Dinner

I realized during Thanksgiving when Shari let the kids help her measure flour and sugar and what not, that Axton is old enough to help some with Dinner. So when we got home we broke out the ice cream maker we got for Christmas (yeah we opened it early, thanks Don and Shari!) and Axton helped Greg a little with that.




So while Greg was mixing the ice cream outside in the cold I brought Axton in the help season the french bread for dinner.




He sure made a mess with the spices but it was fun. He's now my little helper with french bread every time. I look forward to involving him in more dinner preparations and doing fun food items with him.

Park

I'm so glad that I live so close to family and that we are able to trade off babysitting when we have dr appointments, errands, etc. that have to be done without munchkins.

On one such occassion I dropped Axton off with Kim for an hour or two. She also had Daniela and so she decided to be brave and take them all to the park by her house. She's such a great and fun aunt. Axton is so lucky to have her, and me too!






Thanks Kim for pictures and memories. You're amazing.

Thanksgiving

We went to San Diego at the last minute, like usual, for Thanksgiving. Also, like usual, I didn't take any pictures so thankfully I have an amazing sister-in-law that we can count on.

We didn't do a whole lot other than hangout. We went to the Wild Animal Park, but we were all slackers and didnt' bring cameras. So the only thing we have pictures of are the kiddos playing on the stairs.

Shari put down some blankets and pillows to show Axton how to run and jump on them. The ever fearless man understood it right away. When Brooklynn was around they showed her too. She is definitely more cautious than Axton but they had a blast together.

Axton jumping and tackling Brooklynn



Ready, get set, go....




It was so much fun to watch them, and now I am really grateful that we have no stairs in our house!

Little buddies chillin' together.

Actual Halloween

One of the many great things about living by so many relatives is that you always have someone to go Trick or Treating with. I love seeing them all together and all of the costumes were too cute.

J.J. and Brooklynn as bees, Vanessa and Daniela as super women, Talia as a giraffe, and Axton as a St. Bernard.

Axton's first house.



Axton trying to figure out if he was allowed to get candy or not.


So many to choose...


The only picture of me, but I was there!! Gotta love the orange for halloween. I had scratched my cornea sometime during the night and so for Halloween I was walking around in sunglasses and avoiding camera flashes, and any other light source, at all cost.



It was a fun night with the cousins. Can't wait for next year. Hopefully I won't scratch my eye again and I will be able to enjoy it more next time.

Trunk or Treat

I was a procrastinator in getting Axton a costume. I just never saw any that jumped out at me. So the day before our ward halloween party, which was the day before halloween, I decided it was time to go looking and new my options would be slim. The only costume I even slightly liked was the St Bernard, but I knew it was going to be close. It was a 2T but Axton was beyond the measurements given so I made Axton put it on in the store to see if it was even a possibility. Boy was it tight but it had to do.

He wasn't very happy about having to put on his costume.


We had a chili dinner before we did trunk or treat. Needless to say all of the kids were getting pretty wild. Here's Axton locked behind a gate like a good doggie!


Definitely too small, he had a permanent wedgy, and the sleeves were almost at his elbow. The only thing that saved us were the shoe straps to help pull it down so it wasn't high water too! Next year I'll be more prepared.


Bag open and ready to hit all the cars!


He got a pretty good amount of candy for a 2 year old. but of course we helped him eat it, especially the full size candy bars some people were handing out!

Getting caught up... the story of my life

I don't even know how far behind I am but I'm pretty sure I haven't done from Halloween on. So these posts will hopefully get me caught up.

The week before Halloween I wanted to go to a corn maze. I went to one almost every year when I was a teen and loved them. I took Greg to his first one and so I wanted to do the honors with Axton as well. I have to admit I was pretty bummed by the ones in AZ. In Idaho you start at one place and come out a completely different place. They usually have lookout points to help you get your bearings because you can get so lost. This one started and ended in the same place. You went up and then back down, the only point to it was to find all 6 different hole punches and punch your card to show you went in, kind of lame to me. But it didn't really matter because we really just hoped Axton would run and tire himself before naptime.

