In The Kitchen - Soup's On!

There's just a touch of fall in the air in the early morning hours here at our house and I love it! It's still hot in the afternoon, but those cooler mornings have me longing for a big pot of soup simmering on the stove! So today, I'd like you to share your favorite soup recipes!

Two of my favorite soups are Taco Soup and Baked Potato Soup (which I once forgot to use baked potatoes for, but that's another story!). I have no idea where I got the recipe for Taco Soup, but the Baked Potato Soup recipe came from allrecipes.com. Here are the recipes, in case you'd like to try them out soon:

Taco Soup

2 lb. ground chuck, browned and drained

1 medium onion, chopped

4 (16 oz) cans crushed tomatoes

1 (16 oz) can pinto or kidney beans, drained

1 (16 oz) can whole kernel corn, undrained

1 pkg. taco seasoning

1 pkg. ranch dressing mix

1 (4 oz) can chopped green chilies

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 qt. water

Combine all ingredients in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Serve with corn chips, shredded Cheddar cheese and sour cream.

Baked Potato Soup

12 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

2/3 cup butter

2/3 cup all purpose flour

7 cups milk

4 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed

4 green onions, chopped

1 1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground black pepper

In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour until smooth. Gradually stir in milk, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in potatoes and green onions (reserving a few for garnish). Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix in bacon (reserving some for garnish), Cheddar cheese (reserving some for garnish), sour cream, salt and pepper. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until cheese in melted. Serve topped with reserved green onions, bacon and Cheddar cheese.

If you'd like, I love to hear your favorite soup recipes! If this goes well, I'd like to make this a weekly feature here on my blog - a place to share our favorite recipes.

Homeschooling your Preschooler

We have decided to do "preschool" at home this fall, starting sometime after Labor Day. B is almost 3 1/2 and while we have always taken learning opportunities as they come, we will be doing a more structured "school" time.

I purchased four Pre-K books from The Mailbox to use as our "curriculum". This year, we will focus on the Alphabet, Numbers and Colors & Shapes. While B is fairly proficient in these areas already (he can recognize and name all the letters of the alphabet, count to 15 - as well as count objects - and can recognize and name all of the basic colors and shapes), we will be working to solidify these for him, as well as begin working on the sounds the letters make, learning our numbers to at least 20, etc.

I also bought a Day-by-Day lesson plan book for Pre-K. Each week we will have a different "theme", such as weather, community helpers, getting along with others, etc. The plans include craft ideas, books to read, corresponding activities.

I am excited about "school" this fall and think this will be a great learning experience, and a trial period to see if homeschooling is really the way we want to go for our kids. I am interested if any of you have homeschooled your children, and if so, any tips you may have. We are totally new to this and while we've researched homeschooling quite a bit, we have so much to learn.

And with that, I'll leave you with a picture of my beautiful babies, taken this afternoon...

P.S. - Did you know it's hard to get a picture of a teething baby without her hands in her mouth? Or chewing on her shirt? I gave up on trying!

My New Favorite Website

So I have a new favorite website. It's called pinterest.com. Have ya'll heard of it? I hadn't until a few days ago when my friend Tara told me about it. It's great! I don't know of another way to describe it than to call it a virtual bulletin board.

Here's how it works - say you're surfing the web and you see something you like and you think "Hey, that's a great idea. I need to bookmark that or print it off and file it so I'll remember it". But then your computer crashes or you forget you printed it off. With Pinterest, you "pin" the website to a "board" and it's always there. You can have as many boards as you want, too. I've got boards for homeschooling ideas, crafts, recipes, house ideas, kids, etc.

I know it sounds confusing, but trust me - if you just try it, I know you'll love it! If you'd like to try it, just shoot me your e-mail address and I'll send you an invite! (I don't know if you can sign up on your own - you probably can, but my friend sent me an invite).

A Fresh Start

So, can I just tell ya'll? I totally abandoned this blog last year. And I miss it. So I've decided to start over - a fresh start, if you will! So join me - sit down, grab a cup of coffee and follow along as I share about our life. You can also follow me on Twitter @ stella_clark.

Check back often as I blog about anything and everything!

$39.70

Another great day for yard sales! Let's get right to it!



$3.00 - Three John Grisham books (I love him!) and two coloring books for B. I got the Pelican Brief, The Client and the Partner.

$2.50 - Five onesies for A, two maternity tops and three pairs of maternity capri's for me - mostly from JCPenny!



$3.50 - A cute bag (most likely to use for the B's church toys - hubby's response to this was "But it's got flowers on it!" Get over it, hon.), a new box of 20 Christmas cards, two new magnetic notepads for my refrigerator (I use these for my shopping lists), a barely used White Barn candle and a 1/2 full bottle of Bath and Body Works lotion (my favorite scent, too - Midnight Pomegranate).



$2.00 - Two wrenches for the hubs. Because a man can never have too many wrenches.

