It doesn't get much better than this!

As I am finishing up with that mountain of dishes from tonite I can't help but thinking "It doesn't get much better than this!" You may be thinking I have gone crazy so let me explain.
I am washing the dishes as my hubby and lil man are laughing and playing in the living room, bellies full of a yummy dinner and desert.
I am thankful for: 1. A loving husband. 2. A beautiful son. 3. The home we live in.
4. The food I can put on the table. 5. The ability to wash those dishes!
It has been a long summer of not seeing my hubby more than an hour or so a day. Especially hard for lil man since he doesn't understand why daddy is working so much!
It's so nice to start getting into a "normal people" routine again! The lil man is a new person when he has daddy around more often and it just melts my heart!

Well enough of the mush here is what I accomplished tonite!


Speaking of mush..... I steamed and puree'd (sp???) 4 1/2 cup serving of carrots. One of which I used in the cookies we had for dessert! I use carrot puree quite often in things such as pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, homemade mac n cheese, cookies you name it.

Also blanched some corn on the cob so that we can enjoy it in the dead of winter.

Here is dinner: Lemon Glaze chicken and wild rice. I also prepared two more meals of the lemon glaze chicken for the freezer. It was yummy (luckily considering we are going to eat it two more times :)

Don't forget dessert (no this is not a normal thing in this household I was very ambitious tonite!)

Peanut butter raisin cookies with hidden carrot puree, just don't tell my hubby.

I had planned on throwing some of these in the freezer to enjoy later but I'm thinking they will not make it that long.

I can't believe it myself but my kitchen is actually cleaner than it was when I began this afternoon. Thanks to my "Flying Lessons" From www.flylady.net

Go check out her site it is very encourgaing! I am only about a week into it but I am loving it so far. Not that I am following to a tee but at least I am trying.

Busy Boxes!

We have implemented our "busy boxes" for a week now and I am loving them.

If you haven't seen something like this before you will want to make some for your little ones!

Granted my guy is only 18months and I feel the boxes would be much more effective with older children especially preschool age but whats the harm?

We started out with 5 boxes and labled them one for each of the weekdays using my cricut expression machine.

Then you will put special toys, books or activities into each box. I typically wait until late afternoon when i'm trying to get supper ready to pull out the box for the day. Like I said I think for an older child you could get them to keep "busy" for quite a bit longer than an 18mo. old, but he still really enjoys them. In fact he might just enjoy taking the things out and putting them back into the boxes more right now but oh well!

Examples of what you can include in your boxes: Puzzles, books, crayons and coloring books, play dough, favorite toys, a special video, games, one of our fave boxes contains clothespins and cups! Think outside the box! These will keep my guy busy for at least 15 minutes most of the time longer though. Feel free to comment below with a link to your version of "busy boxes".

CSA Week

This week I have the awesome opportunity to take advantage of a friends CSA share. I have heard great things about these and have always wanted to learn more, but never looked into it.

Tonite I picked up my bounty and all I can say is WOW!

For those who do not already know CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You pay for your share and then you come once a week during the summer (early June through late October) and pick up whatever is in season! I was amazed at the amount of fresh vegi's and herbs I got tonite! (this particular farm is also certified organic which is a plus!!)

My Thirty-One storage tote was FULL! Here is what all we received:

Broccoli, Carrots, Parsley, Basil, Cilantro, Romaine lettuce, Napa Cabbage, Snap Peas, Garlic Scapes, Mixed salad greens, Green Onions, Chard, Kale, Collard Greens and one more green of some sort which I cannot remember what it was called!

My goal is to make sure not of this goes to waste, Honestly I have never eaten about 4 of the items, and never personally prepped a bunch of the others.

Tonite dinner was already prepared so I simply had a romaine salad :) I will try my best to keep track of how I cook each item and whether or not it passed the taste test for me and boo.

I had such a fun time this past week because I got to play caterer all week!

A friend of mine was preparing to take a weeklong vacation to a cottage with about 10 family members!! She gave me the task of menu planning, organizing, shopping and preparing food for the week. While the task seemed daunting to her it was very exciting for me! I love a good project.

