farmers market

This morning I went to the Gilbert Farmer's Market. It's off downtown Gilbert just behind Liberty Market. I had a great time walking around with some friends and sampling the coffee and hummus. We had such a wonderful time that we're going again next week! Some highlights:

Mamas and babies shopping.

Me looking at the produce.

The cutest little pink pig!

My produce purchase, cost $12.

Aloe Vera plant, cost $1.

Origami Crane Mobile, cost $1.

Great Harvest Bread Co. bread and Vegan Spin/Artichoke Dip. We ate it for lunch and it is delish!

My cuteness, wearing his new flip flops. Baby shoes make me :) !

Earth Day

Last Friday was Earth Day! What did you do to celebrate? Do you remember back in grade school where you had to do a project with the class, usually something like planting a tree or picking up recycling around the school? Those were the days!

For the past few years my husband has given me a rose bush on my birthday. Usually pink roses because pink is my favorite color- can you tell? And roses are so hardy and can thrive in the hot, dry climate where we live. This year was no exception and I woke up to the plant on the dining room table. Thank you sweetie! What is exceptional is that the roses that we have already planted are always in bloom on my birthday AND on our anniversary, which is in June. How does he do it?!

Our little guy got to enjoy some outside time this weekend. He LOVES being outside and when the back door opens he drops whatever is in his hands, gets this determined look on his face and crawls as fast as he can to try and make it out before the door closes.  We set up this last minute water table which turned into a new doggy drinking bowl- go figure!

I love reading your comments on the blog. Did you plant anything for Earth Day? Do your children love playing outside? What's their favorite outdoor activity? Please share.

How green are you?

I found this website with a quiz on how environmentally friendly your life is.

http://practicallygreen.com/

I scored a 7 out of 10. The lowest score was in health, ouch. I usually just shop at our local grocery store and buy what is on sale. I want to buy locally, but I put it off to the last minute then we need food and the grocery store is so easy. But, I'm making my family's health a priority. My goal is to visit a farmer's market this week. I want to buy locally grown vegetables and fruit.

Have you found a farmer's market in your area? Where do you shop?

a dirty waste

I haven't been able to write for a few days because I've been taking care of a sick baby. My little guy got sick this week for the first time with a fever, lethargy and some nasty diapers.  I'm happy to report he's feeling better now but we're still laying low so to not spread this around.

This lovely beast is our compost. I requested it from our city for a small $5 deposit. It's just a trash can with the bottom cut off. The idea started with making our baby food. Making baby food creates a lot of food waste, like apple and sweet potato peel. We didn't even own a peeler beforehand because we leave the skins on everything we eat. I hated throwing these in the trash so now they go in the compost. I also put in egg shell, banana peel, carrot tops, broccoli stalks, all veggie and fruit remnants. My husband adds the grass clippings and also a couple bags of soil have gone in to help the process along. I water the compost (and feel kind of silly doing it) and turn it every week with the pitchfork. My zombie slaying skills have come a long way. Some of my friends have asked me "what are you going to do with the soil?" I didn't really stop to think about that before starting the compost. I thought it would take a long time to get to that point. But we throw away a lot of food waste! You should try collecting yours one day to see how much you actually throw away. I empty our bowl by the sink a few times a day and the compost is getting pretty full. So, this next picture is the before picture for my garden! There is no after picture yet. Hopefully posting this will get me motivated to get the supplies and begin.

Note the spout from our gutter in the right hand corner. It will be self watering, when it actually rains! The hose is pretty close to this area too.

This is an added bonus picture of my family enjoying an afternoon in the AZ sunshine.

 Can you spot the Jimmy John's cup?

earth day diaper change

This is right up my alley

http://greatclothdiaperchange.com/

I'm planning on going to the Tempe location hosted by GoGo Natural. Does anyone want to go with me?

Tissues: necessity or obsession

Those of you that know me well know my obsession with kleenex. And I quote my friend Morgan "from October through April you will find Nic on the couch with a box of tissues". It's become ridiculous how many boxes we have in our house. Kitchen, Living room, babies room, both bathrooms and bedside table, plus in the car and always an entire box when I travel! But now I'm done. We're switching to hankies. We're keeping one box for when people are over (lol) but the rest of them will not be replaced. Just one simple way to replace a disposable product with a reusable one and produce less garbage. And through example, teaching our little one to reuse as well. Ah- choo!

our diapers

Come on, you knew it was coming..
We cloth diaper and are proud of it! Our reasons are environmental, budget and to protect our baby's sensitive buns. I know many of my friends are CDers and some are not, so here are some pics of how we do it. Just a peek into our diaper world.

step 1

step 2

our set up: prefolds, covers, wipes and wash.

#1s go right into the bucket. #2s get sprayed on the dirty diaper board then into the bucket. 

 I wash and hang dry outside about twice a week. We spent $200 on the start up cost, then about another $200 on cute covers and accessories and that's it- we're good til he's toilet trained! We use disposables at night because I'd rather sleep than change a diaper at 2am and also when traveling by airplane, cloth diapers are not exactly compact.

babies and dog doodoo

So, this post has nothing to do with the earth. Well, kind of because my baby and I were outside playing on the lawn. I was scooping up some presents that our dog had left us. We have a large German Shepherd and you know what they say about large dogs... they have very large poops! There was one in particular that was very fresh and I couldn't scoop. I saw my baby eyeing it. I tried to coax him away from the mound, but I had a scooper in my hand. I hedged my bets and figured I could get over to the trash, empty the scooper and get back before he got to it. Wrong. When I turned back to my baby he was digging in with both hands! The world slowed down to slow motion as I saw his hands going towards his mouth. NOOOOOO!! Gross!! I reached him just in time to lift his arms in the air and carry him inside to the sink. As far as I could see, there was no poop in his mouth.

P.S. Later when I fed him his dinner I couldn't help but notice the color and consistency was much like his almost meal outside. Eeeewwww! No wonder he wanted to eat it!

My homemade Mei Tai

April 22nd

An Earth Day Baby- that's me! I was born on April 22nd, a day that is globally celebrated as Earth Day in over 175 countries. I've always tried to be a little environmentally conscious because of my birthday and because I was brought up that way. Since I have settled down with my husband and had our first child it has become even more important to me to leave our planet in a good condition for the next generation. I want my son and his sons to be able to play outside and breathe clean air. This blog will be about simple ways that our family is keeping the planet green and I hope to hear your stories of how you do the same. Many of our ideas are centered around baby care because that's what our life is about right now :) But we also do things like use cloth napkins instead of paper towels, compost in the yard, and reuse containers. Things that everyone can do to be an Earth Day Baby!