Craft Circle-Bonus Post!

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As a bonus post, here is the craft circle I hosted this weekend. I work with some very creative ladies and each month we get together and craft. We have done things like resin pendants, glass etchings and jewelry makings. As this was my month, it was not a very creative craft (Valentine card making), however, with some serious tricks of the crafting trade they rose to the challenge!....I provided lots of food:) 

Here is what I made: 



Delightfully delicious and pretty easy too. It felt a little like a science experiment when  I flash boiled them in the water and baking soda solution. Who knew these could come out like they do from the cart, I didn't. However, make sure you don't make gobs of them for a bunch of dieting ladies because they are best very fresh. Even within a couple hours they weren't as good, although I bet if you froze them and baked them again they would save well. 

I also made Turkey-Bacon Wrapped Dates *delicious* and some cream puffs and vegetable tray courtesy of Costco. 



Note: this is one significant reason for the R and K budget smack down. Costco, you are so cost saving, except for all those tempting and not so necessary options that we buy. Budget breakdown is so on. 

Here is what the ladies brought: 


Yep, it isn't even all unpacked. 


We made some pretty cool cards, with crafty supplies that I have never even seen. Do you know what embossing is? There is ink, powder and a special little blow dryer involved, it also felt pretty scientific. I made a couple of cards and K and I got to eat the conversation hearts we bought. A great event! 

This weekend was also an awesome super bowl party, which I should have remembered to take pictures at but I didn't. This is pretty unfortunate but the highlights included winning the bet that Christina would, in fact, hold the "brave" of the nation anthem more than 6 seconds and Nithi running around in her pigtails and feety pajama's cheering "Go Packers!" 

Things We Do When It Snows

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Back in January we took a little break. The snow was making all of us a little cooped up so when we got a generous invitation from our friends we jumped at the chance. It even got K to rearrange his work schedule, a very rare thing. 



 We went to the lake, yes the frigid lake, with our lovely friends and played many board games. It was refreshing in that, eat too much, sleep at the wrong time of night, laugh until you cry kind of way. 



We hung out with Odie and played the gloriously awesome and nerdy game Settlers of Catan. 


We all cooked delicious food and had a jolly time. 

Even though we did get to take a break, the winter doldrums banged on my pipe, or whatever, again. It must be why they put Valentine's day in the middle of all this miserable coldness, because I had to rearrange my living room to keep from feeling like I live in a closet. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my apartment. I love how it is warm and I am so very well provided for and loved. However, when I work from home and never get out of my pajamas for three days, it starts to feel a little stiffling despite all the "relaxing". 

How did I treat this malaise? 

Feng Shui.....sort of. 

I rearranged. 


And then I felt a little better. 

Here is to February. I'm going to celebrate my second love day with my love, work on getting our budget under control and kick this wedding planning into gear. 


K's Lunch

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K's Lunch for R from Kyle Lancaster on Vimeo.

Here is my, (K's) Video of the day yesterday.
The intent was to leave it for R to see when she got home, and then have her lunch in the fridge. Just wanted to throw something together to let R know I was thinking about her while she was out working hard all day long.

I'm hoping to start doing something like this every few days to keep a video/photo log of our days.

In other news, everything is going pretty great!
Hope you are great too!

Zig! Zag!

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Advice to follow when, as K puts it, you break the rules, hit someone above the neck with a snowball and subsequently flee. Zig! Zag! it is harder to hit a moving target everybody. 

We have gotten the first real snow of winter and have been having some seriously rolicking good fun in the stuff.  

First, the winter food continues with 
Green du Puy lentil soup, I adapted from Ina's recipe and was supplied with those crazy good lentils by my awesome sisters. 
Colby Jack Beer Bread from a FoodGawker recipe 


Yes, we've been eating that soup all week. It is the best and I made a ton:) 


Garlic Knot rolls, surprisingly easy and totally delicious. K ate four when he came home and found them on the oven. These are also adapted from a FoodGawker recipe, if you don't go there and find awesome food blogs and/or immediately get hungry you should be ashamed. 

