baked potato soup (ultimate potato soup via allrecipes.com, adjusted)

6 cups diced potatoes
3 stalks celery, diced
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves chopped garlic*
3 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth, divided
1 cup heavy whipping cream*
3 cups rice milk*
6 tablespoons butter, melted
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cubes chicken bouillon
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper


In a large pot, bring potatoes, celery, garlic and onion to a boil in 2 cups of broth (or more*). Cook until potatoes are tender, 15 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid.
Combine reserved broth and half-and-half in pot. In a bowl, combine melted butter and flour. Stir into cream-rice milk mixture over medium heat. Stir until thickened. Stir in reserved vegetables, remaining broth, bouillon and pepper. Heat through and serve.

it's this easy. i made minor alterations, as noted with the signature *. enjoy. i did.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ultimate-Potato-Soup/Detail.aspx for those of you wanting the original.

for the record, i did respond to susan's last post. and i commented directly to maas hours after her latest post as well. i think the more you post the more you respond. words of affirmation are important to me.

and i'd like to say to you blogworld: good work on updating your posts. i'm looking forward to having a few more minutes to read the 5 new posts.

look what i found in my garden: if this doesn't get any comments you are in big trouble...

i'm here to say that i have been posting, some good stuff by the way, and no comments are coming in...disappointed. shame on you people. i have better ways to spend my time than entertaining you. don't i?

in case you missed it this summer.

slow and steady wins the race, eh? wyatt's learning what pee-pee feels like. he sat on the toilet a lot today, meaning i read him "the little engine that could" while he peed every minute or two. i've learned that when i wake up in the morning i need to pray for a double portion of patience. i like to think we're making progress. tomorrow we are going to the dollar store to pick out their first toys for potty training. i'm hoping this is a motivator for the little ones.

other than that, it is COLD. i love it. we sometimes leave the front door open, but right now the whole house is closed up because it's supposed to be in the 40's tonight. will we turn on the heat? part of me wants to, but then the other part says, it's only september!

last night after the lesson for the kids (learning about mount gerizim and mount ebal and G-d's blessings and curses) harrison and big cassie went to town with the train set. i merely asked h-man to build a route that went around in the same direction for the train wash and the roundhouse. this is what happened:

herre's the petting zoo, with myriad of animals, as well as the mine shaft:
here's the modern art museum with the weird architecture:
and finally, jed's barn, with letter-block haystacks:
it's pretty brilliant, eh? it lasted till about 11am the next day, when little cassie and noah decided the tracks were more fun as individual pieces. not too surprising. glad i caught it on film. (p.s. uncle joe, send more track)

3

we're off. day three of potting training. it's a slow start; two kids who really don't mind pooping and peeing in their diapers. but we've had enough. "they" say you can't train a kid till he's ready, but i think if we praise wyatt enough he'll do it. he loves it when we get really excited, and we are stoked about poop in the toilet.

this morning i got cassie up and as i was carrying her into our bathroom wyatt hollered his typical morning hello: MAMA! (it sounds more like 'mameh') so tom jumped out of bed and got him up. there they sat, two little cuties with their bums on their respective toilets. he had already pooped a bit in his diaper but i knew there was more in there. so i told him to push and after some toots it happened! high-5's all around. he finished up so we decided cassie was finished too and when she got up what did we see? pee-pee! success. it's was a good potty morning...till cass hid in the garage while tom was getting ready for work. yup, she's a secret pooper. we'll have to work on that.