recipe from my grandma

the three of us drove down to see my grandma yesterday, and so that kevin could do a couple of things for her around the house. i love that kevin is so good to her. my grandma cooked for us, and let me tell you, i devoured my food. i can't really describe it, but it was a happy moment, and i told her i think i enjoyed it even more because we rarely sit down to a meal that someone else has cooked. that is not a complaint, just a fact. and a meal is always better when it's cooked by someone that you love. so anyway, i had to share one of the side dishes that she made. i have never had canned diced tomatoes as a side dish, and i would have read this recipe and skipped right past it, but now that i've had it, i'm hooked. and of course i made it again today. yesterday we had it with pork chops and it was so delicious.
i hope you will try it out. it's kind of crazy how good it is.

since we've loved fresh tomatoes all summer, 

this will be a perfect transition into a dish to make for the winter months ahead.

a tablespoon or so of butter, a large handful of diced yellow onion, sautee in a pan.

add one large can of diced tomatoes, drained.

add a little bit of black pepper.

simmer for about 10 minutes.

transfer to a baking dish and add a little mozzarella cheese,
put under the broiler until cheese starts to brown.

i was able to make 2 individual serving dishes worth, out of this.

{my grandma topped hers with a few croutons, 

and used grated parmesan cheese instead of mozzarella. 

i used what we had and either way is just as delicious}.

it's been a rainy day today, and we've loved it.
boyd has today and tomorrow as a school holiday.
it felt like old times having him with me all day.
today we went grocery shopping, to the trampoline park,
and picked up an angry birds happy meal bucket from mcdonald's.
 i was happy to have a day with him.

 he picked this {weed} flower from a neighbor's yard and ran up to me and said,
do you like it? it can be yours.
and so i gladly took it from him.

and, boyd has had a loose tooth for a couple of weeks now. we first discovered it in san antonio while we were brushing his teeth. he's bitten down on it a few times and made it bleed. tonight he bit wrong and let out a scream. we went into the bathroom, i calmly cleaned up the blood, we wiggled it and talked about it, and i asked him if he felt like pulling it. he tried a couple of times, and then i thought he was just going to stop, and all of a sudden he hands me his tooth. oh my sweet boy.
you never understand why this is such an exciting milestone, until it finally happens.
exciting and bittersweet.
and bless his heart, he has such a gap on top, that at first glance you might not be able to tell that he lost his bottom tooth. 

i certainly didn't want boyd to be scared again, after our week long zombie scare,
so we told him that the tooth fairy would come but that she's invisible and he won't even know.
he wrote her name on this envelope.

boyd is now fast asleep,
and the tooth fairy has delivered a sweet note and a few dollar bills and 4 coins.

goodnight.

love,
nicolle