Getting Crafty

After a few trips to the fabric store and several weekends of repeatedly claiming that I was going to start figuring out the new sewing machine that I received for Christmas. The day before Caleb was born I actually made a trip to the fabric store to purchase some supplies to make a new blanket for us to take to baseball games. I thought for sure that I had at least a week until he'd make an appearance, and I didn't want to be bored at home. So, my very first project was to pull out that fabric from almost 1.5 years ago and make the blanket before the start of this year's season. Here's the result:

Caleb couldn't resist taking a roll.




Close up of the appliqued letters


I also decided that Caleb needed some shirts for the ASU game. With Andrew being out of work, I couldn't see spending the $ on the "officially licensed" ones I could find at the bookstore or Target especially since he'd likely grow out of them by the end of the season. So I bought some plain gold tee shirts for $2.50 each and used the scraps from the blanket project to make a shirt. Of course, I couldn't get a good shot of the shirt with Caleb wearing it. These are the best I could do.





I plan to make a few others ASU shirts, but haven't worked out the designs yet. I also have some other projects in the works, so stay tuned for that.

Where's Caleb?

Caleb LOVES playing peek-a-boo right now. We have several blankets in our living room. They used to hang over the back of the couch, but not anymore. Caleb is always pulling them onto the floor and trying his hardest to lift them over his head, or our head, or his car.

He's such a determined little guy (can't imagine where he gets that from ;-) On several occasions I've watched him drag the blanket across the entire living room to lift it over something.

Sometimes he buries his head in a blanket laying on the floor or in the balls in his ball pit. He's really started to have fun 'diving' down in the ball pit before jumping up to say boo. Here's a video from a few weeks ago when he did this for the first time.

Y3W

Cooking Fool

Ever since Andrew lost his job about a month ago, we've obviously been trying to cut back our spending. This means that our awful habit of eating out somewhat frequently had to go. I really missed my Chick-fil-A and Chipotle during those first two weeks, but since then we've made some really great changes and I'm quite happy!

It all started a few weeks ago when a few of my friends told me about Bountiful Baskets, a fruit and vegetable co-op. For $15 (or $25 for organic), you get TONS of fruits and veggies. On the site they estimate that you get $50 worth of grocery store produce. I had actually first heard of this site a few years ago, but since Andrew is a veggiephobe, I didn't think it was worth it. Enter Caleb who would choose a vegetable or fruit over meat any day of the week and twice on Sunday, and we were starting to think that it might be worth a try. So three weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I made my first contribution to the co-op. I was so excited for Saturday morning (pick-up day) that I didn't sleep well Friday night. I arrived at our pick-up site about 15 minutes early to see rows and rows of baskets lined up in the park. It was a beautiful site. After checking in with the woman in charge, I was led to my gorgeous organic fruits and veggies, which included HUGE red potatoes, broccoli, apples, celery, mango, oranges, cucumbers, onions, turnip, romaine lettuce, pears, tomatoes, and more. I was inspired and decided to check out a local Farmer's market on Sunday morning to pick up some proteins. That was a little disappointing, but I did come home with some buffalo ribeye steaks, eggs, carrots, and some herbs. Then came the fun part, meal planning for the week. Let me just say that I hate grocery shopping and meal planning, but somehow meal planning in reverse (i.e. once I have all the ingredients in my kitchen) has been really exciting.

I picked up our second round of Bountiful Baskets last Saturday in which we received zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, onions, garlic, pineapple, apples, asian pears, AMAZING bananas, a head of some kind of lettuce, two kinds of mushrooms, basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley, cauliflower, 6 ears of corn, mandarin oranges (I had never seen these unless in a can), and again much, much more. I also checked out another local Farmer's Market that was much more to my liking. I will definitely be going back. Not only are we getting TONS of fresh produce, but it is all SUPER tasty. Andrew has started eating more veggies, we've all started eating more fruits, we're able to purchase local, hormone and antibiotic free meats, and the best part is that we're actually SAVING money and having a ton of fun in the process.

Here are some of the recipes I've tried so far.

Balsamic Roasted Tomatoes
Asparagus with Parmesan
Herbed Roast Chicken
Marinated Buffalo Steaks (just used salad dressing as a marinade)
Buffalo burgers (from Trader Joe's seasoned with Mrs. Dash)
Pepper and Onion Brats (from the Farmer's Market)

And later this week I'm planning to try out Roasted Cauliflower when I cook my Farmer's Market find grass fed beef tip steaks marinaded in olive oil, lemon juice, and some of my fresh garlic and herbs!

I never thought I'd get this excited about food that isn't chocolate!

Y3W

Yes, that's me sitting in Caleb's ball pit. And yes, that is Andrew hanging out with Caleb while wearing a hanger on his head. Don't ask me why. There are no words.