The good, the bad, and the blog

Y'all, this soup is so delicious, I had to share the recipe. Make it this week and enjoy it with this beautiful, cool weather and a glass of wine.

Here is the original recipe, but I adapted it a little. I didn't have roasted red peppers in my kitchen so I diced up and sauteed some tomatoes and it was still great.

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb chicken sausage
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons tomato paste
32 oz chicken broth
1 package gnocchi
1 bag fresh spinach
3/4 cup half n' half
Parmesan cheese
Fresh basil
Red pepper flakes

Directions:

In a skillet, saute sausage until browned, set aside.
Meanwhile, in a dutch oven/heavy pot, saute onion and tomatoes in olive oil on medium heat until soft. Add garlic and tomato paste and saute another minute or two. Season with S&P.
Drain sausage and add to onion/tomato mixture. Then add chicken broth, season again with S&P, Turn heat down to med-low and simmer for 20 minutes.
Stir in the gnocchi and bag of spinach and cook for about 10 minutes, until gnocchi and soft and float to the top.
Add half n' half, basil, and red pepper flakes, stir to combine, Serve and top with grated Parmesan (if desired).

I don't have a picture because David ate half the pot in one sitting. Enjoy!

It's amazing to think about how much has happened in the last month+...it's gone by fast and slow all at the same time.

The first few weeks we had grandparents visit which was loads of help.

Unfortunately, something not so fun that happened was that Cyrus had to have surgery at 3 weeks old.

We found out at the very end of my pregnancy that his kidneys & ureters were dilated (not normal). After many appointments and procedures, it showed that he has bilateral vesicoureteral reflux - this is where urine is backing up into his ureters and kidneys instead of all draining down towards the bladder. Turns out, we are actually quite familiar with this abnormality because my mom and I BOTH were born with this also (oops, sorry for the bad genes, kid). Because it was found so early and it was quite severe, we had to immediately schedule surgery to perform a cutaneous vesicostomy - this is where they bring his bladder up to his abdomen and make an incision from where his urine now drains from. The way everything is aligned with this basically forces the urine to drain from the kidneys, which will protect and heal them hopefully. It was quite a whirlwind, but we are thankful for so much. The doctors and staff at the Children's hospital here were incredibly wonderful and Cyrus is healing really well. We still have more check ups, ultrasounds, scans and another surgery ahead of us, but for now he's being a champ and seems to be recovering as great as we could have hoped for.

We would love it if you can pray for continued healing for Cyrus. Also, if anyone else is going through this with their child or you know someone who is, I would love to encourage them and share our experience.

Back to the good stuff:

And then, just like that, he was 1 month old!

He is really a lot more alert now. He loves to be held and rocked, going on walks, playing on his activity mat and looking around at the world. But more importantly now he has started smiling at us. I know i'm biased, but it's pretty heart melting.