Tomato Soup

Last night I just wanted panini and tomato soup for dinner, but I didn't have any tomato soup. No problem, I thought, what do I have in the cabinet? Well, I just happened to have the makings of a pretty fantastic and easy home-made tomato soup, and I wanted to share what I did.

Although, I almost feel bad calling it home-made because it was so easy.

-2 cans of diced tomatoes, basil garlic and olive oil flavor
-about 1/2 c. of milk
-4 tbsp butter
-salt and pepper

Open the two cans of diced tomatoes and dump them in a sauce pan, juice and all. Bring them to a boil, then let them simmer for 30 minutes. Once they have simmered, blend them up, either in a blender, food processor, or one of those hand-held milkshake maker deals (this is what I used). Note that if you're going to use a milkshake maker thing, it is probably a good idea to take the pan off of the heat before you do this. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. Anyway, once it is blended up, put it back on the stove over very low heat - you don't want it to bubble anymore, just stay warm. Add the salt, pepper, milk, and butter and stir until combined and warmed through. That's pretty much it.

Of course, you could add herbs, more milk, cheese, anything you'd like at this point - but I used the already seasoned tomatoes so I didn't have to do any of that stuff. I'm all about easy these days.

What's in a Name?

At 20 weeks, we found out we're having a boy. We found out on my birthday no less, how cool is that?

His room is almost ready and we've already bought him a ton of little outfits - we couldn't help ourselves, we were so excited. K is looking forward to having a son, and there are lots of other little baby boys that we know right now, so he's going to have no shortage of playmates as he grows up.

Baby names are interesting things - I've always felt that children live up to their names. My stepmom pointed out how important names are to God too, and I never really thought about it that way before, but she's right. There are many times in the bible where God either changes some one's name, or identifies a name for a child before he is born.

With this in mind, we've decided to name him Ethan - it means Strong. And he is already living up to it, even before being born. He kicked early, and K got to feel him kick earlier than normal for a first baby.

I'm 27 weeks now and there is no doubting that there is a baby on the way. People don't hesitate to ask now like they did a couple months ago - a couple months ago, it wasn't apparent if there was a baby on the way, or if I was just "eating too much pie" as the security guy at work said.

K and I took a belly picture the other day and I'll be posting that as soon as I can accomplish the pairing up of my camera and my camera dock - one or the other has been at work while its mate is at home since we took the pictures.