my favorite recipe blogs

once upon a time (pre-pregnancy), i loved to cook! and my two greatest sources for recipes never failed me.

1. mel's kitchen cafe
2. prevention rd

these two blogs have so many fabulous recipes that are usually healthy, always tasty and pretty easy!

some of my favorites from mel include: stacked enchiladas, sweet and sour chicken, lemon/garlic/spinach pasta

favorites from prevention rd are as followed: tikka masala and taquitos

christmastime!

i have to admit that i was kind of sad this christmas because it was my first one without my immediate family and all the traditions of the christmas season...we stayed in provo because jodie's baby was arriving in the weeks after the holiday and cory desperately wanted to be there for the birth! also, cory's family was coming to utah to celebrate the baby and the holiday, so we figured it'd be best to work through break and spend time with the hills! :)

thus, i bought us cute stockings off etsy and cory had to go in the crawlspace under the house to get the "6 foot" tree that really was like 4 feet tall. we decorated it with some lights and ornaments from costco, classy, and created a wrapping station in our guest room! earlier that summer, i had made a 25 days of christmas gift/note thing for cory, so each day he would get one of his favorite things or a coupon or a note. it was fun for the first part of the month and then i stopped doing it. poor cory! at least he got some good presents out of it and we had a few fun activities and date nights together! aside from the birthday cake oreos, iTunes gift card and reeses, i think he enjoyed coloring and baking the white mugs with sharpie markers! i even made one for my mom saying "master gardener". too bad the marker came off in the dishwasher! that was a sad day for all! 

we enjoyed having cory's family close by and went to vernal for a day and a half for my cousin haley's wedding! it was a beautiful winter wedding with fun pb&j's and donuts at the reception! i loved going to temple square and starbucks with my in-laws and nick's family to see all the beautiful lights! on christmas eve morning, jodie's water broke, so all the plans were on hold for christmas! i finished up a sour cream pumpkin cheesecake and my favorite winter salad and we headed up to nick's for a christmas dinner-one that shelly, craig, adam and jodie were noticeably absent at! cor and i took some food over to the hospital around 9 that evening and stayed for an hour or so while jodie labored and then we went home to sleep, with dreams of nieces dancing in our heads! 

around 3 or 4 am, we got the text that our first niece brierly michele murphy was born! we were so excited, we decided to celebrate by opening all our christmas presents! it was quite an atypical christmas, as we headed to bed after unwrapping all our carhart clothes and fine china. we woke up later and went to a gas station to get some hot chocolate to take to the hospital to jodie. i remember us telling the gas station clerk "merry christmas! we're off to see our new niece!" it was so fun to hold tiny brierly! we went home and kind of sat around for awhile not knowing what to do...everthing was clean and it was quiet and it didn't really feel like christmas! that night, cory and i went out to yamato for christmas sushi-a tradition i doubt we will partake of again. unless of course, there's another christmas baby! 

later that week, we had a little celebration at jodie's house with cory's whole family, including #chandice where shelly and craig spoiled us all with presents and stockings. it was a christmas i doubt we'll ever forget! 

that next week, i threw jodie a baby shower for her baby girl, thanks to my mom who sent a baby shower in a box! it was so cute with pink everything and a little luncheon and lots of people showed up considering how late notice it was (sorry!). brierly was blessed the next day at church by her dad and it was perfect because all of the family was there for it! 

one of my presents was a big recipe binder from granny and/or dorothy....and as my goal was to meal plan for 2014, this was the perfect place for me to store all my recipes. i curated all the recipes i love from my computer, online websites, pinterest. cory's goal was to coupon and so we would look for coupons that matched meals and i have to say, we were very successful at it all of winter semester! i'm hoping to pick that back up once we are in our own place again! life is in limbo, here in the hotel :) our winter break was definitely relaxing as there was NO snow, and i was able to go home early most days due to NO one being at the office. i'm so grateful we have so much family to spend our holiday with and especially grateful for this season to remind us all of christ and the spirit of giving.