I also used my lunch break (working from home = awesome) to run around in the snow with my love.
We bundled in multiple layers of pants and six or so shirts and set out on the trail behind our apartment (Minnesotans or other northerners please don't make fun of us but -5 is very cold for these parts)  









We are the luckiest as far as I can tell. There are not pictures but we might have had a loogie spitting contest, you didn't want to see but you probably wanted to know that I won ;) 

Finally, here is a video of our recent fun, a bit random but that sums up our lives pretty well. 

Good Eats

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The Lancaster-Hatfield residence has been cookin! Thanks to the fact that work has slowed down a bit we've been having more chances to cook. This Friday night, as we usually try to do date night but were both a little sick, we made one that was, as you'll see, mainly K's idea. 

He came home from the store bearing two hulking steaks and I made him some mashed potatoes to accompany. There was cheap Burgundy wine (whoops, there was leftover that I'd been cooking with?) and StarWars all around. 


Look at how manly with steaks! 


Friday night for the sick kids....it was sublime. 

Today has been a lovely relaxing Saturday. I took an hour and a half nap and played some Super Mario Galaxy two with K while I made some cinnamon rolls from scratch. Actually a very easy recipe that is adapted from the Pioneer Woman's gigantic recipe for 50.  I added a few pecans and made the maple coffee icing a bit less fattening and they turned out beautifully. These are touted as the best cinnamon rolls and I was in no way disappointed. Thankfully this only made 15 which will do nicely to give away:)


K was in rhapsody that he gets to marry me, as well he should be ;) 


Last but not least we've been looking for Honeymoon packages. I've basically never planned a vacation except for hiking and back packing (except for our four days in Santa Fe) and we are having fun trying to find something that is affordable and mainly relaxing with swimming in the ocean (as per K's request) Let me know your travel experiences if you'd like to share, we could use any advice. 

New Years

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Happy New Year!

So far we've rung things in nicely with a our good friends who braved sickness and a drive through nowhere to be with us on a lovely evening. 



We supped at Boozefish, a pretty darn delicious European wine bar. 



There was much blurry merriment. 

We also played a seriously fun game that we got called Telepresence, which is like a cross between telephone and pictionary. 

It was pretty difficult going back to the real world today as it means going back to hardly ever seeing each other again. However, we soldier on with the knowledge that we'll be getting married soon, wahoo!


In other news, we are hoping to upgrade to some new bikes to ride in the MS150 this year. Therefore, the old ones are for sale on Craigslist for anyone that is interested. Check out this beauty, a vintage 1983 mountain bike with new tires:) 




Ok, enough advertising. 

Mostly, I am excited to be planning and participating in a whole new year. There were many very fun and very difficult things last year and I'm sure this year will be the same. I plan to try, emphasis on try, to experience all of them by living in the moment as much as possible and as always sharing my life and love with K. 

That said, I'm still pretty pumped to be getting married this year and like testing out the whole "Husband"...elect. 

2010

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I'm going to steal an idea from my favorite blog www.ch-isforchandler.blogspot.com . I thought it was a great way to sum up a year. 

2010, in a way, was not at all what I expected. I graduated with a Master's, moved to a different (though familiar) city, got a new job and got engaged. Who knew all that was going to happen? Not me, and looking back it is almost difficult to put that all in a year.

However, in honor of that fact that such things have been happening and that through everything K has been my great joy and love I have gone through a bit of a blog title change here. So, take heed of our new name and address. 

Here has been our year. 

January: 

February: 

March: 

 April: 

 May: 

 June:

 July:

 August:

 September:

 October:

 November:

December: 


We have loved sharing the year with all of you. 2011 is quirking up to be just as eventful, although I only know one thing for sure. I get to marry a man who made my life this unexpected in all the best ways I never imagined. It is only going to get better, that is for sure.