Our Favorite Soup!

I love Idaho in the Spring. It's a bit of a wild card - sun burns one day and the next, hail, wind and 25* colder! Today is the latter of those crazy weather options and our day started a bit rocky. Truth be told, it started with me in a puddle of sadness and I needed a task to work with my hands while my heart sorted itself right out. I considered gardening - my favorite spring task - but after settling my sweet baby down for a nap, I got all dressed in my gardening clothes (holy mud outside!) and then promptly found that my lovely children had taken my boots outside and left them overnight in the rain. I definitely felt "kicked while I'm down" about that. I decided that the next best thing to gardening would be cooking something comforting for us all. 

A good soup is always a welcomed meal in our home. I knew right away when I was feeling so down that I wanted a go-to favorite meal, not a new recipe for dinner. Our kids call it Veggie Chowder. It's never exactly the same twice because we use what we have and it always works wonderfully. Today was extra special though because I picked up some bread bowls to serve it in!


Veggie Cheddar Chowder - Huberty Style

1 large onion chopped
whole head of garlic minced
Roughly 2-3 cups of carrots, sliced

Add the above ingredients to a large stock pot with a touch of oil.
Cook together for about 5 minutes.

5# yukon gold potatoes - cubed into bite sized bits
1 large package of frozen corn
1 large package of frozen peas
1 large head of cauliflower chopped into small pieces
2 qt veggie broth

Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Add in spices of your choosing. Today we added in black pepper and a bit of montreal chicken seasoning. (I really just wing it any time I cook!). Let everything lightly boil until potatoes are soft.

Turn the heat to low and grab your blender! Toss half of your soup in your blender and mix until smooth. Pour this back into your soup pot and stir. This step gives it a wonderful thick texture without excessive ingredients or time making a roux.

 Add 1 cup of half & half. A handful of cheese.

Serve hot with your favorite bread (or wow your family with bread bowls!) and a side salad. 

February Highlights

February was an incredible month. It felt like winter began to melt away (and did literally!) but with that came the realization that I am busier than ever. We had some hard times and had to make some choices on what might be "good" "better" or "best" because the reality is that I can not do it all - even if I try. 

Some of the "best" things that made the cut - Declan's participation in basketball! He had so much fun with his little team of 5/6 year olds. 

As parents, we really enjoyed watching the kids play too. And it resulted in a new experience for the boys too - watching a basketball game with Dad for the first time :) 

In February, my brother and his wife went to Mexico for a week and we got to hang out with their awesome 3 toddlers - Athena, Audia and Anax. It was both awesome and exhausting. No joke, that is a LOT of toddlers! But we had a lot of fun too and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I love that my kids have cousins their ages to play with.

Some things that made it easier - I'm already used to cooking for a million kids. Adding three to that was SO simple. 

And I am SO thankful for babywearing - I spent a lot of time like this 

We basically "neglected" our school work for a week - but by neglect, I mean we had some STELLAR books that we enjoyed instead of too much paper work stuff.

Our glowing reviews for Math & Magic in Wonderland and Human Body Theater. Seriously awesome and worth reading for the tween stage. We loved them both!

On of our biggest accomplishment of February was finishing the upstairs completely - floors completed, baseboards installed and the kids moved upstairs! Still some finishing touches, we have curtains for the boys room but not the girls room and Kalani is having a bed built for her by Damon this next week but overall, it's awesome having it "done". The kids had fun moving their beds upstairs. Lots of giggles and hard work!

We had a lot of "typical" days.

Real life right there. A cutting board for morning snacks (strawberries and banana this day), kids accomplishing some school work, eggs still out from breakfast, cords that Damon set down and left for a week, an iron from hemming curtains from the night before.... on and on, I look at this photo and I can see the chaos that others might see, but somehow it's all useful to us. School workbooks and a shoebox full of colored pencils (why do they reject the pencil box I purchased and choose trash instead?)... But this is what life looks like daily for us.

The magic happens in the mess y'all.

Lots of lazy mornings and *trying* to savor some of the tiny stages that are fleeting.

