Creamy Potato Soup

The Fortiers have, over the last few years, begun the tradition of "soup for Christmas" and we all enjoy sharing each other's recipes for this wonderful dish. My favorite one to make for this even is potato soup. This is one of the rare occasions where I allow the kids to lick their bowls (and I might do it too!)

Creamy Potato Soup

Ingredients

5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced into 2 inch chunks
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
½ teaspoon black pepper (optional - don't use if you're sensitive to pepper!)
2 quarts (8 cups) chicken broth
2 - 8 oz. packages cream cheese
Garnish (optional) - crumbled bacon, chopped green onion or chives, shredded cheese, sour cream

Instructions

1. If using bacon for garnish... cook bacon
2. Peel and dice potatoes, put into large pot
3. Add onion and garlic, add seasonings
4. Pour in broth
5. Cover and cook on high until potatoes are tender

6. In batches, put soup into blender and blend until smooth. When 1 batch is done, pour into large bowl, then do another batch. Proceed until all soup has been blended.
7. In batches (again), put some of the soup into blender, add a few chunks of cream cheese, blend until smooth again. When smooth, pour back into large pot (that you used for cooking the soup). Continue until all cream cheese has been blended into the soup, and all soup is back in the original pot.

8. Cook on low/medium about 30 minutes, stirring frequently - soup easily burns and sticks to the bottom of the pan so be careful!

Garnish
Enjoy!!

Why we love it

Creamy, warm deliciousness... what's not to love??

More Christmas Eve!

We decided to end our day with a trip to a light show at the local campground. And when we arrived home, surprise! 

Santa had come while we were away!

Favorites were a quad copter, puppy named Coconut, police officer uniform, and a few others. Parents' favorites were all the books, E's new BIG BOY bed and seeing all the excitement on the kids' faces. Thanks Santa!

Merry Christmas Eve

It's been a nice day of decorating cookies and singing carols, just relaxing all together, the best kind of day.

 

Big Ballet Debut

This past summer, after watching a movie, Shelly innocently commented that she wished she was a ballerina. When fall started getting close and we had our annual discussion about "what activity this year?", Shelly said she didn't want to do Awana again. She wanted to take dance lessons. We scouted out all the dance studios we could find and settled on one. The one farthest away from home, the one that you have to drive through shady neighborhoods, that's the one that caught our attention. That's where we joined. It didn't hurt that we spied Nutcracker costumes on our tour of the studio. It helped that we got to see some ballerinas in action during a class they were taking.

Anyway, we've been travelling down to the studio once a week for Shelly's ballet lessons and she seems to really enjoy it. Not long after the school year started, the notice came out - all those interested in participating in the Nutcracker production should complete a form and mark their calendars... And away we go!

Then, instead of just classes on Wednesdays, we also had rehearsals on Sundays. Once it got closer to the big weekend, there were MORE rehearsals and planning and discussions of hair and makeup and what color tights, what color shoes, what time to show up, where are we supposed to go? Do we have enough bobby pins, hair nets, hair spray, snacks?

 

The big day finally arrived, after countless hours of rehearsal we got to settle in and truly enjoy the show. What an incredible performance by ALL of the dancers. Shelly was an angel and performed her role perfectly.

We were treated to multiple showings, Shelly performed five times in four days (including the full-length rehearsals). By the end of the weekend we were thrilled at the opportunity we'd had, and also completely exhausted and thankful for the holiday break from ballet, two whole weeks off before we start up again next year!

Birthdays Galore

For the first time ever I baked my husband a cake on his birthday. Yes, last year I tried, messed it up despite the fact that it was JUST A MIX IN A BOX, and he ended up baking it himself. (Sorry Honey!) This year I made a Boston Cream Pie cake and it doesn't look so pretty but it did taste pretty good, and after 11 years of marriage I can finally say that I did it once - baked him a cake. Thank you for your everlasting patience, David, and Happy Birthday to the most wonderful husband and father I could ever imagine!

Just a short two weeks later, E celebrated his FOURTH birthday!! What!! No longer baby, toddler, preschooler, now this grown up kid is in school, learning everything and telling us all he already knows. This beautiful boy is so precious, with his huge smile that lights up his face, and lights up everyone else around him. He was very specific about the cake he wanted, but the most important element was the "pintles." It MUST have sprinkles or it just wouldn't be good enough. David baked and decorated that one, my skills are clearly not up to par to deliver on Eli's high demands.

Happy birthday to you both!

A Change or Two

We've had a big development lately in our family. Well of course there have been a FEW of those...

My little Echo has moved on to a new home. After twelve years of faithful service to the Fortier 5 clan, after many soda spills and being run into by bikes and children, after 156,000 miles of adventures, its been adopted by someone else who was looking for EXACTLY just that kind of car. We've gotten a van, or the Bus as the kids and I call it, because it's HUGE. I think twice as long as the Echo? It comes with lots of buttons and secret compartments, and best of all, the rule to NOT EAT ANYTHING EVER inside this fancy new (to us) bus.

