What's Cook'n-Veggie Tomato Soup

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! 

With winter in full swing, making soup seems to make all the sense in the world. Soup is my favorite type of meal to make. It is such a yummy, warm, and comforting meal. I was craving something with tons of veggies and tomato, so I whipped this up and  it came out pretty darn good. So good, in fact,  I decided to share this goodness with all of you. Here it is:

Ingredients:
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 onion
1 bulb of garlic
1 cup of carrots
3 stocks of celery
1 medium zuchinni
4-6 green onions
2 cups of cooked brown rice
Rosemary
Cilantro
32 oz of vegtable broth or stock (whichever you prefer)

 

 Step one~Cook the rice, according to the instructions, while prepping the vegetables.

 Step two~Chop all the veggies, dice the garlic and rosemary. ↕

Step three~Saute veggies (carrots, celery, zucchini, onion) for about eight to ten minutes or so. I use olive oil to saute in.

Step four~Add garlic and stir. Take care not to burn the garlic.

 Step five~ Add vegetable broth or stock and spices.

 Step six~ Add diced tomatoes and stir.

 Step seven~ Add tomato paste and stir.

 Step eight~ Add green onions. Bring soup to a little bubble.

 Step nine~ Add cooked rice and stir. Remove from heat.

 Step ten~ enjoy!!!
 

What is your favorite cold weather food to make?

Library Time Holiday Edition Plus A Snow Day

Hello! I wanted to share with you the library books Amar'e and I picked out during the holidays. We picked fewer than we usually do because I knew we would be busy and probably wouldn't get to read as much as we usually do. Here are our holiday choices:

This is what Northern Newhampshire looks like as of December 27th (and it's still coming down)....YUCK!

 ↓

 I hate the snow....I hate the cold. Did I mention that the snow blower decided to break down today? That is number two in our not so good luck streak. If number three doesn't come before my Florida trip in January...I may think twice about getting on the plane ;)    (Totally kidding Auntie!!!)

What have you been reading lately? I actually started the 50 Shade Of Grey Trilogy. It was a stocking stuffer. Totally unexpected.  I am six pages in and it's pretty good so far!

Stay warm and safe out there my friends!

 A tiny vote is always greatly appreciated! 

xoxo 

♥

Christmas In A Picture Overload

I am sorry I've been a little MIA and wrapped up in holiday festivities. I was suppose to get a post up Monday and today, but I ran out of time. Actually, I wanted to do this earlier but I messed up my wireless router trying to get Damien's Ipod touch connected. It took me most of the day to reset everything and get back online. It's good to be connected again. I may be able to catch up on my blogging a bit over the next couple of day because we are lucky enough to be getting  a Nor' easter that is expected to drop 12-18 inches of snow on us overnight. The good part, I don't have to go to work tomorrow. The bad part, it is more work shoveling 12-18 inches of snow than it is to go to work. Did I mention that I think I live in the wrong part of the country, maybe even world?

Anyway, I hope everyone was as blessed as we were this holiday season! We got to spend time with family, each other, and friends! This family was extremely blessed with a TON of wonderful gifts. We can not be more thankful. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of our strong years for the gifts giving. We tried to keep it nice and simple. We are living on the tightest budget we have ever lived on, so we tried to make most of our gifts we gave f....but unfortunately I ran out of time and wasn't able to make everything I planned on making. Here is what most of it looked like. (I am currently trying new things with my camera and attempted to shoot most of these pictures in manual mode. I am still learning photography and hope to get better in time):

 Our very first Tofurkey

 Our Christmas dinner with Kliff...you can't see but he is there!

 Nom, nom!

Vegan Christmas cookies. Thank you Sandra from Vegan Mother Hubbard for this delicious cookie recipe!

 Holiday punch courtesy of Andrew. He named it Winter Wonderland.

 It wouldn't be Christmas if something like this didnt happen. Thank you blocked drain pipe and over flowing tub! We couldn't of done it without you!

 What a mess! Thank you Brad, Kliff, and Andrew for making this mess go away.

 I hate it when it rains inside the house.

 At mems and peps for Christmas Eve.

Picture party!

 Newspaper is the cheapest wrapping paper ever. Especially the free newspaper.

 Finally found these colored pencils! We love them!

 Christmas at Andrew's folks house. This is were all the magic happened!

A great way to end a long stretch of eating, gifting, and having fun....a good book with Auntie Stacie. 

I hope everyone had as much fun as we did! 

Happy Holidays my friends!!

