Barefoot Bloggers

Thursday's yummy recipe choice is from Natalie at Burned Bits who chose Pappa al Pomidoro.

What a great soup this is! I love tomato soup to begin with, but the ciabatta bread just really makes this one hearty and perfect for winter. Even my husband, who is not a soup guy, ate two bowls worth in one sitting!

I made no alterations to the recipe whatsoever and will definitely add this to my repertoire from now on. I can't wait to see what January's recipes are!

Our Two Little Petri Dishes...er Children...

Children. They bring you so much joy, happiness and germs. They are walking germ factories really!

Our two rambunctious kiddos are currently down with streptococcus pneumonia. Incidentally, when kids are vaccinated with the Prevnar vaccine, it will prevent infection from 7 of the known 23 strains of this bacteria. Leave it to our kids to find one of the other wonderful strains to infect themselves with! Allyson actually has two kinds of pneumonia in two different portions of her lungs. Mycoplasmic in the upper lobe of the right lung and the strep one in the middle lobe. Emily has just the strep in the middle lobe but with the added bonus of double ear infections! YAY FOR US!

So, our Christmas travel plans to see PaPa and Nonna were abruptly put on hold for a few weeks. I have learned to trust my instinct when it comes to my kids and just knew they were not getting well when they should have been.

Tomorrow, we will be Lysol-ing the heck out of anything stationary (and possibly the kids...lol) in the house. If the weather weren't so darn cold we could open the house up and air it out.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone. The Petri Dish Family will be working on getting better!!

Barefoot Bloggers!

I am admittedly late in posting this, but we've had a busy week!

The latest selection for Barefoot Bloggers is for Coq Au Vin, an awesome selection from Bethany from this little piggy went to market!

I was a bit intimidated for some reason to make this. It's not difficult, just time consuming. But ohhh so worth it! What an awesome dish!

The recipe can be found here.

Book Club

So as I sit here, snowed in, I was thinking that it would be nice to curl up on the couch and start a good book. I love to read and yet I rarely have the time or energy to do it. Being around two toddlers all day has a tendency to cause those brain cells to dwindle, so I made an early New Years Resolution that I would get back to doing some things for me: namely, reading again (and not books like 'Hop on Pop' and the 'Daddy Book!').

There is a blog site that I absolutely loooooove to read. It's called Simple Mom and you have probably noticed the logo over on the right. If you have not had a chance to check it out, I highly encourage you to do so. It is filled with wonderful, useful information!! They have also started a book club, beginning in January (and there is also a logo on the right for this too). The books were posted today and I am so excited to get started.

If you have the motivation to join a book club this coming year, join me with this one! It's only 6 books for the whole year, and what really is there to lose by doing it? You can purchase the books through the Simple Mom Amazon shop, but I found great deals by going on eBay (you could probably check your local craigslist too).