More Jack!

My SIL, Amy, has told me that my nephew has quite the obsession with our blog, ie Jack. Whenever she is looking at it he asks for "More Jack, more Jack" and when she goes away from our blog, he throws a royal tantrum. I have a feeling James may be growing bored of the same pictures, so here are some more for his viewing pleasure.

We went to the zoo yesterday with our playgroup. Jack seemed to be more interested in the rocks than the animals, but that's okay. He loved riding on the carousel.

The last two pictures are a prime example of what happens when Dad is in charge on a Sunday morning (ie, the onesie snapped outside of the pj's) We built a huge pillow pile with the couch cushions and had fun throwing him onto it. Jack just kept saying "again, again!"

PUMPKIN SOUP WITH MEXICAN CINNAMON CREME FRAICHE

I made a great soup last night, and have to share the recipe. Here it is. It comes from a restaurant called Mesa Grill.....I can only assume it's in AZ, but I just found it online when I was searching for a yummy pumpkin soup recipe.

I think I made this more difficult than it needed to be. I bought some baking pumpkins at the store, so I cleaned them out, baked them, and then pureed the pumpkin. You can just use canned pumpkin, but I wanted to use fresh for some reason. Next time I'm definitely going to use canned (fresh was really good, but a pain!).

And I'm a little unsure about the vegetable stock vs water. The first few steps of the directions seem to me like you're just making the vegetable stock (which I did) but if you were using canned vegetable stock I assume you could skip those steps and move on to the pumpkin step...but I could be wrong.

I think the soup was great as I used all the fresh ingredients, but again, next time I'm going to make it easier on myself and see how it tastes!

Ingredients
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 stocks celery, coarsely chopped
7 cups vegetable stock, or water
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (not flavored pie filling)
1/4 teaspoon ground Mexican cinnamon, plus 1 teaspoon (canella)
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons chipotle puree (I bought a small can of chipotle peppers in the Mexican food section at the grocery store, I think they were in Adobo sauce - or something like that- and just pureed them in my chopper. They definitely added some kick, but the soup wouldn't be the same without them)
3/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream (I just used sour cream, and sprinkled the cinnamon on top of the soup, I didn't mix it with the sour cream)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Garnish: 1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds (I didn't use the garnish)

Directions

Heat the butter in a medium stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, carrots and celery and cook until soft. Add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Strain the stock into a clean medium saucepan and whisk in the pumpkin puree until smooth. Bring to a simmer and add the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, spices, honey and chipotle. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Add water, if the soup is too thick. Remove from the heat and whisk in 1/4 cup of the creme fraiche and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix together the remaining creme fraiche and remaining 1 teaspoon cinnamon until combined. Divide the soup among 4 bowls and garnish with the cinnamon creme fraiche and a handful of pumpkin seeds.

Drumroll please.....

And it's a boy! Yep, Jack is going to have a little brother. We're really excited. It's crazy to think that we're going to have another baby boy soon.

It's a good thing he's cute

We went to the pumpkin patch with our playgroup this morning. Jack had a lot of fun loading up the stroller with pumpkins. For some reason he picked a lot of rotten ones to load up....luckily those magically made their way back to the pumpkin patch.
The pumpkin patch we went to was so cute. The people who run it set up a lot of "photo op" spots. Jack was a trooper to let me take so many pictures of him.
It's fun to get dirty before noon.
Jack was thrilled that they had tractors he could sit on. We'll have to bring daddy back soon and spend some more time here. Many more things to explore, and all free. Yes!













Jack has been unusally crabby today. For some reason he's woken up at 6:30 AM the last two days, whereas he usually wakes up at 7:30 AM. And once he's awake, there's not a chance he'll go back down. Sigh. I figure a) he's just overtired
b) he's getting a cold or something
c) he's cutting his two-year molars. He won't let me near his mouth though, so I can't confirm this one.

I know he desperately needs a nap, but he's fighting me on it this afternoon. I desperately need him to nap! One can only take so much whining.

But, when I look at these cute pictures, I realize that it's okay that he's whining. He's cute, and I love him. We all have rough days. I'm sure there have been many days that I've whined this much to JP, and he just takes it like a man. I just hope he feels better and cheers up soon. I haven't seen nearly enough smiles from my boy today.