Stress Testin'

What does Bella do on a snow day? Construct a cube with a glue gun & popsicle sticks. And not just any cube

 

This cube  was strong enough for her to stand on.

 Impressive

Gucci Fall 2011

Bella & I like these purses.

Nico & Alphonse are not fans of Gucci's make-up choice!!!

I like the red lips.

Bella likes this look. It's her favorite color.

A few photos

Maneki Neko "Lucky Cats" in  San Francisco 

September 2010

 In their hotel room

 Joseph was a huge swiss chard fan last yard. He would just pull off a huge leaf and start chomping it. Hopefully he'll be in to it again this year.

 The Menannos with Hattie in Portland, February 2010

Alphonse's Birthday. 08.31.10

Sito's Favorite Tomato Soup

This is a favorite weekday meal or I like to prepare it for the kids when we go out. It's easy & healthy. A perfect compliment to your favorite grilled cheese sandwich. My kids like to top theirs off with goldfish crackers. This is a blended soup, so you can save your fancying chopping for another recipe.

Adapted from Sunset Magazine

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons  butter
• 1  cup  chopped onion
• 1  cup  chopped carrot
• 1  crushed garlic clove
• 1/3  cup  chopped celery
• 1 1/2  cups  chicken broth
• 1  teaspoon  dried basil
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flake
• 1  (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1  (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed & drained
• 1  cup milk, I prefer 1%

Preparation

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add red pepper flake, onion, carrot, celery, and garlic; sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add broth, basil, and tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes. Stir in garbanzo beans until heated. Remove from heat.
Blend using your immersion blender or place half of tomato mixture in a blender, and process until smooth. Pour puréed soup into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining tomato mixture. Return puréed soup to pan; stir in milk. Cook over medium-high heat 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring frequently (do not boil).

My Ten Year Anniversary

My 10 year anniversary was not at all as I had imagined it 10 years ago. A bout of infectious & non infectious illness had plagued my family of 6 for the past 3 weeks and on this day I went down hard with a kidney infection. An invitation from my good friend over at "Never a Dull Moment" to view her new blog was a nice change of pace, on that very hectic day. I decided to take a break from that social networking site and give it a shot also.