I'm Doughnuts for You (2-10-12)

Ignore my cheesy attempt to come up with a clever title for this post. Moving on.

Jeff and I love doughnuts. So much we do. And I've been wanting to try to homemake doughnuts for quite some time. What better time to try something new than with my husband on date night?!?

I made the dough right after we ate dinner so it could rise for an hour before our date officially started (a.k.a. Eli's bedtime).

Then we rolled the dough out and used this month's scouting theme -- resourcefulness -- to find some makeshift doughnut cutters. We came up with a cup and a baby bottle to make the perfect sized doughnut.

Bonus - when you homemake doughnuts, not only do you eliminate preservatives and gross things that could be in store-bought doughnuts, but you can bake them instead of fry them. This is especially nice to help with the guilt you might feel after eating say...9 doughnut holes and one doughnut in one sitting. But more about that later.

While our Krispy Kreme imitators were rising, we did a puzzle we got for Christmas while watching American Idol.

Sometimes my camera takes bad pictures and this is one of them:

Hello tasty treats.

The recipe recommended a cinnamon and sugar topping, but we glazed most of them. I cinnamon and sugared the doughnut holes after I used all the glaze and I wished we would have instead stuck with the cinnamon sugar for all. For some reason the cinnamon and sugar made it taste more doughnutty and less bready. Especially in tiny doughnut-hole size.

Mmmmmmm.

Sadly, this is as far as we got on our puzzle before I crumpled it back up and returned it to the box. 500-piece puzzles and toddlers are not ideal playmates.

Jeff High - Eating the doughnuts.
Jeff Low - We didn't get very far on the puzzle.

Is is possible for me to say eating 9 doughnut holes and one doughnut was the high and the low of my night? Okay, fine. I'll stick to the high/low rules.
Sarah High - I just love cooking things with Jeff. Which is probably why many of my dates involve the two of us in the kitchen.
Sarah Low - Jeff was sick. So I kind of felt like I was torturing him by making him endure a night of activities.

20 Questions (2-4-12)

When Jeff told me we'd be playing 20 questions for our date, I politely kept the thought, "I already know everything there is to know about you" to myself. I immediately imagined the struggle it would be to come up with unique questions for my husband of three years that I couldn't already answer or that I wouldn't normally ask in daily conversation. So if you're as skeptical about this date as I was... read on.

Our skepticism led us to only writing down 10 questions each but then we ended up both answering both lists of questions...

with our feet in the tub.

As I was coming up with questions, I remembered that coming up with uncommon questions was kind of my forte in the dating scene. I read this book once with a section about how people love to talk about themselves, so if you ask people questions about themselves, they'll like you because they'll enjoy their time talking about themselves and they'll associate that with you. Kind of like mind manipulation. And I found it unfailingly effective on my dates.

In fact, weird questions became my default in all social situations -- whether I was trying to manipulate someone into liking me or not. Like the time I was at a (fateful) bonfire with my roommate Leslie and we met this guy Cade. When the small talk died down, I asked Cade to describe himself in two words and I believe he chose something along the lines of "Rugged" and "Burley." See. You learn a lot about a person by asking weird questions. And I like to think it was my questioning of Cade that led him to Leslie's heart. You're welcome you two.

So anyway, I had forgotten about this hidden talent I have until I started scribbling questions. The more questions I thought of, the more I realized there was a lot I still had to learn about that suddenly mysterious man who lives with me.

And as that book I read says, people love to talk about themselves, so I had fun sharing my thoughts with Jeff and finding out what he didn't know about me.

Both of our children interrupted our date. One threw up and the other forced a slightly concerning amount of Braxton Hicks upon me once again. So with Eli's sheets in the wash and me lying on my left side downing water, we ended the night watching American Idol. 

Sarah High - One of my questions was, "What is one of your guilty pleasures that I don't know about?" We both answered and those answers were my favorite but we are choosing not to share these with the world so you'll just have to be left guessing.

Sarah Low - I wanted there to be more funny auditions on American Idol.

Jeff High - "Just talking to you was my high."

Jeff Low - I wrote four extra questions while I was waiting for Jeff to finish his ten (my talent can't be suppressed), and he felt bad I had more questions than him.

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.