New Year's Resolutions

I always try to get Bryan to do some sort of New Year's resolution with me, but he's usually a Scrooge about it. However, this year he was my inspiration.

Conversation....

Me: I hate cooking.
Him: You probably hate it because you aren't good at it.
Me: Love you too honey.

Bryan is trying to convince me that if I was really good at cooking, then I would enjoy it more. I'm skeptical. I don't think I will ever love cleaning the bathroom, no matter how good at it I become.

But I am willing to give it a try. So, for one year I am going to try one new recipe every week. Doesn't have to be a main dish, doesn't have to be anything fancy, just has to be new. Which, for me, is pretty much everything.

So I am currently accepting suggestions of good recipes that are foolproof and have fewer than six ingredients.

In exchange, Bryan is going to exercise once a week.

I think he got the better end of the deal.

Gingerbread house

I have been wanting to make a gingerbread house for many many years, and this year I finally had time to do it! It's not extraordinarily beautiful, mostly because we just used whatever candy we had laying around the house. It does taste delicious, though, thanks to the new gingerbread cookie recipe that Alicia discovered for us :)

Bryan's new favorite toy

Bryan's new favorite toy is the remote-controlled helicopter he got from Mom and Dad Brimhall for Christmas. Good thing the charge only lasts about ten minutes, or he'd be playing with it all night :)

I have been good!

My present from Santa finally arrived last night!! I was beginning to think that I wasn't even good enough to get coal this year :) Love you Santa!

Awesome footie-hoodie pajamas!

They even have a butt flap.

Our future doctor

Santa brought Piper a play medical kit for Christmas this year. She's pretty obsessed with the stethoscope. Daddy couldn't be more proud.

2011 Ornaments

Here are the ornaments we've acquired in the past year. Love love love Christmas ornaments!!

Baby's First Christmas ornament from Jan

You've already seen this one.

Niki's 2011 ornament from Jan

Piper's 2011 ornament from Grams

Sock monkey baby we got in Estes.

Leaf ornament we got in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Bryan's 2011 ornament from Jan.

Snowglobe ornament I made for Bryan.

Our family ornament from 2002 that my mom gave me.

If we continue at this rate, we will fill our entire house with ornaments by the year 2066.

Merry Christmas!! (for realsies this time)

Bryan took about a million pictures yesterday, including at least one of each present. That's just fine with me, because it means I have to type less.

How did Santa know that I love Chex Mix?

Bryan was very excited because Santa put Mexican candy and a beef stick in his stocking.

Stocking stuff.

Piper riding Bullseye.

I'm just so excited, I can't handle it!!

My new watch from Bryan!!

New shoes

Monster boots from Yvette and Levix2

New shoes

Giraffe growth chart made by Grams

Our little snow bunny monster

Christmas Eve dinner for two. Let's just say we have a lot of leftovers :)

Fat and happy

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a great night!!

Merry Christmas!!

Bryan has to work all day tomorrow, so we celebrated Christmas a day early. We opened up a million presents, and now Bryan and Piper are napping while I make an amazing Christmas dinner. (This is how I burn everything, Katie...I get distracted by a blog post :) We miss everyone like crazy this year, but we're having a great time just taking it easy with the three of us.

Last night we kept the Farnsworth family tradition of opening one present each. Piper opened her Tinkerbell PJs from Grandma and Grandpa Brimhall, Bryan opened two dress shirts from Krystle and Paul, and I got a beautiful scarf from Jan!

We had tacos for dinner and then listened to the Scripture Scouts Christmas play (Bryan said that if there had been one more of us, we could have acted it out. He was bummed :)

It was a fun Christmas Eve Eve.

Another one of my favorite things...

...Christmas craftiness! Check out these amazing ornaments I made.

The handprint tutorial is at http://www.asortafairytaleblog.com/2010/12/diy-babys-1st-christmas-ornament.html. For the glittery-ness, I just mixed Elmer's glue with water (about 50:50), poured it in the ornament, swirled it around till everything was covered, dumped (a LOT) of glitter inside, then shook it around.

So easy and cool!

One of the Best Things About Christmas...

...is getting packages in the mail!!

A HUGE package from Florida!!

I love that this one is addressed to Piper.

Notifying Piper that she has a package in the office :)

This is how excited Bryan was.

And this is how excited Piper was!