Buy local...or grow your own

I love produce. I love everything about it: growing it, preparing it, eating it, decorating with it, and the fact that I can support local farmers!

Our Sunday afternoons are spent at the farmer's market. We browse all of the vendors, but frequent one: Cedar Hill Farms out of Colfax, NC. They have an awesome variety of produce. Not to mention it's delicious and cheap! Speaking of cheap, we usually buy five/six bags of produce and spend around $20. Here is what we purchased Sunday:

-strawberries
-blueberries
-grapes
-peaches
-pears
-plums
-oranges
-carrots
-potatoes
-zucchini
-squash
-apples
-cucumbers
-bell peppers
-avocado
-bananas
-tomatoes


The list seems longer than usual this time because I'm buying for Owen now as well. When we make dinner I try to cook a little extra for him.

pureed squash and zucchini

He also gets fresh fruit daily in his mesh teether, which he loves! The mesh part prevents him from biting off large pieces of food. What a brilliant idea!

In my garden this year, I planted cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. So far I've picked two big tomatoes, a few cherry tomatoes, and a handful of cucumbers:

cucumbers and balsamic

Pat and I decided to join a club through Lowe's Foods called "Locally Grown Club". For three weeks we will have a box of local produce delivered to Lowes Foods near our house. The box of goodies will be ready for us to pick up on Saturday mornings. We don't really know what kind of produce we will get, but we do know it will be 12 pounds worth! I can't wait to pick up our first box! If you live in the area and are interested in this program here is the link: Locally Grown Club

I think I could live off fresh fruits and veggies. How about you??

Don't get me wrong, if there happens to be chocolate chip cookies staring back at me in the pantry I will have one of those too!!

Happy Friday!

My motivation.
My love.

My blue-eyed baby.
My life.

My chunky little man.
My everything.

You are my world.

I love you Owen Turner!

finger painting!

The teacher in me decided I would let Owen try finger painting while we were at the beach. Instead of using paint, I used yogurt (that way if he consumed large amounts, it wouldn't matter). I put Owen in his high chair seat, dumped some yogurt on the tray, and gave him a spoon. He went to town!









While Owen thoroughly enjoyed it, clean-up was a pain! I ended up carrying him as-is and putting him right in the bathtub (seat and all!).

A weekend away

On Saturday, Pat, Owen, and myself met some of my family at North Myrtle Beach for a long weekend. While we were there we celebrated Father's Day (blog post on this later), shopped, walked on the beach, went in the ocean, played in the sand, swam in the pool, made tie-dye shirts, and ate lots of yummy food! It was so good to see the fam again!

Wordless Wednesday

I spy

something white...

Owen's 1st tooth!!

Isn't he precious??

Playroom

This weekend we converted our NC STATE room in to a playroom for Owen. Basically, we just took the coffee table out, added a child-size table and chairs, a toy box, and toys, and baby proofed the entire room.

Look what I found in my old toy box:

Sadly enough, I was never allowed to play with either one of these. I just took the 1983 Cabbage Patch out of the original box today (it was torn to pieces), and the Barbie is still in hers!

7 months old!

Owen, you are now 7 months old! Where has time gone? You have changed so much within the last month. The biggest highlight this month is your tooth! It's on the bottom left. We think it popped through the gum last Saturday. Mommy noticed it while we were swimming at the pool! You weren't really fussy so it was a complete surprise to us.



At 7 months old, here is what your daily schedule looks like:
-wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 (sometimes you go back to sleep in mommy and daddy's bed until we have to leave for work)
-play until breakfast at 9:00
-after breakfast play until morning nap (10:00)
-sleep for 2-2.5 hours
-play until lunch at 1:00
-after lunch play until afternoon nap (2:00/3:00)
-sleep for 1-1.5 hours
-play until dinner at 5:00
-after dinner take a bath
-bedtime is between 6:30 and 7:00

As far as food goes, you eat at 9:00 (bottle of breast milk and oatmeal/yogurt and fruit), 1:00 (bottle of formula and veggie), 5:00 (bottle of formula and veggie), and 10:00 (bottle of breast milk). We still wake you up at 10:00 to give you your last bottle of the day. I'm not sure when we will stop this, but right now we have to continue so you get your recommended milk amount (and you sleep soundly through the night) so I'm not going to worry about it. They say "never wake a sleeping baby", but it works fine for us! You have tried lots of foods so far. New ones this month include cantaloupe, squash, yogurt, lentils, potatoes, spinach, mango, prunes, cheerios, and green beans (I even gave you some whipped cream from my dessert one day!).

I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing you weigh around 22 pounds. A month ago you weighed 20 pounds! In clothes you wear 9 months, and in disposable diapers you wear a size 3. Luckily, the cloth diapers we use are one-size adjustables, so they grow with you.

Other highlights this month:
-you can sit up alone for a few seconds then you tumble over
-you love the pool
-you sleep best on your tummy
-you like to use your lovies as a pillow every night
-you love to drink water out of your sippy cup (you know how to hold it and tip it up)
-you "talk" all the time- especially when being read to, when you are in the pool, on the way to and from school, in your exersaucer, and when looking at the doggies
-you recognize your name, familiar faces, and voices (with this comes some stranger anxiety)
-you aren't crawling yet, but you will roll to whatever it is you want
-you give kisses (hold mommy's cheeks and kiss her with a wet, open mouth!)
-you have waved bye-bye a handful of times- not sure if this was on purpose or just a coincidence
-when riding in your stroller, you love to prop your feet up
-you are exploring everything you can get your hands on- trees, clothes on the racks, food, furniture, etc.

On June 4th, you spent the night with Nanny and Pops for the first time!

Owen, mommy and daddy love you soooo much! You are such a joy to be around. Your smile, laughter, and silliness is definitely contagious! You light up our lives without even knowing it!

We love you!!

Wordless Wednesday- lol edition!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1764636596845

A night away

Owen spent the night with his Nanny and Pops for the first time last night! From the looks of things, I think they had a great time:

RMCF

Hip Hip Hooray!

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory opened a store near our house!!! When we lived in Cary, Pat and I would stop by this store on the way out of Southpoint Mall and pick up a delicious candy apple.

So, of course, after a quick trip to Target this evening, we purchased one of these ah-mazing apples!

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

This year we decided to stay home for Memorial Day. One, because our pool opened this weekend, and two, because sometimes it's nice to have a long weekend at home.