More Dinners...

Here are a few meals that I have made lately. The first is a cheesesteak sandwich made with sliced cube steak, rosemary potatoes, grilled corn salad, and the best for last...Brazilian Limeade. So good! You put the whole quartered lime in a blender and then strain the pulp. Insanely good on a hot summer night!

The next meal is one that I forgot to take a picture of, so you get to see the leftover bowl of pesto pasta with roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. It was delicious! We had our friends Heidi and John Swalberg over and then we went and saw Horrible Bosses, which was hilarious.

Then the last meal is a basil tomato pizza. I am a little obsessed with basil if you can't tell...

Most of these recipes are from a cookbook called The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I was introduced to it by Paloma Davis, my cousin Nathan's cute lil' wife. Hi Loma! This book is a must have. But let me warn you, nothing in this is low-fat.

Baby Toes!

Here is a really rare and cute picture of our baby boy. I had an ultrasound on June 2oth my b-day (great present!) and would you believe it, he was sucking on his toes! So cute! He's hungry...

I love cooking!

So I said I was going to start posting what I was cooking. I have made quite a few great dinners but by the time I remember to take pictures we already had eaten it! Which is what kind of happened last night. I made Lemon Zuchinni Pasta, Layered Salad, Rosemary Foccacia Bread, and Mini Raspberry Cheesecakes. It was super good! You grill the chicken and zuchinni which makes it taste so much better then just baking them. The bread is so easy, you don't even need to knead it. And the cheesecakes are so cute! You use a vanilla wafer in the bottom of the cupcake liner.

Here are some pictures of our half eaten dinner! lol!

And here are the cookbook's that I am obsessed with right now. They have real life food not stuff that you would never cook. Our Best Bites has a blog and they always have tutorials on how to do things.

Woah Baby!

I really have a lot to put in this post today. First things first we are having a baby! Yay! It is a little boy and I am due the first week in October. We weren't really trying, but it happens! We wanted to wait til probably the end of this year 2011 once our house was built and then I could do hair from home. Oh well...

Here is me at 20 weeks, 1/2 way chub a lub!

Speaking of our house. It has been crazy stressful trying to get everything figured out. We had planned on selling our townhome but it really isn't worth it, we would probably owe or break even on it. So we decided that we are going to rent it out. In order to rent it out you can't have 2 fha loans and we have our closing costs and mortgage on 2 separate loans. We bought this home when we were 19 so we didn't have money we were broke! haha! Anyways we are going to pay off the 1/2 acre lot we bought in West Jordan and refinance our townhome all by the end of this year. Oh and pay for a baby! Woops! Didn't plan that very well.

I have decided you can't plan out your life for a baby or you will never have one...

One of the great things about being pregnant right now is that I have reduced my hours at the salon from around 50+ to about 30+! It is wonderful! I was getting really burned out working that much and never seeing Bret. Now when the baby comes I will only need my mom to watch on Mondays from 11-3. I don't see why people work just to pay for daycare? I do get a little bored having tues-friday morning off, but I always can't believe that friday evening has come around already and it's time to work. Plus I get to see my Sophie more!

Enough boring everyone with my updates...

I have decided to blog about the meals I have been cooking also. I LOVE to cook and I haven't been able to even go into the kitchen til I hit about 19 weeks. It is still iffy... So today since I wont be home til around 8:30 I am making creamy mexican chicken tacos in the crockpot. I love the fresh salsa from Harmons and it always goes bad before we can eat it so I am using it today. You take 2 or 3 frozen chicken breasts and throw them in the crockpot, then add 8 oz. cream cheese (lowfat opt.) and then your salsa. Let it cook on low for 7-8hrs and then shred it with 2 forks and put it on tortillas with toppings. Yummy. My mom taught me that recipe. Tomorrow night we are having burgers, fries, and green beans. My g'mas green bean recipe. I'll try to remember to post that recipe. We are going to the BYU national champ Rugby game tomorrow. Our friend Mikey Su'a is playing his last game...

Susan Branch.

I should just say that this blog is all about Me "Melissa" since I am the only one who blogs on here. Because Bret is most definitely not obsessed with Susan Branch like I am. She has the most beautiful books ever! It is my goal to collect every single one. Why do I love her stuff? Because I feel like she is writing them just for me. She hand writes and paints all of them. They remind me of my grandma Davis with the country feel through out them. I always thought I would never like the country type decor and that I was more modern but I am slowly turning into my mother/aunts/grandmother.

Here are the 4 books that I have so far...

Baby Love, Girlfriends Forever, Vineyard Seasons, Autumn.

Here is one of her prints that I want to put in my guest bathroom one day! ;)

I was given Girlfriends Forever by a friend in high school and fell in love with it!

Busy Bees!

My new years resolution is to Blog more! Now that Bret is done with school for a little while I will have more time to blog, wink wink. Anyways a lot has happened since I last was on here. Bret always says that a blog is just to brag about what you have bought or done. So it's my goal to not dwell too much on material items and concentrate more on what is happening in our lives and hopefully some thoughtful insights too. But I can't help myself when something exciting happens and I need to tell someone! Ha Ha!

We are still living in our cute little townhome in WeJo "West Jordan". I love our little house. Right now it is decorated for Christmas and it is so fun.

I am at a new salon called Studio Salons where I have my own studio to work in. It is a little bit more money but totally worth it. I don't have to hear all the gossiping women and the negative nellies. I love being able to do whatever I want in my room. I am really going for more of a "spa" type feel.

Bret just finished another semester at SLCC and is deciding what to do next. Hopefully we can get through the college adventure.

Sophie and Stella are getting so Big and so Cute! I love those little stinkers.

Bret's sister Stephanie is living in New Zealand with her fiance and we can't wait to go see them one day. It is so pretty there!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

2010

Me now...

Me then...

My life is running away from me! Ahhh! Come back! I can't believe that it is already January 28th 2010! Before I know it I will be an old lady!

Anyways...What has been going on? I am still working my life away at the salon. I feel really blessed that I like my job about 80% of the time. It makes me feel a little guilty since Bret feels the opposite about his. Bret is taking 1 class at SLCC, you heard me 1 class! Oh well I guess it's good to give him a break because this summer its Math time mister!

We are waiting to see if some trips this year are going to happen? Such as, Alaska Cruise and New Zealand.

OH OH! I finally got to my goal size 8! Wahoo! Now lets just see if I can stay there. We had family pictures taken this summer and that is the day I started the diet plan so I like to look at them to give me motivation. haha! I will have to get some new pictures of us up on here soon.