Not going to lie - these two slept like crap in February and I won't miss being exhausted.

Adelene sums up how I feel about it -

At least she's cute, right?

We wasted $20 on "Jackfruit". Ran to Albersons for a quick missing ingredient and came home with this monster. The kids first had to guess what it was....

I really want to know who comes up with eating these things. Who looked at a coconut and decided they wanted to bust it open? Who decided to get honey from a a bee hive? And jackfruit? this thing was intense to cut open and eat. Lots of pods and seeds and this things was not exactly inviting from the outside... but that made it hilarious and fun!

Tried something new. Half of us liked it, half of us hated it. We'll never buy it again but it was fun!

More new experiences in February - Celebrating Declan's birthday and the first time going roller skating for all the kids! Some of our good friends joined us and Declan chose some cupcakes to share. Good times indeed.

Declan tried both roller blades and roller skates!

It was trickier than they expected!

And everyone made it through another eye exam without needing glasses - just Daunika and Damon so far!

Cake tradition continues.... Aurora turns 9 !

Aurora surprised me this year and decided that sprinkle cake was called for! She is my kiddo who tends to skip cake and her favorite treat for celebrations is pie.... but this year, SPRINKLE CAKE was made! 

She was very thrilled with the process. Who doesn't love homemade yellow cake with lots of butter and egg yolks? Woot!

I love this simple family tradition and I adore looking through the years of creations and hilarious decorations attempted by our kids on their special days. Aurora is just such a special child. In a house as loud and busy as ours, I've heard several people reflect that their quiet kiddos can get lost in the mix but Aurora defies that rule and her humor and quiet reflections are magnetic. 

And holy moly did she get so grown looking this year!! This was her cake from her 8th birthday -

What an amazing blessing to have such a fabulous kiddo to celebrate!

9 years and counting.... 

Inertia is pure truth.

The fundamental principle of physics is such a beautiful reality in our lives. Have you noticed this to be truth in your lives as well? When you add an outside force to start a new path, you keep going and the momentum builds? That is SO true for us. Something happens, an event, and it sends us on a path and the more is accomplished, the more we WANT to accomplish. It's true about eating veggies, finding a curriculum you love, or a new class.... or work on the house - which is the point of today's blog! We are getting some great traction and forward momentum in our home!

Looking at our home, you'd think we started ALL the projects at once, right? Wrong. We began the main floor/kitchen update first. Once we began that project, we had a major septic flood that wiped out our finished basement (dry wall on the walls and ceilings needed removed, carpet gone, everything about it that was "finished" before).... A lot of our belongings were ruined in the basement (our family room).. Our kitchen savings were obliterated with the new septic installation but we tried hard not to get down about it. Just about the time we were ready to launch into kitchen rehab full speed - we found ourselves with a big surprise. She's super cute, so totally worth the year wait!

BUT - here we go again! No, no surprise cuteness (thank you tubal!), but we are moving forward with some home projects. HURRAY!

Did you know? Picking the perfect paint color is ROCKET SCIENCE. I think I could perform simple surgeries with more success and less second guessing myself than choosing wall color. Sheesh.

I tried several greys and hated them all..... so instead, I bought something without trying it first and moved on in life. I am big on the MOVING ON stage right now. Forward motion feels better than stuck anywhere. So, without a "tester" I bought gallons and gallons of paint. I figured anything was better than the baby poop beige they had on the walls. Gag.

Ours kids were SO thrilled to get involved. They are amazingly hard workers and I'm proud of what they dive into!

So much needed done too. Old doors, holes in the walls from 80 years of use... So many patches, so much sanding! SO many tools that we own?! Apparently. 

But in the end, that no-testing-before-buying-colors (both wall and trim) delivered EXACTLY what I wanted!!! Pale, cool grey walls with a medium darker grey trim. It's hard to photo accurately, but I love it so who cares :) 

And we moved the boys back into their room for ONE night....... because this was the floor upstairs.... It is pretty, yes. But it also has DECADES of damages. scars. dents. burns?! Tons of damage. 

You could see paths worn raw. Tons of splinters!!! 

So, we rented some tools..... 

