Big news...I purchased my first cookbook this week!  I was able to spend some time with a good friend this weekend who is one of those girls that just lives "the life" - gorgeous country home with Southern touches, beautiful family, grows a garden, is getting chickens, pulled a cake out of the oven when we were there and served it up (it was a coffee cream cake and SO DANG GOOD,I was still thinking about it the next day).  Anyway, I actually went over to look at her collection of cookbooks because she had been telling me about how they were all of the farm-foods, NOT fancy, Southern-cooking variety.

I got looking through this one -

And knew that I had to have it.  There's probably lots of recipes I won't be making - like I don't anticipate myself stuffing my own sausages or making my own cheese - but the pictures were beautiful and the recipes just seemed so simple.  My girlfriend said that she loved the recipe for the Basic White Bread Dough.  Can't get much easier and better than that.

All this cookbook perusing definitely has me itching to buy more.  I have always been one to just cook out of necessity, to feed me and Brad, and while I don't dislike it, I usually don't take my time and search through recipe after recipe.  I try to pick things that are easy and not too fattening/rich.  But I have a new vision of myself getting a cookbook, sitting down with a cup of coffee and poring over it to find a recipe that sounds so good to me and then getting to work.

And because I would be remiss if I didn't post anything about my sweet girl, here she is sitting on my desk yesterday while I worked:

Is it possible that they can truly get sweeter and sweeter each day?  Because this peanut definitely does.

I Just Can't

Welcome to my life lately:

Honestly, having weather that is NEGATIVE FIFTEEN (or lower, it has been lower than that this week) has to be some sort of punishment from God.  I almost believe that, no joke.  For those of you that have never gotten the pleasure of experiencing any kind of negative temperatures, here's my summary: you walk outside and your lungs immediately seize up and you feel like you have to cough (at least I do).  The snow - if there is snow, which usually there is up here - doesn't push around under your feet, you just sorta squeak on top of it.  It almost makes your skin burn if you have to stand out in it for more than a minute.  And the most uncomfortable sensation is that the hair in your nose starts to freeze up.  It's so weird.  Or maybe I just have a lot of hair in my nose, I don't know?  

At any rate, I know they say that hell is supposed to be a fiery furnace but I'm thinking that it's really a frozen negative wasteland.  

So because of it being so blasted cold this week, I have literally done almost nothing.  I've gone out once with my sister in law, and yesterday when it warmed up to about 10 degrees (which seriously felt SO good) I went to the store and to get my bangs trimmed.  Otherwise, I have been hunkered down in my house with this little lady:

Who, in this picture that was taken on a Friday night around 10pm, had decided that she apparently wasn't tired at all.  Whatever, it was a Friday and thankfully we didn't have to get up for work the next day, but when they're this age and they're wide awake past their bedtime, this happy little attitude only lasts for about 10 minutes.  Then it turns into fussing and squirming and eye-rubbing and general crankiness.  But yet they are awake and don't want to be rocked, shushed or head-rubbed to sleep.  Or maybe just my child, cause let's face, I'm clearly no Sleep Whisperer.  I just thank the good Lord she sleeps through the night!

Here she is watching her Praise Baby DVD and starting to take after her Daddy with the "blank stare at the TV" expression.  (Just kidding, she was yawning.  But still, it's funny).  If you don't follow me on IG this won't make sense but you know that picture I posted of me wearing socks and how I said I don't ever wear socks?  As you can I'm passing this down to my child.  I have to remind myself to put socks on her because while my feet might not mind the cold I'm sure it's not comfortable for her little ones!

And this has been my obsession - creating my own pretty documents in Microsoft Word (cause I don't have a clue how to use Photoshop or whatever program you would use for this kind of stuff).  I've made this calendar and a meal planner document that are pink and perfect for February!

