Bargain Produce!!!

Hey all!! So about a month ago I found out about this awesome food co-op called Bountiful Baskets. It freakin' rocks, so I thought I would share! These awesome ladies in Arizona started it and it has just recently come to Utah. How it works is everybody that wants to participate pays into a pool so to speak and then they take that and buy produce wholesale and distribute it amongst everybody so we all get a deal! It is so awesome! Such a bargain! You go to their website and pay $15 for a "basket". There are also options to buy other things such as cases of fruit (this week was peaches and cherries), ingredient packs for different kind of ethnic cooking (Italian pack, Mexican pack, Asian pack...I love these! See below for details), and also breads of all kinds! I hear they also have other things occasionally, but these are all that I have seen so far. :) Anyways, here's all the loot I got today:

Basket:
2 big heads of green lettuce
4 lb. container of red grapes
6 big bananas
1 lb. big PERFECT! strawberries
1/2 brown bag of cherries (approx 1-1 1/2 lbs?)
7 pluots (never had these before, but they look and smell SO tasty)
4 roma tomatoes
7 braeburn apples
1 head cauliflower
1 bunch of celery
2 zucchini
1 brown bag full of fresh green beans
This filled about 3/4 of the big laundry basket that I took with. And this was even smaller than last week! Last week the basket was full! We are still eating stuff and a lot of it I don't think we are going to get to so I'm making it into baby food :) Go me bein' thrifty!

Ok, and then here is what was in the Mexican Pack this week:
1 pkg. 12 ct. corn tortillas
dried anaheim and chipotle chiles
1 bunch of cilantro
6 limes
1 yellow onion
2 bunches of green onions
4 pablano peppers
3 jalapenos
2 avocados
1 head garlic
Awesome right? I'm making homemade enchilada sauce tonight with the dried chiles. And then tomorrow we are having homemade cafe rio salads using a bunch of the other stuff! :) And I totally intend on making chile relanos with the pablanos! :) Yum! Last week was an Italian pack... And it was stinkin' awesome as well! It had an eggplant, TONS of herbs, 3 heads of garlic, 3 onions, and a bunch of other stuff. SOOO awesome! I am loving this!

I love looking into our fridge and seeing all the colorful fresh fruits and vegetables!!! It has been so awesome! It has been so helpful in getting us to eat better. And like I said above, I'm taking whatever we have leftover after the 2 weeks (oh yeah, they do it every other week) and making and freezing baby food with it for Noah to eat in a month or so! :) It's been so awesome! Such a great deal on stuff that's so good for you. And also it's all store quality stuff. Not like leftovers or anything. The only reason we get such a good deal is because the ladies that run the co-op go and work out awesome prices with the growers because they buy in bulk! :) So dang cool!

I highly recommend you all check it out! The website is http://www.bountifulbaskets.org. And chances are anybody that lives in Utah reading this has one close to them. There are 2 pick-up places in Brigham City alone! And they just started one this week in Bountiful that has made things much easier for us! :) Check it out! It rocks!

p.s. I realized while I was typing this that I should have taken a picture of all the yummy stuff...but unfortunately I have already got it all washed and chopped and what not a put in the fridge...so I will try and remember next time I promise!

Do ya see it?

lol Do ya see it??? lol Cute eh??? I think we may have found our Halloween Costumes for this year...

Baby Noah!!!

Ok so I know I'm a total slacker as this blog thing! As I'm sure you all know little Noah Michael arrived on March 24, 2009. He was 7 lbs. 1 oz. and 20 in. long! :) He is such a sweet kid! And such a good baby! This Mom and Dad got lucky!!! I'm posting a complete "birthing story" on my personal blog, as well as info on the nitty gritty details of recovery and adapting the first monthish, so those of you that don't care to know the details can just see these pictures of his cute little mug. :)

He'll be 11 weeks on Tuesday, and here are his tricks and stats thus far:

• He's about 14-15 lbs from our best wii fit measurements. lol That's the only scale we have and it's not always 100% accurate.


