Veggie Tales

This post is about vegetables (and fruit). Get it? Oh man that was lame! ha ha! I thought I should represent for Steve's favorite childhood cartoon. Here is a video he made me watch at least 3 times, probably more.

So in the interest of saving some money, I decided to try getting our produce from a co-op. I found our local group here It is actually pretty cool. Here is some info from their website about the co-op.

We are a community Produce coop that has started from a few friends hoping to save a few dollars to becoming an amazing community wide coop. We have been fortunate that the coops have had wonderful volunteers to help everyone continue saving money.  We hope everyone enjoys the experience and please keep in mind this is run by the wonderful volunteers from the group leaders, group members sorting, etc. It is a great way to help others in your community and an opportunity to promote healthy living among our famililes.

Thanks for being a part of this wonderful community!

Pretty cool. I'm not totally sure how it works or where they get their food from but I know they try to keep it as local as possible and also as cheap as possible. Both of those things are a-ok in my book! So they have all kinds of things you can order but the main attraction seems to be the "produce basket". For $23 you can get a mixture of seasonal fruits and veggies. This is what they have to say about the produce basket:

Conventional Produce Basket50% Fruits, 50% Vegetables, 100% healthy and delicious The produce basket contains a variety of high-quality seasonal fruits and vegetable, generally enough produce to feed a family of four for two weeks. This is the core of the coops buying power. It's the best value for your money! Each week your group will purchases produce in bulk, based upon the number of baskets ordered. The items are chosen with variety and seasonality in mind so you get the most appealing and cost-effective baskets possible


So I thought I would give it a try. Baby Steven and I picked up our first produce basket last Tuesday evening and let me tell you, there was a ton of stuff in it! It almost filled up a whole laundry basket! Here are some pictures of what we got.

Our laundry basket o'produce...man that thing was heavy!

 The fruits!

The veggies!

It seemed like so much food! This is what we actually got: bananas, fuiji apples, peaches, mangos, plouts, papaya, cantaloupe, portabella mushrooms, tomatoes, corn, romain lettuce, carrots, green beans, peppers, cucumbers and an onion.

I think this is so cool! Not only did we get a ton of cheap fruits and veggies, but we also got some things we would not normally eat/cook. It forces us to try new things. I mean what the heck is a plout? Well apparently it is a hybrid plum and apricot and it is delicious! Isn't that cool? So this week I've been wracking my brain (and my mom's) for ways to prepare and cook all the yummy things we got! Kind of exciting and almost like a vegetable adventure! ha!


 Has anyone else tried a co-op? What did you think? 

Pinterest Obsession

Have you guys heard of Pinterst? It is so cool! Its a website where you can tag pictures, web pages, and basically anything cool that you want to remember and save it for later. They say its "a place to catalog the things you love." And, let me tell you, it is addictive! Here is the gateway to your new Internet addiction: Pinterest.

It may sound a little funky at first, and you are probably thinking "but I can bookmark cool pages in my Internet browser already..." Trust me, this is way better. I was skeptical too, but man this website is cool.
When you find something cool you want to remember to do later you "repin" it. Then it goes to your board and you can look back at it anytime. You can pin anything, from a picture that inspires you to a recipe to a DIY project to a haircut idea. It's really very cool and the possibilities are endless!

 You can import your friends list from Facebook and see what all your friends are "pinning". That way you can look at a huge variety of stuff. Your homepage has all the most recent pins from your friends' pages and anyone else you choose to follow out in cyberspace.

Mostly I've been obsessed with all the cool DIY ideas that are out there. There are so many neat ones! I have found about 10,000 things I want to do through this website. It is so amazing. Here are some of the cool DIY ideas I have found so far:

A super cute DIY wreath you can make for the holidays. The tutorial can be found here

Adorable flowers made out of felt! How cute is that? You can learn how to make them here 

Here is an awesome idea for magnetic wall art that holds all your makeup! How creative is that? That tutorial is here.

Pinterest is also a great resource for things to do with your kiddos. I have found a ton of neat things to do for/with the little man. There are some amazingly crafty ideas out there! Here are just a couple:

A website with a recipe for homemade finger paint! How awesome (and cheap) is that?! You can find the website here

 A website that lets you print off homemade flash cards. This is going to come in handy some day. here

A tutorial on how to make homemade gripper socks! With puffy paint! Awesome! here

Can you see how this can get addictive?!? And those are just couple of the fun things I've found I want to make. And people are pinning new things everyday!

So if you haven't checked out Pinterest yet, do it! You won't regret it (unless you end up losing sleep over it because you can't stop late at night, but that's another story!)