Cheapskate

For the past 8 months I have not updated my header because I refused to pay Google any money for extra storage. The whopping cost of $5/year was just too much for this cheap gal. I even searched online to try and find a way around it. No such luck. Well, as you can see from the above updated header, I finally caved. I'm on a spending spree now, Bryan better freeze the accounts. :)

Friends and Fondue

When we lived in Broomfield, I went to a fondue night that a lady in our church put on for all of the women in our ward. It was so much fun. When we moved to Castle Rock, I knew that I wanted to try something like that here. She shared with me her experiences of what's flopped and what's worked, her recipes and in general, is my fondue guru.

On Saturday night, we had friends over to enjoy fondue and the evening with us. I did three "stations" of cheese, meats and veggies and desserts. Everyone brings something and it goes a long ways! Also, if someone has a fondue pot, we borrow it for the evening. I didn't get too many pics of the evening and the ones we do have are slightly sub-par, but there is at least some documentation of it!

The only picture I have of the cheese station, my apologies to Steven (and myself) for the picture. We used apples and bread for dipping in the cheese.



I used 3 fondue pots of broth and 1 pot of oil for the meats and veggies.

The dessert table with a chocolate fountain and caramel fondue to dip any of these items in.

We had a wonderful time! It's hard to go wrong with good friends and good food. Happy Fondue-ing!

Lotsa and Lotsa Snow!

Last weekend, our local news channel reported that Castle Rock received 28 inches of snow in a 24 hour period! It was fun to get that much snow, especially since we had nowhere to go. Turn on the fireplace, sip some hot cocoa...and do a ton of house cleaning. :) Luke had a fun time playing in all of this white goodness.

Lookin' snazzy Luke!

He couldn't help himself and had to sample just a little of the white fluffy-ness.

Just Another Day...Well, Almost

On Sunday, Luke took a nasty spill off one of the benches at church. The next day he was still crying anytime we picked him up under his left arm and would occasionally cry out and grab his chest. After consulting one of my favorite resources, Web MD, it looked like he either had a broken collar bone or a terminal illness. I made an appointment with the pediatrician and 2.5 hours later he confirmed the diagnosis of a broken collar bone.

Luke is suppose to wear a sling as it heals. YEAH. RIGHT. Even the doc was like, "I'm required to do this, but it never fits toddlers, and it turns into more of a choking hazard than anything." It's a good thing I really like this doc, because we've been getting a lot of face time lately.

Here is Luke modeling his sling.

 I have a broken what???

"Yeah, well, you should have seen the other guy."

Nothing will slow this little turkey down.

Demonstrating the true effectiveness of the sling.

We expect 1-2 more weeks of the pain. In 4-6 weeks it should be almost healed and by 6-12 months like it never happened. I was telling my sister-in-law about the unfortunate event and she replied that she calls those, "special church blessings."   Can I get an amen??? :)

Date Night

We had a great night last weekend. We kicked things off by going to our favorite Indian restaurant, "India's Kitchen," that is only about 15 minutes from where we live. It is so hard to try somewhere different when we find a place that we really like. (I am that person that always orders the same thing.) We even had a coupon to use at dinner, fantastic. I love getting any type of deal. 

After dinner we made our way into Denver for the Brad Paisley concert. Bryan gave me the tickets as a Christmas gift, clever and thoughtful man. Scotty McCreery (American Idol winner) and The Band Perry opened the concert. We were definitely part of the "older" crowd, lots and lots of teenage girls. However, there were still plenty of flannel shirts, real cowboy boots and hats--quite the assortment of people. Country music just has a way of bringing people together. :) About halfway through the concert, I found myself joining in with the teenage girls' excitement when Tim Tebow came out on stage and sang with Brad Paisley. Bryan mentioned that he was "slightly concerned" at that moment. "Nothing to worry about, nothing at all..."

 

 

 

Tim Tebow may be my favorite QB, but Bryan is always my favorite MAN. 

Ahhhh, cute.

P.S. Do you see the "assortment" of people behind us???

North vs. South

 We knew that when we bought a North-facing home that our Winters would require more shoveling, more salting and more patience waiting for spring to arrive on our side of the street. I don't know that we anticipated this much ice chiseling. We even broke some child labor laws and forced our 16-month-old kid to shovel.

Notice the grass turning green on the other side of the street???  :)

 Keep in mind that we received our last, decent snow storm over two weeks ago. It is a vicious cycle of melting and freezing with the drains "not working how they should." Really? I'm thinking about looking for some ice skates on clearance to buy for next year. We have an entire block (north side only, of course) that could be put to some good use.

Baby Shower

Yesterday I hosted a good friend's baby shower at our home. Whitney is due in the middle of March with a little girl. It was fun to decorate in pink, white and gray! I'm use to blue and green around here! I had a lot of help from many people that made things very quick and easy, thank you! It was a pretty laid back shower, no games, just food, chit-chat and seeing all of those cute little girl things!

 

The honorary male guest.

Whitney is such a cute prego! We're very excited to meet Baby Girl!