Elijah has been enjoying his back seat view when I park him there while I run laps in the parking lot at Shelly's ballet school. Shelly, by the way, does not like this "running laps" idea. But such is life, I don't have time to sit around waiting for her for an hour or two while she dances. We've got to "get our energy" as Elijah likes to say!

E came to me with a story about a bad dream, I couldn't really understand him but I held him on my lap and we cuddled until he was ok, we started talking and laughing together, and then I told him that something strange happened to me last night. "Was it a bad dream?" No, it wasn't a bad dream, but it wasn't something good.

I told him that while I was sleeping, someone tried to put their foot down the back of my pants. He started grinning, "That was a-dent-y (accidentally) me!" he confessed. Why did you do that? We laughed over it but you know what? I sure hope he quits doing it - its bad enough that he sneaks into our bed every night, but to have him weaseling his foot into my pants is just weird!!

Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We started out our day bright and early with a 5k run at the lakefront. Actually, I ran with a friend, and the rest of the family cheered me on (thank you SO MUCH dear family for your support, despite the cold weather, wind, and early wake up on a holiday).

I had a great time and then we got to go home, warm up and take a nap before the real party began - Thanksgiving with the Fortiers. As always, this was a great event with family enjoying good food and conversation.

 

Bonus - Later that week we hung out with the Fortier Moving Crew and managed to move everything from Union Grove back to Racine all in ONE DAY! Lots of trips back and forth, but we got it DONE!

 

 

Art in Action

These kids of mine, I don't know where they get their ideas but its incredible to watch what sprouts out of their creativity.

Shelly lost a tooth at school and brought it home in a little plastic box shaped like a tooth. The Tooth Fairy seems to be always running behind at our house, she didn't pick up Shelly's tooth the first night. Shelly spent a long time writing a note and asking me how to spell things. (Mom, how do you spell tooth? How do you spell please?) This all resulted in a beautiful note not from Shelly, but from Shelly's tooth.

Of course the Tooth Fairy could not ignore this plea, and made an exception to the rule, the rule of trading teeth for money.

Shelly, and Summer too, were so VERY excited when Shelly discovered on her pillow the note with Summer still attached, the new note from Ms. Fairy, and money! Shelly came running to me with her treasures and explained the whole thing. She ran to Dad to read Ms. Fairy's note to him. And then... Then Shelly says, "I wonder if I could be pen pals with the Tooth Fairy." I guess we'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

While Shelly was writing her note to Ms. Fairy, Elijah caught the creativity bug and asked if he could paint. He brought out the water colors and set to work. He brought his finished painting to me and asked me if I knew what it said. "I love you like the rainbow," I read to him. "Yets!" He said to me, very pleased that I could read it.

He came back with another and read it to me, "I love Mom and Dad and everybody in this world that I know."

Elijah sings this song in a quiet voice, I can barely hear him but he persists, the song long and drawn out, sweet and telling. "I love mom and dad... I like you... I want to go to the beach.... I really want to go on a train, oh I really want to go on a train, to the, to the beach...."

And while we're talking about E, I had the best conversation with him the other day. We recently received some postcards from Aunt Niecy in sunny Florida. I suggested to E that he send one of his paintings to his cousin Lulu and he frowned a little. He didn't think that was such a good idea. She's pretty little, and what if she ruins it? He started to dictate a letter to me in his most serious, grown-up voice. "Dear Yuyu. Here is a painting I made, but just don't yune (ruin) it." I told him I didn't think she'd ruin it on purpose, but he still wasn't sure about sharing his art with her. "You could send it to Nana," I suggested. He brightened up, "Yeah, cause her don't have babies!" This would guarantee that it wouldn't get ruined. "No, but she used to have babies. Do you know who her babies were?" This completely puzzled him, of course, and then I said, "Grandpa Craig used to be Nana's baby." His eyes grew wide, "That bampa is MY bampa!" I love those moments when the kids make connections and you can see the light go on in their eyes as they suddenly understand something new that wasn't there before.

Catching My Breath

First we had a great summer vacation full of camps and visits to Bampa and Mamaw's house (aka HC aka Camp Snoopy). Then we had the BEST VACATION EVER!!! (Which I didn't write about because next...) Then SCHOOL STARTED!!!

It has been a whirlwind of activities, rushing to catch the bus, drop E off at school, drop Arch off, do it all in reverse a few hours later when they come home. Then off to BALLET, SCOUTS, SWIM LESSONS, slow down! Did I mention the homework, cleaning bedrooms, laundry, homework, more ballet (that's TWICE a week), and don't forget bike riding, playing outside and homework. And the extra field trips ("Mom will you chapperone?"), parties ("Mom will you help?")...

There is no break. Until yesterday, when I got so sick I could barely think and finally called it quits. I had a meltdown, begged for help and went back to bed. David stepped in and got the kids to school and E to HC and me to the doctor. Strep throat! I've never had that before and hope I never have to deal with it again. And most of all, I hope my kids don't catch it because it is AWFUL!

This is life with a family, there is no actual break, life just keeps swirling on and when Mom is sick then someone else has to step in to start paddling the boat or it will crash on the rocks. Or something. Anyway, thanks family (husband, grandparents) for picking up the slack. Now, back to work!