I bet you've been wondering. . .

We are all doing fine. Well, except for Bray ~ last night he said he couldn't go 5 seconds without coughing at school yesterday. He didn't cough once at home and no fever or anything, so we are thinking there might be some dust or something at school that he's allergic to. Speaking of allergies, when we did the testing on Bray, he was most allergic to Orchard Grass ~ which we had never heard of! Yesterday Chris and I were in Fleet Farm and they sell Orchard Grass as a "sweet treat" for hamsters, and that stuff!

Yesterday
Brayton had another ortho appt at 8:30 and everything is looking good and on track! Only 3 more times to turn the key and then next Thursday we go back to make sure it's where it needs to be and we are done widening!!! Yay!

After his appt, I had to get my Grandma some groceries and she wanted cash by writing the check over. . . I couldn't think of anywhere that would still do that, but I guessed HyVee might and they do * * * whew* * * Since I had to go all the way into Rochester for a HyVee, I swung into Savers :D I found a Triopoly game for kids! We enjoy playing the adult version at my mom and dad's so I thought it would be fun to try this one with the boys and for $3 I couldn't pass that up. Brayton and I played last night before bed (his bedtime, not mine). He is such a good sport that I feel like we need to force Taite to play just so he'll get used to being a good sport! We were laughing so much at one time that Taite came up to see what we were doing and then went back downstairs to his chair to watch more TV (boring. . . :D)

I know you know that we LOVE soup here and you know what I like even more than good soup? Good easy soup! Here is a recipe that my mom found in a free small magazine she picked up at a gas station:
Tomato Basil Soup
4 Tbsp onion, chopped
4 Tbsp butter (we used 3 of Smart Balance spread)
2 (14.5 oz) cans Del Monte diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano (Del Monte was the only brand I could find with all 3 spices)
2 Tbsp sugar (the boys, Chris included, thought this was too much, so I'll try less next time)
10 oz evaporated milk

Cook onions in butter with a little water (if you use SB, there is some water content already in there :D) until tender. Puree tomatoes, sugar and onion mixture in the blender (do NOT add the milk as this makes it really frothy and not soup like consistency ~ I learned that when I was just making plain tomato soup from the can for Bray's lunch after getting his "appliance" in). Pour blended mixture into a stove top pan and add evap. milk and heat.

This soup was very yummy (don't get it too hot because the milk will kind of curdle. . .) and we paired it up with another really easy recipe that I had been meaning to try:

Herbed Pull-Apart Bread
1 tube refrigerated bread stick dough
2 Tbsp butter, melted (again, used SB)
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried oregano

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Remove dough from can and slice (mine were already in 8 pieces of rolled up dough "sticks") into 8 rounds. Do not unroll the twists (they will look like those cinnamon rolls you get in a can).
Place rounds on an ungreased baking sheet with sides touching ~ 2 rows of 4.
Combine the other ingredients in a small bowl. Mix well.
Brush the herb butter over the tops of the rolls, using all the mixture.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

I'm thinking that the small bar pan from Pampered Chef would work just as well, if not better, than a big baking sheet. These were extremely easy as well and a hit with the boys! Oh, and I tried one other thing last night. We had a bunch of broccoli and it needed to get eaten. I wanted to steam it, but we had red onion and bacon pieces (I LOVE those little packs of real bacon bits you can get! When you calculate the price, it's really a good deal and you don't smell after using them! :D) so I was also thinking salad. I ended up steaming the broccoli and onion. Drained the water off, put about 1 - 1 1/2 Tbsp of ranch dressing on it and covered it again so the dressing would warm up. I added a couple shakes of the bacon to the broccoli/onion/dressing mixture and they practically licked their plates clean!

Last week we were in the grocery store and anytime the boys want cereal, it's a big deal because we watch the sugar content of them along with the BHT they add to packaging. I looked over and here was Bray:



We probably have one of very few 7 year olds who reads the labels in the grocery store aisle, but I tell you ~ it HAS cut down on the arguing we get from them when they don't get the sugary cereals! In fact, they had Reduced Sugar Frosted Flakes on sale and we rarely get those, so I picked up a box. Taite asked me today why we purchased them ~ um, they were on sale and reduced sugar. . . He won't touch them because they have BHT in the packaging! Guess what I had for breakfast so we can get that box out of the pantry. . . . :D