Axton realizing that he was free to run wherever his heart desired.


Greg would run down a different path and jump out at him.


Axton loves to be chased so this was pure heaven to him.


Couldn't resist this one of Greg trying to scare Axton.


With entrance to the maze we got a free ticket to ride the "cow train". Greg couldn't fit in it so I ended up taking Axton and he wasn't happy about that at all. He cried almost the entire time even though Greg was walking right beside us.


After we got off the ride he was all smiles and ran straight to Greg.


While on the ride we spotted a little park area so he had to go ride on the swings.


Then he saw a play structure with slides and pointed at it, letting go of the swing and fell right on the ground.


That quickly ended our trip because it lead to a full blown melt down due to pain, hunger, and exhaustion. We ended up not getting any pumpkins this year. Oh well.

Q and A on Bountiful Baskets previous post

Check out the post prior to this one if you haven't read it.

Q: hey breonne i saw that they have a pick up location in idaho falls too and im interested in trying it out. do you get to choose the fruit and veggies that go in your basket?? once you sign up do you have to do it every week or 2 weeks? its usually just me at home and i dont think i will need too much stuff but definatly want to give it a try. thanks for your help.

A: They do have a site in I.F., Malad, and Rexburg. It will expand to other areas as they get emails from volunteers to help find and run the sites.

You sign up for the basket, pay for it, and then they go to the suppliers on Thursday, or something like that, and get the best deals. The best deals will usually be whatever season you are in. Summertime is all of the berries and tree fruit (peaches, pears, oranges, etc), fall is squashes, pumpkins, etc. Then the produce is shipped to the sites. There the volunteers take all of the produce and divide it out equally to everyone who is participating. So you don't know what you'll get and you don't get to pick and choose but you'll all get roughly the same things. If there is an unequal amount of something than the volunteers get to divide it amongst themselves for volunteering! If they do it like here there's usually not a lot left over.

*For example if they have 20 people participating and they have 13 cucumbers and 10 squashes left after everyone has gotten some, then they will add one cucumber or squash to each basket and have 3 left. The volunteers than get to split the remaining 3 items. So the baskets vary only slightly, person A will have one more cucumber than person B who will then have one more squash than the person A but they'll both have 6 oranges (or whatever else is in the baskets). The volunteers though will usually end up with 1 or 2 (or 3, etc) more pieces of produce than the others. One of the benefits of service!

As far as how often you have to do it, it's up to you. They will provide it every other week (with holidays being exceptions). So if you sign up for it for next Saturday and decide you don't like it than you don't ever have to get it again. If you do like it than you sign up again in 2 weeks and pay the $15. I did every other week here during the summer. We didn't go through it fast enough so I ended up freezing or canning some of it. Then by the end of the summer I had a lot of frozen and canned produce so I decided to save the $15 per basket and eat what we had. So I didn't get any baskets for a few months. Then last Saturday I decided I wanted a basket so I got one. It's simple and easy. No one is forcing you to get one and you get it whenever you want it (given that it's available of course!).

Make sure you pick it up on time though or else they give it to a fire station. Yes this happened to me ONCE! It was the 3rd time I got it and I forgot. My phone with my reminder had gone swimming the night before and by the time I remembered it was an hour after my pick up time and they were already gone! So my biggest tip is to not be late, even be a few mintues early, because it only takes about a 1/2 hour to get through everyone (and my site has almost 100 people picking up there). It's quick and organized, usually. My site is about a mile from my house and it takes me about 10 minutes from the time I leave my house, get my produce, and walk back through my door. It's fabulous.