And this is what our antique, solid cherry wood looks like raw! Isn't it AMAZING!!!! 

Now the edges have been done too and we are planning on clear coating it (it will darken again because it's cherry). But most of the ugly scars are gone. It's so lovely. 

Illness struck our home though so the floors ended up doubling up on another project in our home, but on the main floor.... Most of you know that our "great room" kitchen/dining/living area is a huge work in progress.... but we took some big steps forward on that this week! 

Consider the cat photo a before...... but it's really a "in the middle, looked like this for a year" photo

And BOOM. The entire space changed. 

It's still a "working on it" stage. I am opting for concrete counters but for the time being, they won't be installed (no debt, no debt, no debt! chanting in my head!!)

Damon is waiting on a paint sprayer part to arrive before he can spray the island a deep navy blue color. 

The drawer fronts won't be attached until after those are painted. Hardware is installed after that as well.... A couple of the drawers were built the wrong size and were sent back to the cabinet shop for modification (two top drawers missing in photo)

It's stunning how quickly we jumped forward!!! I am so happy, I DID cry. Patience is really not about just waiting for what you can't change, but more and more I'm realizing it's an inward journey of not losing your CONTENTMENT in what is in front of you. I really have struggled with the "can we hurry up already" conversations with God. I have felt angry that I had a baby not a kitchen (at least, that was my pregnancy struggle). Now? I have the BEST 4 month old. She's so sweet. I can't imagine life without her at all and hey! a kitchen is coming along just fine..

I can't wait to continue to update on our forward movement but I am going to work harder on never losing my contentment in the middle again.

I'm also not letting go of the fundamental principle of staying in motion.

Onward, upward. 

xoxo

January Highlights!

In the whirlwind of my very busy days, I haven't been reflecting enough on what I love about my life lately! Daunika recently went through and read my blog and I realized that I miss blogging as a format to have a record of some fun times we have!

It feels like each time I have a newborn, it is not the newborn that is the hardest part of the equation - but the toddler that's suddenly been enjected from "baby of the family" status to "older sibling" status. Anaius is struggling a bit with this new title in the house and he's incredibly smart - and incredibly stubborn! He's also SO fun when you kind of use the same concept of "he's like a puppy that needs regular exercise outside!" because he loves being out in the world and exploring.

Sometimes, this is a bit tricky! For example, this is a photo of him with a cute little bare bum, his boots and a fierce determination to get outside despite me telling him pants were required. NO is his new favorite thing to tell me. I'm frequently reminding myself that this stage passes quickly.....

But, he's really really cute. 

Don't worry though, he's not the only cute kid here! 

This sweet girl of ours is growing up so fast. Lately she's excelling in all things science. In our home, she knows more about animals than anyone but lately it wasn't enough "science" for her. She was given the option of biology, physics or chemistry and we talked about all them at length before she decided that she wanted to start with physics!

She is LOVING it!

Lately. I feel like I am falling in love with home schooling our kids again. It's been a ROUGH couple months though. I got stuck in the rut of the concept of what it "should" look like. The very best parts of home schooling is the freedom for it to look ANY WAY WE WANT!

Sometimes it looks like this - 

But we've found so much more is retained by it looking like this with our little kids - 

What is funny to me about this photo is looking at this later, I notice the math on the white board in the background.

And it looks like this for Declan as often as we can. Declan thrives on games and is working hard on good sportsmanship. 

Kalani is full of art fun lately! She is just a bubbly kiddo and I adore her. She's taken up a new saying "okie-dokie" but the way she says it is just hilarious. It brightens the room!

Declan has something new and exciting to look forward to every week for now! He's started playing basketball and he is THRILLED to death with it! I love seeing his excitement and pure joy in simply owning a basketball. He's talked about it non-stop and I look forward to supporting him in playing more sports in the future!

One of the funnest aspects of our weeks has picked back up in January and my kiddos are loving co-op! Here's a sneak peak of our girls working hard on a super awesome project on the found mothers of the U.S.

January has been a magical month and we are starting 2017 with renewed purpose and strength in our home.

Onward, upward!