$7.00 - Two Disney pictures for the playroom. Yes, I know we are selling our house, but these were too cute not to pick up.

$1.00 - A talking Winnie the Pooh ABC book, and Elmo phone and three shovels/diggers for the B's rice table. Woo hoo!

Other items not pictured (because hubby already put them away and I'm too lazy to get up and go take a picture of them):

$20.00 - A large box of golf balls and a like-new pair of Adidas golf shoes for him. Do you know how hard it is to find golf shoes in a size 13?

$0.70 - A Kidz Bop CD and two paddle balls for my nephew C. These have already made their way to his house, which is why I don't have a picture of them.

FREE - A box of golf tees, also for said nephew, also already at his house, which is why I don't have a picture of them. Hubby uses the long tees, but these were perfect for him.

Well, folks, that's it for this week. Tune in again next week (unless I'm too lazy) for another thrilling episode of "Stella's Weekly Yard Sale Finds"!

$52.50

Today was a great day for yard selling! We got in four good hours before the rain started and boy, did we get some AWESOME deals! Enjoy!



$4.00 - a soccer goal and a toy chest for B. B loves to play outside, and the soccer goal will be a great addition to our outdoor toys!



$3.00 - Four Barney books, two Sesame Street books, two James Patterson books (for hubby) and a cookbook for me. We are all about Barney and Play with Me, Sesame at our house these days! B loves the books already!



$2.50 - Seven DVD's, including We are Soldiers with Mel Gibson, a Baby Einstein DVD, a Mommy and Me DVD and four Baby Prodigy DVD's. 'Cause I'm raising a child prodigy, you know. :-)

$5.00 - A very nice mirror that needs no work at all. Just need to figure out where I am going to hang it!

$22.00 - A huge bag full of baby girl clothes and a few maternity things for me. Can I just tell you, baby girl clothes are so much harder to resist that baby boy clothes! All of the clothes I got were name-brand clothes like Gymboree, Carter's, Children's Place, etc. Quite frankly, places I've never shopped in my life - I can't stand to pay retail prices for kids clothes when I can get them at yard sales for next to nothing!

$1.00 - An entire box of like-new books for B. Wow! I counted, and there are 57 books in this box. They are all Disney (Mickey Mouse and friends, Winnie the Pooh) and a series called Child's World. All of those books are lessons about different things like colors, shapes, months of the year, etc. And I got the entire box for $1.00!! That equals out to 1.7 cents each!! And they are seriously like-new - no tears or markings in them or anything! I am stoked!!

And my very best deal of the day...

$15.00 - An entire Christmas Village. Seriously, you ask? Yes, seriously! There were 45 "big" pieces (houses, churches, schools, post offices, general stores, etc.) and two boxes of "little" pieces (decorational items like people, cars, etc). All of it for $15.00!! That could be the deal of the summer!! It equals out to 33 cents per "big" piece. Can you belive that?? It's craziness!!

All in all, not a bad day if I do say so myself!! If the weather holds out, we plan on having our annual yard sale at Mom's house next weekend, so come out and get some great deals!! We price it cheap and will most often negotiate!!

$33.55

Yard sale season it upon us, so it's time for me to start blogging about all my great finds! We've already been yard selling for a couple of weekends, but I forgot to write down/take pictures of what I bought. So we'll just start with this week! Here we go...


$1.80 - Seven picture frames. I always pick up cheap picture frames at yard sales - I usually paint the frames a different color (most always black), and I love to display pictures in my home.


$1.00 - a book for B, a Vince Flynn book for myself and a cookbook with recipes cakes, cookies and pastries. Yummy!


$2.25 - a Pier 1 mirror (it's supposed to be to put candles on, but I am planning on hanging it in my bathroom), two Christmas CD's and a new candle for the $0.25 outdoor candle holder I bought last week!


$5.00 - a like-new Little Tykes swing for B/the new baby. These things sell for $26.00 at Wal-Mart!

$1.50 - Two miniature Christmas trees for my front porch and another (not pictured) 4-foot Christmas tree with lights. The top part of it is slightly broken, but it's nothing a little JB Weld won't fix! :-)

$3.00 - A pair of Motherhood Maternity capris, a Duo Maternity shirt and a Motherhood Maternity shirt. Love getting maternity clothes for cheap!

$16.00 - A ton of clothes for our new yet-to-be-named baby girl that is due in October! The stash includes eight complete outfits, two long-sleeved shirts and 12 onesies. I love onesies - Brady lived in these while we were at home!

$3.00 - Four shirts and two pairs of shorts for B. For some reason, I neglected to buy him many 2T short-sleeved shirts during yard sale season last year. So I am making up for it this year!

After we finished yard selling, we stopped by a consignment sale in Knoxville that my friend Ashley told me about. We went during the half-price time, and I bought a ton of little girl clothes and a pair of Crocs for B for $20.75. My Mom also bought a bag full of girl clothes for $11.50. We really racked up!

That's it for my first yard sale post of the season! Look for many more to come!