Teaching Myself To Craft: Crochet

Over the summer my mother-in-law gave me some crochet hooks that have been, until last week, sitting on my craft/sewing table. I truly hope that in the future I can have an entire room devoted to my crafting projects, but for now it will remain a table. I had never crocheted before and I finally got around to looking into it. I got the needles out of the pouch they came in, grabbed my yarn I had picked up, and sat at my computer. I went to YouTube and typed in "how to crochet for beginners" and found a video that taught crocheting step by step. I watched it a few times without attempting anything . After that, I picked up my needle and yarn and went at it. At first it was a disaster and totally frustrating. I worked on my technique for about 45 minutes before giving up and thinking I will go back to this later. The next day I gave it another shot and I was better then the day before, so I continued until one of my children put an end to it. On my third day I was more confident in my abilities. I was able to make some progress, and was more understanding of the concept. As of today, I am on my second dish cloth and feeling really good about it. I want to learn more and create more wonderful things. Here is what my first two projects look like:

 (The green tree looking thing was my very first crochet creation. I learned that keeping count of the number of stitches is essential.)

 During the summer Amar'e received the most wonderful gift. At the time I had no idea what kind of work went into creating such a beautiful hat. Don't get me wrong, when I got the call that there was a handmade hat waiting to be picked up, I was over the moon. But now that I have taught myself how to crochet, this hat blows me away. I now have a whole new appreciation for it. It is almost like receiving it all over again! We can not be more appreciative of this wonderful gift! This is Amar'e wearing the wonderful gift of which I speak:

A special thanks to the creator of this wonderful hat (BL).... You know who you are! :)

For now I am going to keep at it and I know that practice makes perfect!

♥

If you would be so kind to give that little face above a tiny vote...

A Little Q&A With Damien

Time flies by so fast, and I wish I could do something to change that. Until then, I will try and embrace the process. For those of you that don't know, I became a mother at the age of 15. Damien is my first born, and my first love. I wont lie, this has been difficult. I dropped out of high school shortly before he arrived (I did continue my education). He changed my entire world, my reason for living; he changed everything. I remember the day he arrived like it was yesterday. In fact, I could tell you more about the day Damien arrived, than I could tell you what happened three hours ago. Being a young mother to Damien is just as hard for me as it is for Damien. I've had to learn/teach my way through most of it. I did have a lot of help between Damien's grandparents, great-grandparents, and my grandmother (who is like my mother; she raised me). He was an extremely easy baby, and an even better toddler. He is a great student and all of his teachers love him. Tens years later we are still growing and learning each day. 

So to have some fun, we are going to do a Q&A with Damien. This should be interesting:

How tall are you?
5'6"

How tall do you think you'll be when you are through growing?
7'

What do you think about the most?
 Rapping and Basketball

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A NBA all star or a rapper

What do you do most when you are bored?
Play video games or shoot hoops

What is your favorite meal/food?
Pizza.

What is your least favorite meal/food? 
Green Olives 

If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive), who would it be?
Micheal Jordan or Tupac

Are you a good dancer?
Absolutely not!

What do you do best?
Play Basketball

What is your favorite color?
Red

Do you like school and whats you favorite subject? 
No, and my favorite subject is physical education.

What is your favorite season?
Summer

What's the farthest-away place you've been?
Florida

Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?
Yes!

Type of music you like most?
Rap

Type of music you dislike most?
Country

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
No more wars or animal cruelty

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Italy

Favorite sport?
Basketball

Favorite professional team? 
Chicago Bulls 

Favorite player (doesn't have to be from your favorite team)?
LeBron James

We hope you enjoyed this little interview with Damien! 

♥

We Found A Hidden Treasure This Weekend

This weekend we decided to start and finish our holiday shopping, so we went to North Conway(a town about 35 miles from our home). I was on the hunt for a thrift store that someone had told me about. This thrift store was not easy to find by any means. Come to find out, it was located inside a children's museum. This was the best find ever! I have been trying to find some sort of place that we can take Amar'e to exert some energy, and a place where she can interact with children around her age. Since she does not go to daycare, and I have few friends with children her age, she doesn't get a lot of exposure to her peers. I sometimes get worried about this for many different reasons. I worry about her social skills and want to make every effort to expose her to as many different situations as possible (nothing prompts this worry other than it being in my personality to worry about things I really don't need to to worry about. I am working on it). I can't believe that we hadn't know about this earlier! This makes we wonder what other awesomeness we don't know about?? Ok, so they call it a museum, but in reality it is a multi-room play center. Pretty much awesomeness and a great opportunity to meet other parents with tiny tots in her age group. We are thinking about becoming members for a year, which will save us money. They charge $5.00 per person and it is much less when you are member. Super reasonable! We will be making another trip soon!

Trains.

Gears.

Hello huge rocking horse.....

How do you work?

Golf balls.

Tree house.

Sticking shapes on the wall, what fun!

So much fun to be had

Hard hat wearing. Yellow buggy driving.

Some other pictures of what this area looks like this time of year. Pretty spectacular.

 

What did you do this weekend? Did you make any awesome discoveries? Where do you go to have fun with your little one(s)?