Why doesn't everyone just cook normal food?

When Nate and I first got married, I overheard him talking to his mom on the phone. He said that everything was going great except I only made like 3 dinners and I kept repeating meals. I was a little embarrassed that he felt that way and since then have been trying to add variety in his dinners.

This proved to be more difficult than I thought. First of all, I was new to cooking. I had helped my mom growing up and heaven knows she tried to drill the skill into my head, but I really didn't pay much attention. I also hate trying new food. I like eating the same things over again because those are my favorites.

Well, two and a half years later and I am just starting to figure out a few things about food. "Normal" recipes are subjective. A friend recently gave me a new recipe and I tried it and hated it. Nate loved it, but I'll never cook that again! Then it dawned on me that only my mother knew what "normal" food was. After all, she's the one that trained me to think her food was normal. I got a bunch of recipes from her and still continue to ask her how to make things and it's been great.

Another thing I've been working on is a cookbook just for me. The 2 problems I hate with cookbooks are first, I don't know if I like the recipe until I make it, and Second, there doesn't seem to be a ton of recipe books with a picture for every recipe. It's very hard for me to make something new if I don't know how it's even suppose to look.

My recipe book is foods I've made that I love, and I take a picture the first time I make it and put it on the recipe. It's been a lot of fun because I'm more eager to try new things to see if it's book worthy. I have made about 8 new meals since I've started my project and only about half of them make the book. If I don't love it and want to make it always, it doesn't make it. This way, in a few years I should have loads of recipes all in one place with pictures of food that I love to eat! Then I get variety and good food. That's the plan anyway.

It's never too late

... to start blogging again!!!

So it's been a great 2 years since Halloween of 2009 :) Basically it consisted of me graduating from BYU-I, getting a job at Gugelman Photography, and oh yeah... getting pregnant!

This year is the year of the babies. My older sisters Andrea and Suzanne both had sons this year. Andrea's boy Owen was born in April, and Suzanne's boy Max was born in June. On top of that my sister in law Diedre just had a boy last week! Her boy is pictured below and she named him Erik. Nate and I are having our boy (Blaine) in October.

There you have it, 4 little boy cousins all born in 2011.

Man, Erik is cute. Kathleen (Nate's mom) says that Nate had hair just as thick when he was born. I hope so bad that Blaine has hair, I think it's the coolest thing ever! Arnett babies are chubby and bald, so we'll see what we get.

So far the pregnancy has been a cinch. Really. I have had NO sickness, problems, nothing. The only things that I would call symptoms are I was a picky eater for about a week in my second trimester, and a few times I got slight heartburn. That's about it. I really hope my delivery is just as easy as pregnancy, but my aunt Kat told me that since I have it easy to pregnancy I deserve a difficult labor, and if I don't even get a difficult labor, than I at least deserve difficult children ;) I hope she's wrong.

The one thing I can say about pregnancy is that it's boring. I have 89 days left... Ugh. I already have his pack n play set up, clothes ready to be worn, book waiting to read to him, blankets waiting to cuddle him and dippers waiting to be used. It's like counting down until Christmas. Notice how no one starts counting down for Christmas 9 months before the day? That would only make it seem farther away! Well, you start counting down for a baby 9 months before it's show time. That makes things go so slow. Luckily, this week I'm in my 3rd trimester at last! Now I just need to get really busy and involved with stuff so that time flies by! We'll see how well that goes.