With her help I planned out 3 meals per day and two snacks for the week. Made three shopping trips buying everything they will need for the week. Then I got cooking/baking.

Tried out some breakfast burritos for the first time which were frozen so they would be fresh and yummy by the time they ate them! I found it easy to do a type of assembly line with all my ingredients. Also lay out your plastic wrap or tin foil and then assemble the burrito and wrap it right up!

Let me tell you they were YUMMY!!!! Definately be making these again and will keep extras in the freezer so we can quick pull them out for breakfast.

Here is one of my desserts, a Peanut Butter cup dessert. I froze these and they can eat them straight out of the freezer very yummy!

I wanted to add a special holiday touch so I used powdered sugar! All you have to do it cut your shape out of waxed paper lay it over your dessert and sprinkle your sugar over it voila!

Here it is all the frozen meals/snacks I made for the week. All in all there was:

1 pan of Baked Oatmeal, 18 Breakfast burritos, 2 dozen made from scratch cornbread muffins, 4lbs of RioRancho Taco meat, 4lbs of Sloppy joe meat, 2 pans of peanut butter cup dessert,

20 handmade pig in the blankets, 4 dozen whole wheat chocolate chip oatmeal cookies,

(unbaked spoonfuls so they could have freshly baked cookies!) and then 2 large bags of marinated chicken drumsticks! I think that was all the frozen stuff and then I also made up a batch of her Bean Salad recipe which i may have to try for myself someday it looked very yummy!

*Had so much fun and got very motivated to continue to stock my fridge with frozen homemade meals!

Super Powers and Oreo Yogurt

My boo and Emma(dog) enjoying my awesome garage sale find!

I recently got a steal of a deal at a garage sale. A bike buggy that converts to a jogger for only $15!!! I absolutely love it! Attempted to run once: did not go so well! Have not tried it on the bike yet. Today though I broke out my rollerblades and we had a great time! The weather today is absolutely beautiful not to hot which is of utmost importance for me to be outside.

I realized today that excersising in the morning gives me superpowers that last all day long! It really is amazing! After that little trip I had an impromptu freezer cooking session. (Whole wheat chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and 4 pans of Cheesy potatoes). Did all my laundry and dipes, vacuumed the whole house, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, cleared off my kitchen table which is a miracle all on it's own, and still spent lots of quality time with my fam! And that's all before 5pm. Not to mention we had two sets of guests over in that time frame and have another round of guests coming soon! Whew I think I will sleep good tonite!

Super powers aside I ask myself why is it still so hard to get the motivation to exercise even when I know how much good it will do me for the day?!?!?!

I had an Aha moment this week! We love yogurt in this house but I hate to have it go bad (this doesn't happen too often since we buy organic which seems to last a lot longer!). I buy plain for my boo and don't like to buy two 32 oz. containers at once so I bought a package of oreo cookies and ground them up in the food processor...... Then I store them in a ziploc baggie in the freezer. Now I can turn my plain yogurt into a yummy late night snack! Yogurt already takes the place of ice cream in our house! It's nice to be able to buy the bigger container to save money and have less waste in the way of all those small yogurt containers. I just sprinkle a little bit of my oreo crumbs into my yogurt and voila! Yummo! :)

p.s I highly reccomend Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt. It is absolutely delicious not to mention it is organic and offsets their carbon emmissions by giving 10 percent of their profits to enviromental causes!

The Freezer is my Friend. (and should be yours too!)

My freezer cooking story isn't that extraordinary but i'm learning! I have been freezing fresh vegi's and fruits for a couple of years now. Slowly but surely I am adding more variety into my repitoire.

Recently I stumbled upon the amazing blog "A Turtle's Life For Me"
(because I do not yet know how to tag my words to a link here is the actual link!)

http://aturtleslifeforme.blogspot.com/2011/06/freezer-meals-on-cheap.html

Natalie is an awesome blogger and I have literally read every post she has ever made! Her blog is literally addicting lol.

