll have some pictures to post. And because I feel so guilty about depriving you all of a picture of my adorable little miss, here is one from a few weeks ago when she was helping me with laundry. She took a pair of Chris' shorts from the dryer and put them on! You can see in the background all of the tubs of her old clothes before I sorted them for Savannah.

Sneaky Little Trickster

Sydney has this bad habit of going into my purse and getting out the things she is not supposed to play with, like my phone, or the IPOD. Sometimes she will even get out the camera, and somehow she can use it better than I can. When she does this, she will take like 50 pictures of random things, like her toys or the kitchen cabinets, and then turn off the camera and put it back. The next time I go to use it, the memory card is full of random things from around my house. A while ago I started leaving the camera on the counter and this is what I got...

...you can see the edge of the counter there, and little Miss Sydney, being naughty and taking pictures again. I can't get mad, though, because look how cute this is...

I think I've posted these before, but a few weeks ago I once again found some more random Sydney shots on my camera, and it made me think of these. This is my favorite one from the last batch:

That's my girl! She took a picture of my Gilmore Girls DVD collection! She loves that show, too, and it made me laugh to come across this! What a silly girl!

Tator Tots, Unplugged

Weeeelllll....tator tot casserole didn't go quite as planned. I didn't make the Duggar version because I didn't have evaporated milk. The one I threw together was really good...except for the tots. I accidentally bought onion seasoned tots, and oh man, they were like biting into an onion with every bite! It would have been great with regular ones, though. We helped calm the taste down by dousing it with cheddar cheese, but still! I already have pregnancy induced heartburn, and the onion tots didn't help it any! I'll make the regular version again, but I really don't think it would freeze well, which is kind of the point of this whole experiment. Any freezable ideas? Not just for tator tot casserole, but for other dishes? I am specifically in the market for things that freeze well, but would be great in summertime.

On a side note, this whole freezable dinners things makes me think of Steel Magnolias. Remember when Daryl Hanna's character, Annelle, makes the dinner of beans to take to the Eatenton's after the surgery? And she says she picked that recipe out of the "freezes beautifully" section in the cookbook, because she wanted to take them something that would freeze beautifully? Ah, great movie! I wonder if there even is a cookbook with a freezes beautifully section?