Broccoli Potato Soup

Hi All, Beth here, I haven't posted in a while, but I made some delicious soup tonight that I though I would share. We were out of town this weekend and I didn't feel like going to the grocery store today, so I started looking to see what I could come up with using what I already had in the house and decided on soup.

I just kind of made it up as I went along which is pretty common practice for me and I thought it turned out well enough that I would share. Pinkerton and my hubby loved it as well and it was only about 6 WW points plus for a cup for anyone who is interested.

Ingredients:

2 cans (28oz) of chicken broth

1 cup chopped potatoes

1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli

3/4 cup of milk

2 Tbs. butter

2 Tbs. flour

3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

salt and pepper

Instructions:

Chop potatoes into bite size pieces, put in a pot with the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Let these cook about 10 minutes or until they start to get tender. While the potatoes are cooking, chop the broccoli into small pieces and make sure you keep all the little scraps that fall off while you are cutting. Put the broccoli in with the potatoes and cook another 10 minutes.

In a small sauce pan make a roux with the butter and flour and then slowly whisk in the milk and cook over low heat until thick whisking often. Mix the thickened milk mixture into the pot with the chicken broth, potatoes and broccoli and bring it all to a simmer. Then add the cheese and stir. Let simmer for another 10 minutes or until thick. Salt and pepper to taste. I served it with corn bread.

Like I said, Pinkerton gobbled it up! Hope you enjoy!

Too Short Shirt to Dress

Good Afternoon, it is Jennifer. I am here to share a recent transformation I did for little Cupcake.

I ran across a tutorial on Make It and Love It, a blog I follow and love, on how to repurpose a shirt into a dress and decided I really needed to try it out! The dress she made was just way too cute and I couldn't resist. I found a shirt in Cupcake's closet that fit, but was just a little too short. I wish I would have taken a before picture, but I totally forgot. I had some fabric my Mom picked up for me (thanks Mom!) at Tuesday Morning, of all places, that I hadn't found a use for yet. I took a look, and thought it would match perfectly with her too-short shirt.

Looking super cool in her shades and new dress

Ashley's tutorial was great! It was easy to follow and provided lots of pictures that helped guide me through the process. She even taught me what a french seam was and how easy it was to do! I did struggle a little with getting the pleats right - I am not experienced when it comes to pleats. Because I struggled with the pleats, I changed how I attached the skirt to the shirt. Ashley's tutorial directs you to sew the skirt wrong side to the right side of the shirt, allowing the top of the pretty pleats you made show. It looks super cute on Ashley's version, but I realized mine would not look that cute. My pleats were not as pretty. So, I attached the skirt right sides together instead. I also decided to have the sash tie on the side, rather than the back, just for fun.

Perfect twirling skirt!

And that was it. A too-short shirt, transformed into a super cute dress! The first time I put it on my little darling, she said, "I look pretty in mine dress." Yes darling you do look very pretty :-)

Showing of the back

She insisted on wearing her necklace with the new dress

Fancy Football Shirts

Andrea here! We are big Colts fans in this house and that extends to our two girls as well. They both jump and yell and scream just like Mommy and Daddy when the Colts are playing. We went downtown for the SuperBowl festivities a few weeks ago and that was when I realized that my kids had outgrown their current Colts shirts. Time remedy that! Unfortunately, the only options that were left at the stores were boy shirts. Both girls scoffed at the idea of wearing a "boy" shirt (too bad they were with me or they would have never known), so I bought one size up for next year and offered to make them more "girly." I asked my 5 year old what that meant to her and of course it meant pink and sparkles. I was at Michaels picking up a few other things anyway and found some supplies that I thought would work well. Pink and sparkles it is! Here are the shirts before, washed and ready to go with wax paper inside so the shirt wouldn't stick together from the paint:



Our supplies, pink puffy paint and spray-on glitter:

My 2 year old's shirt, before:

I began by using the puffy paint to make an outline:

Originally this was all I was going to do but my 5 year old suggested coloring in the entire horseshoe and adding sparkles all over the shirt and once big sis said it, little sis wanted it:

The spray-on sparkles were pretty neat:

First shirt, complete:

The shirt for my 5 year old, before:

Once again, filling in the white areas with pink at her suggestion:

For this, I put paper around on 4 sides to make a straight box around the logo:

And again around this logo (I also put some on my fingers and smeared it on the partial black horseshoe on above):

Second shirt, complete:

Two "boy" Colts shirts, transformed:

My kids love them and they'll be all ready for next season!