20twelve

I always say that I won't do resolutions, but I always end up with some anyway. I decided that I wanted them to be far more realistic this year, so I came up with a few . . . but hey, no big deal, right?

1. Be more punctual. I guess it should say BE punctual, but I am trying to be NBD about it. I just want to be on time. I have had a tendency to be 5-15 minutes late pretty much my whole life. This year I am actually making a conscious goal to change that.

2. Read more books. This is always on my list and I think I do better every year. I just REALLY want to read more books. There are so many out there and all.

3. No more soda. I stopped drinking caffeine and most soda for 2 years. And then I planned a wedding. That went down the tubes. I was practically injecting it in my veins the days before the wedding and it's been downhill from there- so I am back on the wagon. But this time ALL of it. I will indulge in the occasional shirley temple on special occassions (they are special to me).

4. Be ready to run the SLC Half Marathon in April. I signed up, I paid the money and the starting line is practically in front of my house. I started running again this week (this time with a dog in tow) and I have been struggling! But I will get there. I have too.

5. Be Healthy. Look, I realize this is a very broad, not very measurable goal, but I want to all around be more healthy. This means, be more consistent with taking my vitamins, eat smaller portions, Less to no fast food, no soda (see?), exercise. Etc.

6. Learn to sew and play the piano (to an extent- meaning more than I can now, which is I can't at all now, so whatever I do learn would be a vast improvement than my current knowledge of the two subjects- get it?) Hey, I have two hands, two feet, a piano AND a sewing machine, what more do you need?

And I think that pretty much wraps it up. All pretty selfish. None of them are very churchy (my resolutions normally are) but I feel pretty good about them.

****BONUS CHURCHY RESOLUTION****

I was called to be a sunbeam teacher and I want to be really good at it and not screw up the little 3 and 4 year olds. So far our lessons have gone from "I am a Child of God" to "Spiderman shoots webs out of his hands" and "When does my mom come get me?" I hope it gets better.

Our Christmas house

Our house looked like a gingerbread house and I loved it. So festive and fun with a live tree and everything! Valerie and Dennis flew in for Christmas. We spent christmas eve at our house with my parents, ate steak salad on the 24th and grilled cheese on the 25th. And I played Santa and filled all the stockings (Valerie added lots too). It was a fantastic first married Christmas!

It's a boy!!!!

We had a baby!!!! A cute furry mutt baby. He is half border collie and half australian shepherd and half whatever else is mixed up in there ( I know that doesn't add up) but he is 100% adorable and we love him. His name is Batman. Nathaniel named him and it totally fits. We rescued him from a shelter in Roosevelt and he is the perfect dog. He is sweet and kind. Loves to be chased at the dog park. LOVES to cuddle. Has learned to sit, lay down, shake and roll over. He has stolen our hearts. We call him our practice baby, but he feels more like our actually baby, except he licks his own butt and eats gross things (hopefully that will be different than our future human baby). Batman Johnson, welcome to the family.

Thanksgiving fort!

So the tradition continues!!!! This is the first fort as a married couple and in our home. For those of you that don't know, I like to build a fort on Thanksgiving eve and sleep in it. So we did. And it was fun!

Thanksgiving was good. Lots of food. LOTS of food.

We went and saw two movies. The Muppets which was amazing!!!!!! I loved it. I felt totally nostalgic and it just made me miss being a kid. Then we saw Breaking Dawn and it was just as awful as I expected it to be. At one point I felt like I was watching one of those movies where the animals talk- it was that stupid. They did a great job of making Bella look terrible though. We saw a double feature and thank goodness we saw The Muppets first because I think Nathaniel would have not wanted to see anything else after the mess which was Breaking Dawn. It's been fun to make jokes about it though, so at least there is that.

Yesterday we bought all the Christmas lights for our house and tree. We are going to get our tree tomorrow. I am so excited to decorate!! I love the holidays. I am going to a craft night tonight to create some Christmas magic of my own, so I will post my creations later this week (as long as they aren't too ugly). HOORAY!

Sugar Cookies!!!

I am addicted to pinterest. I like to find new recipes and try them out. One of my favorite things about the holidays are sugar cookies. So I found THIS recipe on pinterest and I tried them out! They are soooooooooooo good. I will be making them again, maybe with a little color next time (we didn't have any food coloring!).

I have been sick all week. Coughing, sneezing, can't breathe. I am so over it. I hate being sick. But my cute boy took care of me. Man, I love that guy.

OH! And we bought couches!! They'll be delivered this week. Just in time for Friendsgiving, it's at our house this year.

I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!!!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I just finished this lovely book. I have been wanting to read it for months, I put it in my library queue and then couldn't pick it up in time or hadn't finished another book I was reading so I had to put it in my queue again. The woman that I sat next to on the plane to Seattle was reading it AND there was this preview at the broadway . . .

. . . so I knew I had to read the book. It was a little slow at first, but I feel like she developed the characters well. I was really invested in them and loved them. This book really got good about half way through. I couldn't put it down. I cried my eyes out. I was so touched by a story of love and respect and self worth. It was beautiful.

I am super bummed though, the Broadway stopped playing the movie a week ago (lame) and I can't seem to get it on netflix yet.

Read it. It's totally worth it.

Unpopular

So I looked at my hotmail account for the first time in probably 6 months and looked at an email from my site reader. It turns out no one reads my blog.

Like literally no one.

It's ok though. That means I can write whatever I want. (fart, balls, wiener, bum, boobs)

Halloween!!!!

We didn't dress up this year. Which was kinda disappointing since last year our costume was AWESOME. But Nathaniel doesn't love dressing up (but he so good at it!) so I guess we'll just have to be something super awesome next year (and we will, I am already brainstorming). So this year we stayed home and passed out candy. Can I say that I loved it?? This is the first time in my adult life that I have lived somewhere that kids actually come and trick or treat. The best thing is that most kids wanted to tell you all about their costumes. It was really fun.

We also played the game clue with Amy and Jon and watched a super scary The House of the Devil. I was really proud of Nathaniel, he watched the whole movie, even though he watched half of the movie from the hallway- he still watched it! We also ate pizza hut pizza, did you know that any pizza is ten bucks?? I haven't had pizza hut pizza in years. I must admit it was crazy greasy good.

So all in all- a very good Halloween. How was yours?

Scared

I love to be scared. I just love it. Scary movies, haunted houses, ghost stories. I don't know what it is, but being freaked out is so fun.

So lately I have been attempting to freak myself out. We have been watching The Walking Dead, Which is totally fun and makes you jump. The other night I watched American Horror Story and had to watch 30 rock afterward so that I didn't pee my pants in fear. And then the other night I watched the newest Paranormal activity movie- not as scary as the first two but I did scream pretty loud at one point.

SO, I have decided to read a scary book. I have House of Leaves in my library queue. I hope it's super scary. I'll let you know what I think.

What is it about scary stuff that is so fun? What's your favorite scary thing?

Wedding Pictures (teasers)