Recipe #10: La Madeleine's Tomato Basil Soup

Mmmm...I loved this dinner, super rich, just my style.  Adel cooked up the La Madeleine's Tomato Basil Soup recipe from copykat.com.  We served it up with some grilled cheese (muenster on sour dough), perfectly grilled by yours truly...I can't say much for my cooking skills, but I can grill a mean cheese sandwich!  This meal would have actually been well-rounded with a salad on the side, but we were going for comfort tonight and we got it...mmmm!  (And notice I'm not calling it healthy...way too much butter for that...but sometimes, who cares, right?!)

La Madeleine’s Tomato Basil Soup

4 C. (8 to 10) tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped, or 4 C. canned whole tomatoes, crushed
4 C. tomato juice and part vegetable stock or chicken stock
12 to 14 washed fresh basil leaves
1 C. heavy cream
1/4 pound sweet, unsalted butter
salt to taste
1/4 tsp. cracked black pepper

Combine tomatoes, juice/and or stock in saucepan. Simmer 30 minutes. Puree, along with the basil leaves, in small batches, in blender, food processor (or better yet, one of those handy hand-held food blenders, right in the cooking pan).

Return to saucepan and add cream and butter, while stirring over low heat. Garnish with basil leaves and serve with your favorite bread.

Our Scores:
Adel - 7/10, not nearly spicy or exciting enough for him
Megan - 10/10, perrrrrfection!
Isaac - 3/10, ate the grilled cheese but no so much the soup
Abby - 10/10, just like momma

Fall Camping

We headed up with the Sharps earlier this week for a couple days of adventure.  We just love being outdoors for a day or two, cooking on the campfire, going on hikes.

We found this really cool frog pond.  Every step you took, dozens of tiny frogs hopped away.  The kids (and grown ups) were fascinated.

Uncle Andy caught a frog for the kids to hold. 

We also discovered a playground.  Yippee!

For the most part, the kids were great troopers.

  

We did some longer hikes than we've accomplished before.

The Sharp girls bargained and begged to hold Bitsy...fine with me!

Uncle Andy helping the kids balance on a big branch.

Abby in her usual spot during long hikes.

The only complaint was the weather was much warmer than we expected (or packed for!).  We were pretty toasty when we were hoping to be snuggled up next to the warm fire.  Oh well...here's to next time!

Gobble, Gobble

This is a random collection of Thanksgiving-related pics.

Here's the post I wrote about Thanksgiving on my Mom's blog.

Isaac's Kindergarten class made place mats and Indian vests and headbands for their Thanksgiving feast.

Abby got to make one too since we were there to help Isaac's class with the projects.

Our front window has been filled over the past month with their seasonal crafts from school and the YMCA.

Isaac made his very own, self-inspired Thanksgiving book, as follows:

Cover Page: Turkey

Page 1: Pilgrim

Page 2: Indian

Page 3: Mayflower

Page 4: Pilgrim and Indian sitting down for a feast

Page 5: pilgrims deciding they're going to have the feast every year

Family Thanksgiving photo at DD's house.

The whole fam.

 The cuties.

DD and the little ones.

Lindsay and I helping the kids make their Thanksgiving place mats.

Isaac is thankful for...

Abby is Thankful for...

Lily is thankful for...

Aubrey is thankful for...

Amelia is thankful for...

Travel Countdown

For the first time ever, this year I will spend Christmas away from my Mom and Dad and sister.  While that's a sad thought, especially in light of my mom starting chemo in December, it is for a very good reason.  We are long overdue to visit Adel's side of the family.  Once we purchased our plane tickets and told the kids we would be going to California, they got so so excited and started asking, "How many days until we leave?"  So, to count down the days until our exciting trip, we have made the old, reliable paper chain with one link for each day they have to wait.

Now, every day, they take off one link from their chain, anticipating the day we get to hop on a plane to California and our family there.

We have big plans for our trip to Northern California.  It's the first time we've been there with the kids (we usually go to San Diego).  And one of the coolest things is that my family here in Houston is going to wait for us to celebrate Christmas when we get back...so it's like the best of both worlds and TWO Christmases!

So, we'll miss you, Mimi and Boppa...and we're coming soon, Lolo and Lola!

About Adoption, Part 2

Last weekend we attended a Focus on the Family adoption conference.  Adoption is something we've been contemplating for some years now (see this blog entry for some personal history), though more in theory than practice.  At the conference, we got to hear personal stories, the good and the bad, from adults who had grown up as orphans, one who had been adopted and one who was never adopted and aged out of the "system."  We heard from several adoptive parents and administrators, and also from a grown woman who was a birth-child in a family that later decided to add to the family through adoption.

