Wind: 1, Montgomerys: 0

Last Sunday, a huge storm blew through the metroplex. There were reports of tons of rain, hail, and even tornadoes! Thankfully, all we got was tons of rain and TONS of wind. Really strong wind, apparently. I don't know how I went all week without noticing, but when David came back in town on Thursday, he noticed that our backyard fence was leaning a bit. Okay, maybe more than a bit. Maybe it was probably about to fall over. And I didn't notice. It's even the part of the fence right by my herb garden, which I've been watering religiously. I guess I was paying more attention to my almost-blooming tomato plant. Anyway, the fence was about to fall over, so he went over to talk to the neighbor about it and even talked to a friend of his who could fix it. Well, before any of this fence-fixing could take place, the winds decided to pick up and on Friday, the winds were blowing at a reported 45 mph with gusts up to 59 mph!! When I got home from happy hour around 6:30, I went to the backyard and found this:

And I thought to myself, well crap. So this morning, David tackled the fence with the hopes of repairing it without having to pay someone $100 to do it for us. After working for two hours and digging about 20 inches into the ground where the post is, he threw in the towel. I'm not exactly sure how far down that post and the cement goes, but David said it wasn't even moving. Not even a little bit. So for now, until we can get someone to come and fix our fence, our backyard looks like this:

Needless to say, Casey is on supervised outside visits only. We aren't letting her explore the neighbors yard. And it's killing her!

5th Annual DVCBQ

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated our birthdays with the 5th Annual DVCBQ! It's hard to believe that this was our fifth birthday barbecue. Where does the time go??

This year, we smoked a huge brisket (approximately 17 pounds)...

Of course, we played washers in the backyard...

Our neighbor, Steven, took these action shots. Can you see the washer mid-air? That's talent, I tell ya!

This year, we had a few special guests. Casey had a couple new friends over, Boone and Veronica.

They chased each other around all afternoon and then destroyed some toys inside later in the evening.

We also had our newest little neighbor over, Vaughn!! Isn't she beautiful?!? She looks just like her mommy.

And as you know, the DVCBQ wouldn't be the DVCBQ without some shots! Not to worry, little Vaughn was back at home by this time. It just wouldn't be right to let her witness these shenanigans at such a young age!

That same night was the night of the "SuperMoon". The moon was supposedly at its largest and brightest...although you wouldn't be able to tell from this picture.

I'm actually just assuming that's why Steven took this picture. I could be wrong. 

It was yet another successful DVCBQ! We ate, we drank, we watched grown men punch each other (aka UFC 128).  What more could you want??

And a special thanks to Steve for being the official DVCBQ photographer!

Herb Garden: Part 2

Today is the 5th Annual DVCBQ! It's hard to believe that we've been doing this for five years now! It's even harder to believe that this also means that David and I have been together for FIVE YEARS! Which also means that I've been working at the Department of Banking for five years. Which also means that I graduated college five years ago. And that means I graduated high school TEN years ago. Oh, lordy...I'm getting old!

Anyway, back to the subject of this post: my herb garden! Remember this post? When the flower bed was built, it was too late in the summer to plant anything, so I had to wait seven long months! But today was the day! We did a ton of planting this morning. Firs things first, the herb garden. Here she is!

Isn't she beautiful? I planted rosemary, thyme, sweet basil, boxwood basil, parsley, green bell peppers, red chili peppers, and cherry tomatoes. 

We also picked up some geraniums at Costco again this year. They always do so well in the flower beds in the front of the house, and they are so pretty!

We also planted some marigolds in the other flower bed in the front of the house. See that green bush with the little white flowers? That's one of the azaleas we planted last year! They only bloom once a year, but they're so pretty when they do.

And last, but not least, we bought a purple petunia for the table in the back yard. This one was for Casey. When we got her at the animal shelter, her name was Petunia.  Petunia. What a terrible name. Poor thing.

For some reason, potted flowers don't do very well in our backyard, but at least it looks good for now!

As for the rest of the day, the brisket has been smoking since about 8:30 this morning, so hopefully it's done by 6. David just went to pick up the keg. Clayton managed to get on the road from Austin by11 this morning (shocking, I know).  And we're expecting about 20-25 people this afternoon! I'm ready to get this party started!!

