Potato Soup {Recipe for Uncle Drew}

This is a picture tutorial for Uncle Drew on how to make yummy Potato Soup!

 Gather your ingredients:

Potatoes

Onion (I used frozen.)

Eggs

Flour

Salt

Pepper

Stick of butter

Evaporated Milk



First take a peeler and your potatoes. Get a plastic bag for the peelings.

OH NO!!!!!!!!

You forgot to wash your hands.

 



 

Wash them good!

 

I would suggest you check Noah for accidents in his pants before beginning!

 

Ok-- start peeling. I peel a whole 5lb bag. Put the peeled potatoes in a colander.

 

Look at those peelings. Throw them away, but remember to remove your peeler before disposing of the bag.

 

5lbs of potatoes...peeled. Eww...dirty!!

 

Fill your soup pot with water. You want just enough water to cover the potatoes after you dice them up.

I don't normally add much water. You can always add more once you see how full it gets with potatoes.

 



 

Clean them taters!

 

Clean them REALLY good.

 

Now dice up your potatoes. Careful to not cut off a finger. I have had close calls before. Wet potatoes can be kind of hard to work with.

Put your diced potatoes in the pot of water.

 



 

Add salt. Very important that you salt the potatoes. But....beware of how much salt you use. You must generously salt the potatoes, but not TOO generously. Trust me.

Onion. Now....I know you don't like onion, so you CAN skip it, but I highly suggest it. It adds so much flavor to your soup. I use frozen, but you may just chop up fresh.

 



 

Pour in your onion. Your call on how much to add.

 

Stir your potatoes with a really ridiculous looking facial expression. It adds to the flavor. Cook it on med/high until potatoes are done.

 

In the mean time.....

 

Let's play a game of....Find the smiling baby in the messy toy room.

 

THERE she is!

 

Ok...time to make your dumplings. We love putting dumplings in the potato soup. Adds a chewy texture. Yum! You want to take some flour. Crack eggs and stir. I can't tell you how much flour or eggs. Just start with a little. Add more flour to the eggs, add more eggs to the flour. You want a sticky, gooey mess in the bowl. OOPS...add some salt!

 

Again...crack the eggs....

Add eggs to flour...... OH NO!!!!!......

 



 

Kids are making a MESS!!! As long as they are alive, proceed with cooking.

 

Check to make sure the dog is still in the backyard.

 

Ok...take a minute to cuddle with the little princess.

 

This is what your dumpling dough will look like.

 

 

Potatoes are done! Time to add the dumplings! You can pinch the dumplings with your fingers and drop in the boiling water, or you can use a fork.

 

 Drop all the dough in the boiling water. They will float on top of the water. Yum!

 

 

Time to add the stick of butter.....

 

And the can of evaporated milk.

 

Pour that evaporated milk!

 

Add your pepper...to taste...ACHOO...bless you!

 

Almost done! Stir that pepper in!

 

ALL DONE!!! You did it! You made a whole pot of Potato Soup!

 

Ta-da!!!

 

And here are what the critics say......

 

YUM!!!!

 

I shall eat my soup like a dog!

 

 

This soup is the BEST!

 

This soup makes my tail wag!

 

Why can't I have any??? :(

 

And here you have it!

Have fun making your soup, Uncle Drew!!!!

We love you!

Trick-OR-Treat...I am back!

.....Finally! We have a computer and I can start my blog again!

Our good ol' laptop was in critical care a while back, but took a turn for the worse. He is no longer with us, but now the angels in heaven have one more laptop to play with! :) We had our ipad to use until we got another computer. This time we went with the all-in-one computer (desktop) which seems like a better choice with kids running around. Some of you may know....kids and laptops are a bad combination. The boys LOVE this computer. It has a touch screen, so I can remove the mouse and keyboard (to avoid destruction). So-- there we have it! I am back online. :)

This have been going SO well for my family...besides the hurricane heading straight for my brother in New York City. We are praying that he stays safe. I will update you, now, on everything going on in my family:

We just had our family pictures taken for the first time and OH BOY did they turn out great!!!! Thanks Caitlin!!! Have I ever mentioned how blessed we are with our kiddos and beautiful life? :) Well...WE ARE SOOO BLESSED!

Liam

Our little Liam is growing up so fast. (STOP DOING THIS TO US, TIME!) He is growing into a very loving, handsome boy. Liam still loves playing with his trains and loves to build things. I think he is going to be our little construction engineer. :) He is a very special little boy and I thank God everyday that he blessed us with this remarkable, little angel.