This particular post on freezer cooking has been quite popular lately! So far I have made the "Twice Baked Potatoes", "Shredded Chicken", and the "Taco Meat". I also purchased the book she raved about called "Don't panic Dinner's in the Freezer". This book will help you get started with freezer cooking, or inspire you to get back into freezer cooking. I also highly reccomend it. There is a link on her post to purchase the book.

Here are my "Twice Baked Potatoes" ready for the freezer and boy are they yummo!

The "Taco Meat" recipe was a lot yummier than my usual venison with just a taco seasoning packet!

Next I tried a Baked Oatmeal recipe. I used tin pie plates (which get washed and reused) then cover with tin foil. Disclaimer: Do not stack right on top of eachother until they are fully frozenor you will have major spillage! ;) (hence the plates inbetween the pie plates I remove these once hey are frozen)

And my ultimate favorite things to freeze are fresh fruits and vegetables.

Not only is it awesome to enjoy these in the winter, but it is a great way to save money! I stock up on fresh produce in season when it is cheapest and freeze the excess.

We also have a garden and always have more than we can consume before it goes to waste so it works perfectly to freeze, blanch, or can the leftovers.

The best way I have found to freeze berries is to rinse them and then lay out in a single layer on a cookie sheet for freezeing. Once they are frozen you can place them into your freezer bag or container. This way you can take out a handful and they won't be a solid block!

**** On my to-do list yet is a homemade baking mix recipe, and some Corn bread muffins.

????? Do you have a favorite freezer cooking method or recipe? Please feel free to share it in the comments section!

Protection from the sun (first guest post!)

Sunscreen is a very important but misunderstood part of sun protection for children (and adults!). It should be remembered that sunscreen is just one component in preventing overexposure, skin damage/aging, skin cancer, or sunburn. Along with an application of sunscreen one should:

• Stay out of the sun, particularly between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. when the sun’s rays are most damaging
• Seek shade
• Dress in protective/reflective clothing (available at many retail stores)
• Put on hats
• Wear sunglasses (avoid discount sunglasses that are merely tinted and do not offer UV protection)

The most effective, and safer, sunscreens are mineral based (zinc and titanium) rather than chemical based sunscreens. Mineral based sunscreens work by protecting the skin from the sun by actually deflecting or blocking the sun's rays. Nonetheless, some people find mineral sunscreens to be thick and hard to apply evenly. Some mineral sunscreens don’t offer full UVA protection either so be sure to look for broad spectrum (UVA/UVB) protection.
Conversely, chemical based sunscreens work by absorbing the sun's rays. However, chemical based sunscreens have less stability, leach into the skin, and may disrupt the body’s hormone system. Additionally, these chemical sunscreens may be less effective and cause allergic reactions, while some people find them to be irritating to skin.

But back to some basic tips on how to properly use sunscreen.
Regardless of which type of sunscreen you use, be sure and apply evenly to all exposed skin. Pay careful attention to the back of hands, top of ears and feet, and the hairline. Sunscreen should be applied 15-30 minutes BEFORE going out into the sun and then approximately every 2 hours thereafter (more often if sweating or swimming).

Year round usage is key! The sun’s rays don’t become less damaging just because the weather is cold. Remember to apply sunscreen even when there is snow on the ground. In fact, the snow reflects the rays and they can be MORE damaging in the winter than at the beach in the summer.

Finally, the FDA states that sunscreens that advertise a sun protection factor (SPF) of more than 50+ are misleading (for practical purposes 50 is the maximum SPF) and may cause people to have a false sense of security and tempt them stay in the sun longer.

The sunscreens I recommend and use on my children are: California Baby, Badger, Thinkbaby, and Alba Botanical. A makeup sponge makes application of the thicker cream easier and more even.
For more information: Environmental Working group
http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/

Environmental Working Group's 2011 Sunscreen Report EWG's Skin Deep
breakingnews.ewg.org
EWG’s fifth annual Sunscreen Guide is our biggest and most fact-packed database of U.S. sun protection products ever –

The Berry Sweet Life: Guest post from *Megan Krecsmar*

************Back to the Berry Wife*************Sorry I was unable to get the link to the site to work on here (still have a lot to learn about blogging! Just copy and paste the link into your browser)

On another note: I just had the realization that we have been cloth diapering for over a year now! (our Boo is 17months) We didn't start until he was about 5 months old.

