Best Soup ever!!!

I am madly in love with this soup!!! I have made it twice in the past week and would willingly have it again for dinner tonight, okay lunch, why not.
I found this recipe in my Blendtec recipe book, and while I was not intrigued by the name, thankfully I tried it anyway.

Beans and Greens Soup
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
2 cups broth (or more)
4 cups kale, ribs removed and roughly chopped
2 (15 oz.) cans white beans, drained, rinsed and divided
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cumin

Heat some oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, cook 5 minutes or until tender. Add 1 cup broth and kale and cover. Cook until kale is wilted, about 5 minutes. While kale is cooking, add half the beans, remaining broth, and spices to a blender and puree. Pour bean mixture into the pan with the kale, add remaining beans. Simmer for 5 minutes and serve.

You will notice in the picture there are little orange jewels floating around. We had some roasted sweet potatoes that we added in, the first time. The second time we made it we added in some roasted rosemary cauliflower. While certainly not necessary it was fabulous!!!

Make your own fresh evergreen wreath

After cutting the lower branches off our Christmas tree, as always, I decided to make a wreath.
This time I am going to attempt a tutorial. Please excuse the terrible lighting in the pictures.
I started with some old dry cleaning hangers. I used two twisted together at the ends and formed into a crude circle. Don't worry too much about this, it is pretty forgiving.

 Next, cut your branches into little pieces of greenery, like this. Again, they don't need to be perfect, because it is easy to disguise.

 Next, I laid a bunch of these sprigs over the hanger going in the same direction laying the green part over the stick part of the last one. Just to hide as much of the wood as you can.
Next, I got some green florist wire at the dollar store. Start wrapping the wire around the branches, attaching them to the hanger wire. Just keep wrapping around and around. It is okay if the greenery is getting held down. We will make it fluffier later.

 Here, in this terrible picture you can see how it looks skinnier after the wire is wrapped around. After you have gone around the circle once, do it again. Lay more branches on top, overlapping as you go, going the same direction each time.

 After going around the wreath, adding sprigs, three times the wreath should be looking pretty thick. Then, take some sprigs and (in the same direction) start shoving them under the wire. This makes it look fuller and more natural. The above picture shows what it looks like after this step.

 Then, I decided to add a different kind of green to give the wreath some depth and added interest. I cut some sprigs off of a Juniper bush in our yard and added those. I really like the two different kinds of greens in the wreath.

 I really like the natural look, but my girls really wanted some shine in it. So I wired some little plastic red balls (dollar store) and wired them right to the wreath.

 Then I hung it up above my beloved mantle.