Wicked

Jason and I drove to Cincinnati on Saturday to see the Broadway show, Wicked! It was wonderful - even Jason loved it and wants to read the book now. I actually got teary eyed during the songs "Defying Gravity" and "For Good." One of my favorite songs to listen to on the cd is "Dancing Through Life." If you haven't had a chance to go see Wicked yet, you should! Two thumbs up! :)

Happy Anniversary!

Today is Jason and I's 2nd wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at the Melting Pot last night - it was so good!


When we got back we opened up our bottle of Ice Wine from Oliver Winery. We bought it a few months ago and have been saving it for our anniversary. We also got out our toasting glasses from the wedding.


This morning we slept in and then had an appointment at Villagio for a couples massage. It was relaxing and definetly something that we needed. After that we went to Casler's from lunch with a gift certificate that we got from my mom.


We then spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing. We loved dinner last night so much that we decided to have our own fondue. We made a cheddar cheese fondue (cheese, milk, garlic, beer, and dry mustard) and dipped bread in it. Then we had a chocolate fondue (chocolate, milk, and crunch peanut butter) with strawberries, bananas, and cheesecake. Not exactly the healthiest meal, but our anniversary only happens once a year. :)

My own room!

For Christmas, Jason got me a bunch of craft storage cubes. It took awhile to get them put together, but I love them!

Also, for the first time we were able to put all of our holiday decorations up in the attic, which cleared out that end of the storage closet/room upstairs. We moved up a desk/table that used to be in our living room - you can see that on the left of the picture. Now I need to find a chair for it. The storage cubes are on the right of the picture.


Here's a direct view of the cubes. The top left has a bunch of slots - that's where I put all of my paper. The bottom left is a file cube. The top middle and bottom right are 4 drawer cubes - I have a cube for writing utensils, scissors/cutting things, extra paper, glue/tape/etc, ribbon, paint supplies, and then two miscellaneous drawers. The 2 drawer cube has stickers and note cards/greeting cards. The last one is a 2 shelf cube - I have my knitting stuff on the top shelf and misc on the bottom.


I'm so excited to have my own room!

Jen's shower

Anne and I hosted Jen's baby shower today - everything turned out great!

First, the invitations. The final version had a safety pin across the diaper - much cuter in person!


Our next big idea was to make a teddy bear cake. Thank goodness my mom stepped in to help (or rather, actually do the entire thing for us.)

Step 1: Getting the cake out of the pan (I bought the pan and Anne made the cake - as you can see we were very instrumental in the creation of the teddy bear cake.) Here is mom carefully opening the pan up.


Step 2: Keep trying to get the cake out of the pan. See that the bear's face is still stuck in the pan.


Step 3: Finally! Bear out of pan! Use toothpicks to help hold bear together, then crumb coat it and let it dry, so you can ice it.


And voila - a teddy bear cake!!!! It turned out SOOOOOO adorable!


My drink containers once again in action.


The food setup. We had fruit w/ dip, cucumber sandwiches, pizza dip with bread to dip into it, a chicken club/veggie pizza thing, and baked brie bites. Yum!


This is part of the gift that Anne and I gave Jen. We painted the box so that it matches their nursery.


Painting onesies was such a hit at Anna's shower that we wanted to do something similar at Jen's, so we painted bibs!


The finished bibs all together, plus some close ups of my favorites.


(I made the PARTY one on the right)




The one in the middle is hard to read in the picture - it says "Spit Happens."


We had a few mini guests at the shower - Gavin (Megan and Allen's little boy -he's almost a year old)


And Molly (Anne and Kyle's little girl - she's 5 weeks old)


Poor Mr. Bear at the end of the shower ....

Cali and Pickles got a new toy from Grandma tonight - it hangs on the door and when you turn it on there is a string that moves down it, around the back and up, and back down. I don't have video from when we first turned it on but they were both so intrigued and tried to figure out how it worked. Cali kept thinking that it was going on the backside of the door and just seemed really puzzled.

They played with it together for awhile, but here is video of each of them separately. First, Cali and the new toy, while Pickles patiently waited for her turn.


Pickles and the new toy:

Incredible Christmas present!

Jason and I came home from work today to find this in our living room!!!!


It was his parents piano and the one that Jason and his brother learned to play on. It's a Wurlitzer, like the one I learned to play on as well. Ever since we started dating I've been dropping hints that if they ever want to get rid of it, we'd take it. I just didn't know that would be today!! They hired piano movers to get it from Bloomington to up here, and mom and Karen met them to let them into the house and help move furniture around.

I immediately started crying when I saw it - we're just so excited to have it!!!!!

Cookies for Santa ...

As we've been snowed in all weekend (ok, so maybe not exactly, but we're pretending that we were) we decided to make sugar cookies for Santa. :)

After making the dough we realized that we don't own a rolling pin, so we improvised. It was Jason's idea ... I love having resourceful husband! (In case you can't tell, it's a bottle of Vodka.)


A picture of me making cookies ...


Jason got sick of the cookie cutters and decided to make his own shapes.


I give you, The Christmas Alien:


And here is what the rest of the cookies looked like, before baking.


Mmmm.... freshly baked cookies! Check out my new "Holiday Hostess" oven mits. I was involved in a Secret Santa gift exchange on a message board that I'm on, and those were part of my gift.


Time to decorate! I didn't buy any sprinkles, so we just used colored icing.




The red cookie on the lower right side is a 350z. Guess who made that one?


This one is the gingerbread man with his leg cut off. (Again, guess who made that one?)


And right after we finished decorating the cookies I remembered that I have a Christmas apron. I put it on and posed for the camera.

6 years ago

6 years ago today Jason and I went on our first date! We'd been getting to know each other via email/phone/IM since Thanksgiving, but didn't meet until Dec. 13th. We went on a double date with Jay and Shannon (the couple who set us up) to O'Charley's. Afterwards we went to Jay's parents house to use the hot tub, then Jason and I went out on our own to the Irish Lion. We had such a great time that we went on a date the next day, then the next day, etc. We had 5 dates in 5 days (until I had to go home for Christmas break) and the rest, they say, is history!

Here are two pictures from the first couple of months that we were dating:





And because I had fun pulling out old pictures, here are some of the kitties when we got them (in Oct of 2002.)
Cali:


Pickles:


And our very first "family" picture:

Boys will be boys

Jason's friend, Justin, just got an Xbox 360. Rather than play against each other online while at their own homes, Justin brought his over. They hooked up another tv, the second Xbox 360, and managed to mess around with the router so they were both online. Then they played some war game.

The Dancing Fletchers

Jason, Pickles, Cali, and I have been working on a routine and are finally ready to make our debut:

The Dancing Fletchers

Lots of updates!

See below for lots of updates!

Merry Christmas!

Ok, not quite Christmas yet, but we put up our lights outside the house and got our tree this weekend!



We went up to Stony Creek Farm in Noblesville to cut down our tree. We wanted one that was a little bit taller than last year's and we found it!




Our first fire of the season!


The tree all decorated - check out our new tree topper!