Pizza Party! (1-27-12)

We had a temple date last week I failed to document. But for memory's sake that's what we did.

This week we doubled with Melissa and Kyle and whipped up some homemade pizza.

My parents were at a concert so I took advantage of their empty house to hold the get together. Holding a cooking get together in someone else's kitchen left me searching endlessly for all the right gadgets to get the job done. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a good cheese grater (until I was doing the dishes after Kyle and Melissa left) so we were stuck with a tiny little grater and a great arm workout.

The pizza was delectable. Kyle even said it gave Papa John's pizza a run for their money.

We burned off a few of those pepperonis with a couple games of pool. The boys mostly had to show us where to (try to) hit the ball.

Eli has taken a recent liking to a box of toy cars my parents have at their house. We just dumped those suckers out and Eli was entertained the whole evening. It worked out perfectly!

Melissa High - Making the pizzas.
Melissa Low - She didn't have a low.

Kyle High - Eating the pizzas.
Kyle Low - Losing the first game of pool.

Jeff High - Playing pool.
Jeff Low - Jeff accidentally put the cheese on our pizza before the sauce and we all made fun of him as he sheepishly scraped the cheese back up.

Sarah High - Eli being an angel all night.
Sarah Low - The teensy cheese grater.

Freaky Fondue Friday (1-13-12)

I sent Jeff an email at work on Friday that said, "I'm quite fondue of you." Then right after I sent it, I realized it was Friday the 13th and I was mad my date didn't pull in a theme from the superstitious day. Despite my oblivion to the calendar, I'm glad I thought up this date because it ended up being one of my most favorite dates so far.

While Jeff put Eli to bed, I set the fondue scene -- complete with a burning candle for romantic effect.

I kind of think it looks like I'm glowing in this picture. But maybe it's just because my right eye has had an eyelash stuck in it all day and is kind of blurring my vision. But I like to think I have that much sought after pregnancy glow.

Yum and fun!

Here's my high of the night: I dipped a marshmallow in chocolate and put it on a graham cracker and told Jeff I wished I had put the oven broiler on so we could toast the marshmallows for s'mores. Next thing I know Jeff is toasting his marshmallow over the candle. Brilliant! It was the perfect s'more setup.

My marshmallow caught on fire several times which irritated Jeff because he told me after my fifth or so torched mallow that I kept blowing all the smoke in his face in my panicked attempt to control the flame. Whoops.

My second high of the night was seeing Jeff try to refrain from showing his full excitement when I told him part two of our date was to build a fort. Jeff immediately started rummaging through the house for all the supplies he'd need. I had to go read Eli a few books because he started crying. When I left Jeff, our living room looked like this:

And after I had Eli nestled back in bed, I came out to this beauty. I never knew my husband had such talents.

 It was the most perfect fort I've ever seen.

Maybe it's just me but it seems like whenever I built forts when I was little my brother and I always played the card game War in them. Jeff and I actually weirdly played a lot of War when we were dating. Playing took me back to my childhood and back to our early dating. Both were fun memories to return to.

There's something about being crammed in a fort that makes everything so much more fun.

 This last battle won me the first game.

We finished the night off watching our favorite shows snuggled up in our fort holding hands. Perfect.

Jeff High - The fort.

Jeff Low - The taste of the fondue. (I started the fondue way too early and it overcooked a smidge. Okay. A lot.)

Sarah High - The makeshift s'more.

Sarah Low - I got a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions at the end of the date (roughly one every five minutes. Not good). This is the second time I've had a worrisome amount of Braxton Hicks this pregnancy and it kind of freaked me out. But have no fear. After I laid on my side and downed a glass of water they went away. Stay in there, baby!

Setting Goals (1-6-12)

Jeff had us set goals for the new year for his date. Which made me think about our goal to date each other every week and how well we've stuck to it! Here's to many more dates in the upcoming year!!

Here's the list I came up with:

• Finish Book of Mormon by the time #2 arrives
• Bear testimony in Sacrament Meeting (Did it last week!)
• Make a new recipe every week
• Read a book every month (including The Hobbit per Jeff's request)
• Continue to date my husband
• Be 100% visiting teaching
• Run...or walk a 5k
• Learn names of cub scouts
• Attend Relief Society activities
• Potty train Eli (end of the year goal)

This is what Jeff did after he read me his goals because he was already feeling overwhelmed.

But he perked up to watch the movie I got him for Christmas -- "Night at the Museum 2."

I've been bad about doing our high lows. But I'll add to my New Year's Resolutions to do better at remembering to ask Jeff his high lows immediately following our dates.

A Happy New Year (12-31-11)

What did we do to ring in the new year? We cooked all night long!

We started with chicken and pineapple teriyaki kabobs.

I have to wear aprons when I cook these days because my belly is a splatter magnet.

To accompany our kabobs, we made a brazilian limeade drink type thing.

Yum.

Thank you, Our Best Bites for sponsoring our date night.

And for keeping our tummies happy.

Last on the menu -- crepes.

Then we played Sequence while watching Psych.

Then we watched the ball drop. I don't know what that guy is doing. We were too busy getting our sparkling cider ready to pay a ton of attention to the weirdo on the TV.

Happy New Year!

Spa Night (12-16-11)

Jeff is so lucky he watched Eli one afternoon so I could sit in a shoe store at the mall with my mom for an hour and a half. Because it was at that shoe store that I made a joke about how I've heard you can put Crisco on your feet to make them really soft. After my Crisco comment, I couldn't keep it off the brain. I knew Jeff and I had to try it for a date night.

What goes good with Criscoed feet? Yoga! We are not flexible.

I hesitantly pulled out the Crisco after our relaxing yoga session. Jeff was very agreeable and went along with our second activity.

So we greased up our feet and put them in plastic bags. Then we put our bagged feet in hot water and let the Crisco do the rest.

Married hot tubbing. Feet in bags of lard with a baby sleeping in the other room. I love it.

Mostly the experiment just turned my feet bright red from the hot water.

And we did our high lows but I forgot them. Whoops.