Yarn Wreath

I follow quite a few craft blogs and always think to myself, "I can do that!". But then, I don't. Steamy Kitchen, a food blog, posted this the other day, and I thought they were so cute! And it looked super easy to make! So yesterday, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought all my supplies. This was my inspiration wreath. It's for sale on Etsy for $30 plus $8 for shipping, and I didn't want to pay almost $40 for something I was sure I could make myself.

I've been wanting to find a spring wreath for our door, and this one was perfect!

So last night, while we watched the most pointless, meaningless, and biggest waste of time movie The American with George Clooney, I made my wreath! I finished it before the movie even ended!

What do you think??? I couldn't find the zig-zaggy felt ribbon, so I just went without it. And my colors turned out to be a lot brighter than the other one, but I love it! It's so bright and cheery and springy! Plus, I made it myself! Cost breakdown?

• Straw Wreath - $3.99
• Yarn - $2.88 per bundle (I bought 4 colors)
• Beads for the center of the flowers - $1.99
• Felt - $0.25 each (I bought 4)

Total Cost: $18.50 plus tax

Sure beats $38!! And it was so easy to make and I had so much fun doing it!

Nathalia Turns 2!

My sweet niece, Nathalia, turns TWO today!! I can't believe how fast she's growing up!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Nathalia!!

Valentine's Day

David and I aren't big on celebrating Valentine's Day. We don't do anything in particular each year, but this year, I wanted to go to dinner at Brio in Southlake on Sunday. We hadn't been back since we had our rehearsal dinner there, so I thought it would be fun to go! Before dinner, we stopped in at Three Dog Bakery. Have you ever been? I love it! We celebrated Casey's first birthday there.  And since it was Valentine's Day, I couldn't resist buying our sweet pup a treat! She got a cookie and a pupcake.

Dinner at Brio was delicious, as usual. Everything there is so good!

Earlier that day, I made strawberry cupcakes to bring to work. The recipe I found called for fresh strawberries, so I couldn't wait to try them. They turned out pretty good! Here's the recipe.

1 package (18 1/4 oz) white cake mix
1 package (3 oz) strawberry jello
1 cup finely chopped, fresh strawberries, with juice
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the cake mix, gelatin, strawberries and juice, milk, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down sides again if needed. Spoon about 1/3 cup batter into each lined cupcake cup, filling it 3/4 full. Bake until cupcakes are lightly golden and spring back when pressed gently with a finger, 20 to 25 minutes*. Remove from oven, place pans on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes to wire racks to cool for another 15 minutes.

*I baked mine for 16-18 minutes, so it really depends on your oven.

For the frosting, I just made a basic cream cheese frosting.
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
1 stick regular, salted butter
1 pound powdered sugar

Combine with a mixer and frost your cupcakes after they've cooled. Enjoy!

Problem No. 1 Solved

Well today is day 4 of being at home. But I guess it technically doesn't count as a "stay at home from work" day, since today is our flex Friday, so we wouldn't be working anyway. It did, however, mark the fourth day that the plumber couldn't make it back to our house.  Because it snowed last night. It snowed a lot last night.

So, being the impatient resourceful person that I am, I started googling "how to replace an O ring on a single handle kitchen faucet". Surely it couldn't be that hard. And the plumber was going to charge us $125 to help us out. After about 10 minutes on the Internet, I somehow talked my unconvinced loving husband into trekking out in the snow to Home Depot. Surely someone there could help us. And based on my research, O rings would only cost us about $2.

Driving conditions were actually better than yesterday. The snow provided adequate traction and we made it to Home Depot. We found a guy to help us, but since we didn't bring the busted O ring with us, we didn't know what size we needed. Off to the faucet section we went to see if Home Depot sold our sink - negative. But standing in the faucet aisle, we I realized that it would be cheaper to just replace the whole faucet than to pay the plumber to fix our O ring.  Long story short, we agreed to purchase a new faucet and attempt to replace our old one. It can't be that hard to install, right? David wasn't entirely convinced.

Fast forward one hour and....we have a new faucet! 

It would have only taken 20 minutes to replace the thing, but the old one was such a pain to get out. We're pretty sure that the builder attached the faucet to the sink before putting the sink in the counter. There's no way they did it any other way. So, we're back in business!!! I think I'll bake some cookies tonight to celebrate! Now if we could just get the front door unlocked...