Noah

Noah just joined the great club known as....the terrible two's. :) We joke, calling him the 'human wrecking ball'. He is one energetic, little man....that has such a loving heart. Noah loves Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He loves to play outside and, especially now, loves the leaves. One of the best parts of his day are when he hears the 'beep' from Daddy's car in the driveway. The boys run to the door and get soooo excited to see Daddy. Noah is a little angel and we praise God for bringing such a bright, young boy into our lives.

Amelia

OH my little princess!!!! Oh this baby is the best, sweetest little angel! Truly....she is SUCH a good baby! At 6 weeks, she was sleeping through the night, she naps at the same time as the boys.....happy all the time (unless Mommy leaves her with someone or she is hungry). We are working on the anxiety when Mommy leaves. Oh, but, she is such a blessing. She is in LOVE with food. haha! She nurses GREAT still and also devours all of the baby food we give her. We love her to pieces! Thank you, Lord, for this Angel!

So there you have it! We are all doing so great! We have had a lot going on in the past months. One in particular is that our whole inside of our house is pretty much new. We had water damage...causing us to live in a hotel for 3.5 weeks and in return....new house. It was worth the stress.

We just had trick or treat. My little boys were...devils. :) I didn't have the heart to put Amelia in a devil costume, so she was a little angel. :) Here are a few pics of our fun day!

Little Devils....so fitting. :)

Little Angel....so fitting. :)

 

Now to leave you with this..........

 

Update from the Wilson Family.

Where HAS the time gone? I keep asking myself that everyday. Spring is here...the kiddos are growing SO fast... baby Amelia is going to make her appearance soon....wow! It is a strange feeling. Should you be excited or should you fret about how fast time is going? Since there is NOTHING you can do about it, fretting is probably not the best option. SO...I will just enjoy the time I have with my family and life.

Since I have not been my crazy, facebook-addicted self, I have not updated many of you on us. Life is just as I stated above....moving along at 100mph. The boys are growing up so fast. Here is what's up with us:

Liam: Our little Liam is becoming a big guy. He is currently doing WONDERFUL with his potty training. The occasional accident happens, but over all he is doing great! He is still in LOVE with his choo choo trains and building castles with blocks. I can't get him interested in drawing or coloring. He just loves building and working with his hands. Future engineer maybe? He will be 3 in June and is SO excited about his birthday being right around the corner.

Noah: Noah...Noah is Noah. haha! He is our VERY active 17 month old that can turn a house inside-out and upside-down before you turn around. I wish I had more to report about him, but really...it is plain and simple... he lives to love life!

Brad: Brad is busy as ever! The choir director position at St. Pauls keeps him so busy this time of year. He loves it though. He also just accepted a position at St Adelberts in Dayton (yes Brad...I probably spelled that wrong. DEAL!) He is playing the organ and singing there on Sunday mornings at 8:30am. So, our Sunday mornings are very hectic but it is all over and family time can start after 12:15pm. Brad tends to keep a busy life....but enjoys it.

Abby/Amelia: I guess Amelia and I come as a package right now. I am doing SO great! This has been the absolute EASIEST pregnancy yet! (and yes....I said YET! Haters...deal!) I am almost 34 weeks and am ready to say hello to my little princess and goodbye to the horrible heartburn at 2am. My cousin threw me a PINK shower this past weekend which was so enjoyable. Brad was very excited to see all of the pink clothes we were blessed to receive for Amelia. She is going to be one stylish, little lady. We are kind of on pins and needles about when she is going to make her appearance. The boys were born 3 and 4 weeks early, so I guess we will just be ready in about 2 weeks. The Family Beginnings unit at Miami Valley requires you to be 37 weeks, so we want to play it easy these next few weeks. I can't wait to announce her arrival! Stay posted.

We have been meaning to hang the gutter bookshelves for weeks (in the boys room) and FINALLY....they are UP!!! And....seriously....they are adorable! If you are considering it ....  do it! 

We could not be happier with the shelves and what they added to their room!

Warning about shelves though.....online, people say they cost about $30 to do. False false false! 
I even purchased the least expensive materials and it was..eek...about $75 to do. 
Totally worth it still, but I don't want any of you misled like me.
And trust me, ladies, if you tell your husband 'it's a cheap project!!!' then go to Lowe's and get the total....
their face turns a little white. lol 

Last week, we took Noah for his first haircut with Susan. He did not do TOO bad, but wasn't relaxed and perfect by any means. It is hard for a busy boy to sit down for an extended period of time. :)

Noah before his haircut. I just love how he decided to wear his hat.

