E's New Bedroom!

We are expecting baby number two in January! The ultrasounds indicated that this baby is going to be a little girl, just like E. Eventually, they will probably share a bedroom, but for now, with E such a light sleeper, we are going to give the nursery to the new baby and give E the guest bedroom. 

I wanted it to function as a guest bedroom as well until the last possible minute so in order to accomplish that I've left the bed in there for now. I'm going to move the crib in next week and let E start sleeping in there to get used to it. 

The first thing I did was paint. I always forget to take before pictures, but you have to imagine that the walls were a light brownish pink, not as bad as I'm describing but not very pretty. I painted a light blue with white ceiling to make the room look lighter (there is only one window.)

Next I took the doors off of the closet. They were the accordion doors that come out into the room. They took up a lot of space when they were open, and E couldn't get them open herself. I found baskets at the dollar store and labeled them for her clothes. She loves going in there now and picking clothes out in the morning!

Next I added a corner book area. It was a really awkward space, and not enough room for any furniture, so I used drawer dividers (also from the dollar store) and screwed them into the wall.

I also made the curtains and am working on a quilt for E to go in the room. If you want to read more about that, you can see them on my other blog, here.

Sweet Potato Soup

I know, another post about food, and again, no pictures! I promise to try and do better, but this time, it's not my fault. My server where we store the pictures is down, so I can't post about E's new bedroom, which was what I was going to do today. Instead, I'm going to talk about my new favorite fall soup. I made this last night from the all recipes website, and it was so good, my husband had seconds!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 apple, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup lentils (the original recipe says red, but i just had regular lentils and it was fine)
1/4 tp powdered ginger
1/2 tp black pepper
1/2 tp cumin
1/2 tp chili powder
1/2 tp paprika
4 cups veggie broth (I used chicken bouillon cubes and cut out the 1 tp salt original recipe called for)

Directions:
Melt the butter in a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Place the chopped veggies and apple in the pot and cook about 10 minutes, until onions are translucent.

Stir in lentils and all seasonings, including broth. Cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes. Then puree with an immersion blender or blend in batches in your blender.