Enjoying lunch outdoors at the conference.

This conference was a big deal for us because it aligned our expectations with reality and to each other.  We made the decision at the end of the conference to turn in our "interest form."  This does not mean we are committed to adopting, it just means that we are interested enough to learn more about the process and to start on some of the steps and the paperwork.  I don't know if we will end up adopting a child or not.  The thought is at the same time exciting and scary.  I mean, my kids as they are now are so wonderful.  They are good listeners (for the most part, of course), and our family time is so sweet and calm (for the most part, of course) and special.  I feel like I've put in some hard years to get us to where we are today.  And I'm on the verge of gaining some of my freedom back with one child in school and the other set to start three-day-a-week preschool next fall.  I've definitely been fantasizing about what that newfound freedom might look like for me.  Our family as it is, and where it's headed, is a good thing!

Why would I want to mess with a good thing?  The answer is the same as the question.  We have a good thing going.  Our family is so blessed, and so happy, and so healthy.  And there are so many children in our state, our country, and the world who need families just like ours.  My heart is big for them and I feel like I'm willing to delay that personal freedom and perhaps release my grasp on our family dynamics as they currently stand, sweet as they are to me, so that we can grow our family in so many ways by becoming adoptive parents.  This is a lot to think about and we do not intend to rush into it lightly.  But as we learn more, and I feel in turn both scared and excited about the idea, I want to remind myself to be very conscious about appreciating our family as it is right now in this moment.  I love my kids so much and I want to appreciate every day with my two kids.

Because

 they are

 so 

 very 

 precious.

Now, to answer some of the most common questions we get when we bring up adoption with friends and family...

• We do not know for sure that we will adopt, but we are interested in pursuing it
• We would adopt locally rather than internationally; plenty of sweet kids who need homes here
• We're not sure about the foster-to-adopt program yet
• The age range we would look for would be older than 12 months (ideally older than 18 months) and younger than Abby (however old she is at the time)
• We do realize that adopting a child rather than an infant means that the child would come with a tragic history and we would have to deal with the repercussions of that history
• We have no race preference
• We have no gender preference, although it would be cool to have another boy since Isaac is the only boy among his sister and his three girl cousins
• We are not in a hurry for this to take place and leave the timeline in God's hands, although we intend to do our part to turn in our paper work and figure out if this is indeed what we want to do for our family

As always, we appreciate any prayers for wisdom, and any wisdom or experience that you may have to share with us.  

Lego Man

Isaac and Adel enjoyed an awesome father-son experience last weekend.  Actually, for this pair, there couldn't have been a better event.  Space Center Houston hosted a NASA themed Lego contest and my boys entered enthusiastically.  This is the card Adel made to explain the project they chose to build:

And here's the finished product:

And the proud designer:

They had a great time at the event, building Legos there, and stopping for a snack:

Although Isaac did not win the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place he was hoping for, he won a medal for "Best Alternatively Fueled Project."

My first reaction to this prize was that they probably came up with a reason to give every kid a medal (so I'm a little jaded).  But Adel told me that there were probably 150 entries and only 20 prizes given, so that made me feel a little proud.  And then when I saw this video clip of Isaac answering the question "What kind of alternative fuel does your project use?"  He answered the question in front of the whole crowd of people and actually knew the correct answer.  Now that made me pretty proud!  By the way, the answer he gives is "solar rays" (solar arrays).  Super cute for a little smarty pants.  

I think it's very fitting that Isaac's first-ever medal is for building Legos.  That's what he does.  

Art Explosion

In the past couple weeks, Isaac has become very enamored with creating art.  Every day my desk gets inundated with a stack of creations that I need to admire, and then sort be their artistic value into a keeper and a non-keeper pile.  I can barely keep up.   So I decided it would be good to save some of my favorites on here rather than hardcopy.

Pumpkin

Wall-E and Eve

Zelda

Spider and Ants

Battle Scene

Evil Dr. Penguin.  Apparently the story behind this one, according to Isaac, is that people used to tease him because he had pink cheeks so he turned evil.  

And, I also wanted to commemorate Isaac's first-ever sentence spelled and written completely independently: 

 I guess he was inspired by what he learned at the "Good News Club," an after school Christian club.  It says "I am sre for mi sin forgiv me," translated: "I am sorry for my sin, forgive me."  The picture at the bottom is his sins (little sad faces?) being washed away.  Very deep.  Adel thinks it's a sad first sentence to write, but I think it's indicative that A. the child listens and understand big concepts and B. he is a very tender-hearted child.  And I guess it's an improvement in theology from Easter when he was three years old, when he announced that only he and Jesus never made any mistakes.  Guess he's finally discovered he is fallible.  :)