Things that are not bigger than your head

Joshy's potty chair. It got stuck.

It may appear that I have no control over my children, with Joshua wearing a potty chair, but I did warn him what might happen if he persisted in trying to wear it as a hat (he's not so interested in using it as a potty chair these days, so it's pretty clean). Sometimes kids have to learn from their own mistakes. I guarantee he won't be trying to wear a toilet seat as a hat anytime soon.

Brenda's cookie, although it's close.

So today is our anniversary, but yesterday I surprised Kraig with a romantic dinner. Here's how it played out:

Kraig worked from 4-8:30, so while he was gone I got everything ready. I put his tuxedo, shoes, gel (to get rid of work hat hair) and cologne out in the garage with a note pinned to it that read, "Ready for this? Put this on and knock the door when you're ready." I also left him a single red rose which is what he did when he proposed (the first time). I was waiting on the other side of the door in my fancy dress in a spotless house, lit with candles.

We had a romantic candle lit dinner. Since our lives revolve around food, here was our menu:

Appetizer--Spinach artichoke bruschetta (there were more of them. I forgot to take the photo before we started eating)

Salad--Roasted onion and blue cheese in a baked shell with a white wine vinegar and shallot dressing

Entree--Chicken with Alfredo cream sauce over Farfalle, garnished with sauteed mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes. Served with steamed broccoli.

Dessert--strawberry hearts and lime sherbet with vanilla ice cream in frozen lime peel cups.

After dinner we danced to our wedding CD and reminisced with our wedding album. It was a perfect evening.

Here's one more non-flash photo to capture a little more of the ambiance of the evening. It really was perfect.

4 Years and counting

Kraig and I were married 4 years ago today. Here's a brief history of our courtship and marriage:

7 Months of dating


2 great proposals

1 Fairytale day

3 Homes

2 Kids

Dozens of fun vacations and outings


Thousands of hours being with my best friend:

Happy Anniversary, Babe! I love you!

SuperDogs

Tuesday we went to the National Western Stock Show. We splurged and got tickets for our family to a previously unknown "SuperDogs" show. It was fantastic. So entertaining watching a bunch of normal dogs do tricks and race. Andy was cheering so loudly, Kraig and I had to laugh.

This is the world-champion high jumping dog. He jumps higher than the highest high jumping horse. Amazing!

We also got to see all the animals at the petting zoo, and some of the stock animals getting groomed to be judged. I've never met a cow so furry.

Here are my handsome cowboys. Andy has cowboy boots on, can you tell? We tried to find him a hat like his daddy's, but none would fit ;)

Girls' Weekend

My dear friend Lindsey flew in this weekend from Russia (via Houston visiting her parents) to meet our friend Laura and me for a much needed kid-free-husband-less weekend.

There was shopping, mexican food, a chick flick, late night talking, pedicures, more shopping, and more mexican food. Perfect.

Thanks, girls! I feel refreshed!

Sleep easy tonight, Webb Family

A few weeks ago a friend told me this: If we knew how important our food storage is, we'd be stepping over it in our living room. We took it a little too much to heart.

It all started with my new wheat grinder. We had to buy more wheat so I could grind out all my own flour.

200 pounds of White Wheat later...

Then it was the sale on gallon jugs of water. We bought 60. This was just from the first grocery store we cleaned out.

Then another trip to the Cannery to get some more wheat, dry milk, beans, oats, rice, and sugar...
And a special "stock up" trip to Sam's club...

Having to step over it in my living room

Hoarding frosting buckets from all our local bakeries to store all the wheat, beans, oats, rice and sugar (and emergency toilet paper. You never know!) not already in #10 cans (easier to rotate this way)...

Hauling more palates down to our crawlspace cum food storage room so we could get it out of the front room...

The water looks like it's marching itself into place

And viola! My living room is mine again! Well, almost.
Kraig also built me some shelves above my washer and dryer today. I bought these shelves for this exact purpose back in June for $5 at a yard sale. Who sells all-purpose shelving?

Before

After

I'm SUCH a lucky girl to have such a handy husband to take care of all of this for our family!

**We got free buckets from the grocery store bakeries, but they were less consistant at having buckets available. So my sister told me she'd called a speciality cake bakery and they had plenty. I called the one close to my house and bought them for $1 each. They come with the lid, which is perfect because it has a ring to seal it. They're perfect.

We just put the wheat, rice, sugar, and beans in the buckets (after washing them really good and letting them completely dry) and put the lids on. I figure this is what I'll rotate for our own use and leave all the #10 cans for our long term emergency supply. The Missionary at the Cannery said he is currently using the wheat that he got in 1960 and has had stored in a trash can for 40+ years. I figure a few years in my white buckets will be just fine:) We're also putting our oats in the buckets, we just have to get more. Our emergency laundry soap will have a bucket too, along with 36 rolls of TP. We figure that way it will be protected if we had a flood.

I didn't buy the dry milk in bulk put it in buckets--we canned more in #10 cans that I'll rotate that way. I think it would go rancid long before I could use an entire bucket's worth, but a #10 can is just about the right size.

It was really fun to add all this to the peace of mind of our family's emergency prepardness.My dad built our crawl space for us when we moved in. He put palates down, OSB and carpet. We had the shelving. It only covered half the space, so Kraig put the additional palates down further towards the back where we wouldn't need access them as frequently. But our crawlspace is easily accessed off our family room, not out in the garage or anything.