Big buy!

We went to the mall and, no joke, the child ran STRAIGHT to this Victoria's Secret window. Such a guy! lol

 NOW for the haircut.....

He wasn't sure what the heck was going on!

Uh....get me OUT of HERE!!!!

Content with brushing his own hair. So independent.

Yeah.....you can stop now!

So...that is about all I have to report on right now! More to come in the next few weeks plus I really need to post pictures of Amelia's room. I need to paint her toybox first. It is kind of an eye-sore at the moment. :) 

All I can say is....God is good!! Our lives are truly blessed.

It has been a while....

Wow. It has been a while since my last post. I promised you all that I would post more since I got rid of my facebook, but haven't kept my promise very well. {eek!} Well...here is the update on my life!

It has been a very busy February and March. With doctor appointments, kids being sick, etc...hasn't left much time to get things done around here and time for projects. Luckily I have found a bit more time this week. 

One thing REALLY exciting and fun that we did this past Monday was attend the Rick Santorum rally in Westerville. Brad received a phone call Sunday night from Attorney General Mike DeWine's assistant that they needed a singer for the National Anthem at the rally. Brad jumped right on that one! We were both supposed to sing, but I am going on my 4th week of a really bad sinus infection that WON'T go away. I was bummed that I couldn't sing, but it was an amazing experience. We are big Santorum fans....which made it even MORE exciting. Here is the pic we got with our future president {Hopefully!}:

Brad and I with Rick Santorum. Such an amazing guy!

Liam, playing peek-a-boo with the photographer. I think he was flirting with Ann! lol And Noah's chicken legs are in the background.

Brad and I were sitting right behind Mike Dewine and his wife. You can see my yellow sweater under the lense.

It was an awesome experience! It was our first presidential rally. 

We have been going to story time at the library on Saturday mornings. The boys just LOVE it. Liam goes STRAIGHT for the train-table they have. After all this time, he still loves his choo choo trains. I don't think he will outgrow this one. 

Liam playing with the train-table.

My little engineer.

 We have also been working hard on Amelia's nursery. 

The nursery progress is a post in itself, so I thought I would just post a project I had to take on. We received our bedding in the mail and were less than ecstatic about how the valences looked. So, I pulled out the sewing machine and got to work on fixing them. Here is the final result:

I added the pink gingham and the pink ribbon to the top of the valences. They were just plain tabbed valences that left a LOT to be desired.

I do still need to line them, but they look SO much better.

Originally  I was going to add gingham to the bottom and not add the pink ribbon, but this is what I ended up doing.

Finished project: {besides needing to line them}

 Again...I will post pics of the nursery. I am in LOVE with all of this PINK!!!! 

I have a little bit of baking I am going to take on today. Here is the recipe I am going to do:

http://creativekitchenadventures.com/2011/02/15/easiest-romantic-dessert-ever-flourless-chocolate-cake/ 

PF Changs has one amazing Flourless Chocolate Cake....

but we don't really live close to a PF Changs to get that yumminess!

So I am going to try making my own today. I am adding a chocolate drizzle and raspberry drizzle. We shall see how it turns out. My mouth is WATERING thinking about it. 

{Sweets have been my major crave!}

Speaking of craving....the pregnancy...

Little Amelia is healthy and growing great! I have been having ultrasounds every 4 weeks since we were 18 weeks because of my premature labor with the boys. Turns out that our little princess is deciding to cooperate and not want to come TOO early. Doctor said SO far...no changes to make her think we will deliver really early.

We hope to make it to at least 37 weeks because we are delivering at a natural birthing unit that requires you to be 37+ weeks. 

I am feeling great as well...{if this sinus infection would go away!}

I have the anemia again with her, like I did with Noah, which makes me SO tired. Luckily the boys have been very easy to take care of during the day. They nap at the same time...so Mommy can nap too. 

We are so excited to see little Amelia. I can't believe how FAST time is going. 31 weeks tomorrow! Unreal. I guess we get so busy with the boys and the time just speeds by. It will be a challenge having 3 under 3, but I would not trade it for the world. They are good boys and I know we will be JUST fine. 

Well...I will update you on the nursery soon. We are off to see Riverdance tonight!! I am so excited. I would watch it on TV when I was a little girl. It is exciting to get to see it in person.

 Take care everyone and have a blessed day!