If you are an adventurous eater or looking to expand your tastes this can be really fun since you sometimes get weird things like brocc-a-flower or brussel sprouts (both I'd never had before but were fine for a once a year thing!). I never eat squash but because I got it in the basket I'll find a new recipe. Most of the time though it's normal enough stuff. The fruit we always eat, the veggies vary. We'll eat at least 1/2 of it because who doesn't use lettuce and tomatoes on a regular basis (and they're almost always in the basket)? I've gone to the store, randomly throughout the year, with the list of stuff I've gotten in the basket to compare prices, and the baskets have almost always been at least 50% less. So if I throw some of it away I don't feel too bad since I would have spent more at the store for the things we did eat. If you are pretty strict about the produce you want to eat this may not be the best way for you. I usually plan my meals on Saturday (after I get the basket) or Sunday for the following week so I use all of my produce.

Sorry this was so long winded.

Bountiful Baskets is in REXBURG

Some of you have probably seen other posts about this co-op but I figured I'd share again since a lot of you can now participate in it if you want to.

The Basics:
Bountiful Baskets is a volunteer co-op where you pay $15+$1.50 shipping fee (at least that's what it is in AZ) for fresh produce. They try to get 50% fruits, 50% vegetables. You don't know what you are going to get because it all depends on what they can get the best deal for. You log onto their website which is bountifulbaskets.org on either Tuesday or Wednesday of the week you will get the basket (if you want to try it then sign up on either the 15th or the 16th) and then select your state, they have spread like a wild fire lately since it used to only be in AZ. Then follow the instructions from there. For your 1st basket there is a $3 fee but after that it's just the above price. Then you will select your location which should have the time on there as well. For now Rexburg's only site is the Middle School in the cafeteria, don't know the time. More sites will be added if the popularity increases. Then you go armed with your own laundry baskets (or I've started using the reusable bags- they're easier for me to carry, I usually take 2-3). They tell you what basket is yours and then you load up and go home!

They also sell other things throughout the year. I bought 2 boxes of peaches, 1 box of pears, a picnic basket, and a mexican pack from them. We also bought our christmas tree through them last year. You can also get boxes of cherries, tomatoes, oranges, itialian packs, etc. The mexican pack is everything you would need to make salsa at a great price. The picnic basket had all kinds of summer fruit such as watermelon, blueberries, strawberries, etc. I look year round at the price of produce so I can can it since we don't have a garden yet and the best price was through these guys. All of this stuff is option but you get it at the same time as your regular basket.

They do ask that you volunteer on occasion which is super easy and only takes a few hours on the day of pick-up.

My camera is dead and I can't find the charger so here is a picture of a basket I got back in June.

In Saturday's basket I got 10 bananas, 7 oranges, 11 pears, 1 container of strawberries, 10 apples, 1 of those really small watermelons, a head of lettuce, 2 bunches of broccoli, 8 tomatoes, 2 green bell peppers, 4 yellow squash, and 4 cucumbers. Nothing crazy this time.

They say it will last a family of 4 for 2 weeks, which is what we do. My sister-in-law buys it weekly though. I have mixed feelings on this. If you eat your fruits and veggies like you should (we don't- oops) than it will probably only last about a week. However I think it's only being offered in Rexburg every other week anyways. The other thing is that sometimes the produce is very ripe and needs to be eaten quickly. I love it when some of the produce is ripe and some needs more time. Also some of the stuff has a longer shelf life than others. But a lot of it you can freeze, we always have too many bananas left so I freeze them for smoothies or bread.

On their website there is also a link called produce storage information so when you get random things like brussel sprouts you will know how to store them and for how long. They also have a chat room where you can share recipes and ideas. I found some great fruit leather ones for when I have too much fruit of any kind left and it needs to be used. Hope this was helpful and not overwhelming. Let me know if you like it!

Dentist

Well Axton gets to go to his first dentist appt tomorrow! He jumped off of his picnic table outside and must of landed on his face somehow. He chipped one of his bottom teeth and so we get to take him in tomorrow morning to have it looked at. Wish us luck and if anyone has any advice on how to make this a good experience I would love to hear it!