Top 10 List for this Summer

Well school is out for the summer *cue music* and today is the first official day of my summer break!  I thought I'd make a list of 10 things I'd like to do this summer!

1.  Enjoy spending time with our new kitty, Jack!  We adopted a new kitty Sunday and we are working on introducing him to our current fur baby.  It is going well!

2.  Read, Read, and oh yeah, READ! I love devouring new books.  I've already finished "Gone Girl" and am working on a new novel.  I have a whole list of books to read.  My plan is to visit the library a great deal this summer and tear through some good books while sipping coffee at Panera!

3.  Yoga.  I did yoga last summer with a good friend and it was so much fun! I plan on picking it up again this summer along with running in the morning.

4.  Afternoon walks.  I've been doing so well with my fitness and healthy lifestyle, I don't want to back track because I don't have to work right now.  My goal is after lunch (or depending on the weather) I want to take a leisurely walk to keep the blood pumping!

5.  Decorating.  I really want to work on decorating my home with funky things I find on Pinterest.  I've already got some plans for our "Great Reading Room" and a wall full of our initial.

6.  Spend time with my husband. Walks after dinner, working out, cooking together, building forts, putt putt and whatever else we can think of!

7.  Plan for next year.  This will take awhile to get to!  I need at least a couple of weeks to decompress, but I always get so excited to plan for the next school year!  I have crafts I want to do, and new strategies to try out!

8.  Enjoy my mornings.  Reading blogs, sipping coffee etc.

9.  Wardrobe update.  Since losing 57ish pounds I'm severly lacking in the clothing department!  My goal is to buy some clothes that actually fit!

10.  Cooking.  I've found so many new and healthy recipes that I am dying to try out!  I don't want to get stuck in a rut of cooking the same meals week in and week out.

This is a to-do list that I am happy to work on all summer long :)

Family Cookbook

Cooking is not my forte.  It has been a long road from the first piece of soggy toast I made Kellan, to making my first pot roast with all the fixings in the crock pot.  I heard of this idea from a friend and loved it.  I thought it was really sweet and would have loved this myself.  She said for her wedding her mom gave her a cookbook of all their favorite family recipes.  I thought to myself, "how great would it be to have recipes ready to go that we know are tried and true and from our family?"

So cut to me trying to figure out how to cook and writing down my successes as a wife and kicking my failures under the fridge.  Each recipe I try if Kellan and I like it we put it in the cookbook, if it is a wash we forget it ever happened.  That's fair right?  When my daughter (or if I only have sons, daughter-in-love) gets married she will get a cookbook full of recipes from our family.  That way when she goes through this same process of trying this cooking nonsense, she can have family recipes that are delicious   I am also including tips and tricks I figure out myself along the way.  Here is cookbook #1 being worked on:

Hopefully by the time all this happens I'll have cookbooks full that they can begin to use in their new lives together.  I know this may be a tad bit early to be thinking about this, but I'd rather work on this as I go versus being 50 and trying to remember how I made everything.

With Love,

Stephanie