Lately

• I'm just starting to feel recovered from Christmas and finally settled in our house!  There's still so much more to do, like hang decorations and curtains and get chairs for our [GORGEOUS] dining room table that Brad just built, but it definitely feels like home.  And then by the time that's done it'll be spring and we'll have to start on our outdoor projects.  I will gladly welcome that one, it's been freeeezing here lately and I'm more than ready to get outside!
• Weight Watchers is still going well, I'm losing little-by-little.  It's gratifying to see the hard work pay off, but it's difficult to be at the gym and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think, "Oh wow, I have a ways to go still..."  Just being totally honest.  Anytime I have those thoughts I try very hard to steer my mind towards the things that this body has achieved for me, best thing being Hadley, and that I'm not just sitting on the couch being mad that I'm not what I once was.  I'm working hard to get back to where I was.  I could throw my hands up and say, "well, this is good enough, I'm only 10lbs from my lowest weight" but honestly, that motivates me even more to push harder.  
• Also on the Weight Watchers front, or weight loss in general, I've been making a ton of Skinnytaste recipes lately, here's the ones I've made and loved (among many others, you can't go wrong with her recipes!):

Skinnytaste Cajun Chicken Pasta
Skinnytaste Baked Chicken Parmesan
Skinnytaste Baked Potato Soup
Skinnytaste Spinach Lasagna Rolls
Skinnytaste Pasta with Butternut Squash, Spinach and Sausage

• I've found myself saying for the first time in years that I have been hurt by friends.  This is a strange feeling to me, mostly because, though I feel like I'm someone that has a firecracker temper (I can set off quickly), I really don't get truly hurt or offended often.  I think a lot of this I attribute to being someone that trusts easily and without condition, but when I feel like that's tampered with, it's hard for me regain that trust. All I know is that the pain has cut deep and makes me not want to put myself "out there" for it to happen again.
• On the other hand, I've recently been able to grow some new relationships (kind of - one was an old roommate from Minneapolis that moved here with her husband, but we hadn't talked in years!) that have made me thankful for the sweet girls I'm surrounded with in this little town.
• Hadley....I can't have a blog post without an update on this little dumpling!  She amazes me more every day.  She will be 5 months old in a few days and when I'm literally hefting her 17lbs+ body around the house and in that dang car seat - so incredibly ready for the next stage - I think to myself, it feels like yesterday that my doctor was holding her tiny body up over the curtain so I could see her for the first time!  She's a spunky little baby with lots to say and while she likes her independence, she is just so darn sweet and loves to be near you.  A couple people have commented that she's got an almost tender personality.  It's hard to describe because it's not like she's gently laying her hands on your cheek or anything, but she just has this sweet, unaffected, pure curiosity an demeanor about her.  She will sit forever in the kitchen in her Bumbo chair while I make dinner, or on my desk while I work, just because she likes to be near you and be a part of the commotion.  She literally wakes up with a huge smile on her face, every single day.  One thing that has been on my mind lately is how her sweet personality is truly a gift that God has given us, and that it's our responsibility as her parents to encourage that in her and make sure by our own actions that we don't snuff it out in her.  It would be so easy to do that, and I'm finding things in mine and Brad's everyday conversations that we will really need to be careful with once she's a little older.  We're not a swearing household [well, we have our moments, ha], but a child can pick up on your attitude in a second.  Basically I just so love who I'm already seeing her become and that's how I want her to stay!

She's starting to get into things!  This was too funny, I turned around from the stove and she had started unraveling the paper towels

Just a random photo to show you all how I have to drink my wine these days - in 5oz glasses!  It's nowhere near as fun to measure it as it is to just pour however much you feel like having :)

This is what we're dealing with these days, she's a rolling machine - at least from back to belly, still not rolling too much from belly to back.  She's always off her blanket and usually running into furniture.  And yes, I noticed after I took this picture that she had spit up on the floor.  Par for the course, happens all the time :)

Sometimes we have days where this girl just is not happy anywhere, doing anything, except for being held.  This was one of those days but since I had to work I put her in her Bumbo on my desk and played an Usher music video for her in a split screen so I could keep working.  She was totally into it, cutest thing ever

Anytime she's in this little walker she will look up at me and just smile like she is the biggest girl ever.  Can't even handle it.  She was looking a mess this day, obviously

Getting that toe in her mouth!  It's like one day she discovered she had feet and that was all she wanted to play with

Sitting up like a big girl!  This picture makes me want to eat her up.  Also it's proof that I do occasionally dress her in clean clothes that do not consist of a white Carter's long sleeved onesie (but those things are wonderful and when you're in the house all the time, they're perfect)

Um.  Where is my little baby?  Cause this is a BIG BABY.