Twelve Photos on 2.12.12

This month I decided to go with the obvious theme for my twelve photos on the 12th. I tortured my family for individual shots, and even let Ellie take one of me.

The photo of Joey practicing was in a teasing attempt to make him smile, even though he was, as usual, not happy to be playing the piano. I ended up generalizing what I love as "music" but I also love the fact that Rob is willing to enforce practicing most days, and that my kids are developing a useful talent. Also, I listened to a fabulous talk this week that uses piano lessons as an analogy for grace. It's a BYU devotional by Brad Wilcox, and if you haven't already, you should really listen to it or read it right now.

I had a friend take a photo of our gospel doctrine class. This probably belongs in the love-hate category. I love the gospel, and am learning so much as I prepare to teach from the Book of Mormon. What I HATE is being in the spotlight for even one minute.

Our dinners are pretty simple on the Sundays I teach. This week we had bagels with cream cheese and sauteed onions and peppers. Easy, but seriously delicious.

I've found a new chocolate chip cookie recipe that I love. (Thank you Pinterest). One of the secrets is that the dough is prepared in advance and frozen, so the bottoms gets nice and crispy, but the inside is moist and chewy. The bonus is that you can make one pan at a time and have fresh-baked cookies more than once. Here's the link.

I love our Valentine tradition of giving books. And I love that I had everything purchased and wrapped in advance this year!

Finally, I love Downton Abbey. It's become a total soap opera in season two, but one with great cinematography, acting and costumes. :) We got rid of our DVR a while ago, so I've been watching religiously on Sunday evenings. It's been about 15 years since I last cared about a TV show enough to watch it when it aired (back then it was Seinfeld on Thursday nights). Fun.

Inspiration for the layout here. No, I'm not that creative.