• He's just over 24 in. long. (2 feet yeah!)


• He smiles ALL the time! It's the cutest darned thing ever.


• He also does a very nice WTF?! look. lol As I'm sure you'll notice from the pics.


• He found his hands at about 5 weeks, and loves them. He'll just sit and stare at them, most of the time with clenched little fists that we lovingly refer to as "fists of fury!" lol


• He loves to talk and be talked to!! He is such a loud little guy. Always just babblin' away. Especially when you talk to him.


• He rarely cries. It's been nice. (Tho me and Miche realized after hearing a little newborn cry at Target yesterday that he never did the sweet little newborn cry because of this...kinda sad.)


• He does, however, yell at us. lol Just loud little short yells like he's sayin' "HEY! FEED ME!" or "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!". It's pretty darned cute. It cracked up the kid checking us out at Target yesterday.


• He is, and has been since day 1, SO expressive!!! He has always got some expression on his face. Whether he's got the WTF?! look, or smilin, or curious. He'll raise one eyebrow at us sometimes like "Really guys? This is the best I could do in the parent department?" lol And the most popular lately is his wide eyed "Holy crap look at this place!" look he sports when he's looking around.


• And speaking of looking around...one of his newest things is that he HATES to be laid back or leaned on anything!! He likes to be held up, sitting, holding his head by himself, so that he can look around. He's too dang independent for only bein' 2 1/2 months!! We're in trouble I'm afraid.


• He's also figured out how to stand now. (With help of course. lol) He loves it and is constantly grunting at us to help him stand. :) Luckily I got a fun jumperoo from my cute sister in laws so that helps him stand and gives me a break occasionally.


• He found his feet! It was the cutest darned thing! He just looked down the other day and stared at them while he wiggled his toes with this amazed look on his face. So cute!


• Ever since he found his feet he's been into kicking. He loves to be put up against something so he can kick at it. lol Which unfortunately is usually Mommy...lol I thought the belly kicking was gonna stop as soon as I got him out of there! No such luck!


• He eats SO MUCH!!!! I know lots of parents say that but in this case it is true for real. I talked to his doctor about it actually, he said babies his age should be eating about 3 oz. every 4 hours or so. Well...Noah eats 4 to 6 oz. every 2 hours. Except in the evenings from about 5 to about 9 or 10 when he goes to bed. Then he eats just constantly. Like we're talkin' 2 oz. every 1/2 hour...We literally feed him all evening! I don't know what I'm gonna do when Miche starts school in a week and a half and I have to do it on my own in the evenings!! lol


• Due to his above mentioned eating habits, he is also unfortunately very much not sleeping through the night. Every once and a while we can get a stint of 3 or 4 hours in a row of sleep. (the other night he went 5!! I did a happy dance...literally..lol) But usually he's up about every 2-2 1/2 hours. :P I'm so grateful that I'm able to stay home with him so we can sleep in as needed and take a nap or two together during the day. :)


• Though he doesn't sleep a long time, he does sleep really well in his bassinet! Which I am SO grateful for! I have heard some horror stories of kids refusing to sleep anywhere but in their parents bed for YEARS! I'm happy to say that I don't think we're gonna have that problem. :) (knock on wood...)

That's about the jist of what we've been up to. Again, if ya want the nitty gritty details take a look at Abz' Insights. (Link on the side) Now here are some cute pictures of the last few months. :)

Last picture of Noah in utero. lol at about 5 in the morning before we went to the hospital. Please ignore the EXTREME puffiness.

First diaper! :)

Our new little guy :) I was just out of surgery so I'm a little doped up and they wouldn't let me sit up yet.

Fresh from his first bath. :)

Ok...Blogger is being stupid. It took me forever just to get those pix on here and decent looking...I'll upload more tomorrow! :)