Have you seen the adds for Pampers and Huggies lately?

It seems pampers is trying to make a faux cloth diaper, are they jealous?

Don't get me started on the Huggies commercial that attempts to portray a little guy as a sex symbol in his "jeans" diaper.

These dipes are far from cute, do you know what goes into one disposable diaper?

disposables contain chemicals such as sodium polyacrylate(a chemical banned from tampons due to its link to toxic shock), and dioxin (a carcinogen). *** Info from www.ecobuns.com

Not to mention the petroleum that goes into making these babies! Do you really want to have all that on that cute little bum of yours 24/7???

Not using Cloth you will contribute over 7000 diapers to the landfill throughout your child's diapering years which will take over 200 years to decompose!

Did you know even with disposables you are supposed to dump the solids in the toilet so that they don't end up in the landfill and therefore in our water supply?

I think the biggest perk to cloth as far as the enviroment goes is that you can use the same diapers all of your children!

Talk about cute

prints and colors, here is only some of our cloth collection!! Granted I try to go the gender neutral route incase we have a girl someday, if we do though I WILL have to get some pink ones for her of course! hehe

Love my diaper caddy? It's Thirty-One Gifts and I sell it! :) you can contact me at berrysweetboutique@ hotmail.com to order one for yourself!

I purchased 90% of my diapers from www.ecobuns.com Please check out the webpage and show her facebook page some love. They are so helpful and encouraging over there. If it weren't for their help I don't know if I could have stuck through this in the beggining!

Summer Goals Update: Sun protection

I have crossed off the first item on my "Summer Goals" list!

My first project was to protect my boo from the sun while playing outside.

The Problem: We have recently cut down all our pine trees as they were diseased and we were building a barn. Now we have virtually no shade. Our deck especially gets HOT and we spend a lot of our time outside there as we have his pool on the deck. ( this "lattice" as I call it was already on our deck but was pretty much just for looks!) You can also see some of the fabric already hanging I forgot to get a real before pic!

The Solution: roughly $70 in outdoor fabric and about 1 hour of cutting and sewing! Note: I did not use the blue fabric on the deck, this will hopefully be used as a shade for our hand-me-down swingset we just recieved!

The finished product: YAY!!! but of course the sun as not been out since we got the shades put up, so we haven't really gotten a chance to see how well they work! They sure look cute though don't they? haha

Summer Goals

It's time to make myself accountable for those things I keep saying I want to do!!!

Introducing my "Summer 2011 Goals" :)

1) Protect my little man from the sun while he plays outside. (hint this is a big sewing project, more to come!)

2) Hold a freezer cooking day!!!!

3) Sew something for myself to wear. Haven't done this since highschool when I made p.j pants.

Thinking I want to try a sundress of sorts but it may be to cold to wear it by the time I finish.

4) Do a "trash-to-treasure" project. I always see people do these but don't think I have the "eye" to find the "trash" part. Might take a few trips to Goodwill and some garage sales that sparks my creative interests! ;)

5)Of course it's my goal to keep up with my blog so I can be held accountable for my list :)

Hopefully I will find some more things to add to my list, but this should keep me busy in the meantime! Any more suggestions?

Swimmi!

I purchased a Bummi's Swimmi today. It's obviously reusable!!! :) And not to mention the cutest thing you ever saw. I got the Clown Fish print it's a light blue with those adorable clown fish all over it. Think about those swim diapers you buy in the store, they are outrageously priced in my opinion and all they do is hold the poo in. The swimmi does just that, for the price of a small pack of disposables you can purchase one supercute reusable. It's especially great if you are traveling or even just going to the beach, it takes up a lot less space than the disposables not to mention you would have to bring more than one of those! All you do is if there is poo flush it down the toilet and wash it with the rest of your diapers. If you do not currently cloth diaper then you can just wash the swimmi with your other laundry.
Check out the adorable prints available at www.ecobuns.com.