Bountiful Baskets!!

CHECK OUT ALL THIS LOOT!!


(2 heads broccoli, 2 bunches romaine, pkg mushrooms, 4 orange peppers, bunch spinach, bag carrots, cantaloupe, pkg strawberries, 8 bananas, 9 tangelos--mix between tangerine and grapefruit, 7 apples, and 4 lemons--WOW!)

I've been wanting to do Bountiful Baskets for over a year now but have kept putting it off. Yeah, avoiding the $3 start-up fee. Pretty much everyone I know down here goes every Saturday to pick big.....bountiful baskets!....of fruits and veggies. I had split a basket 3 ways a while back but didn't really notice what kind of a deal I was getting because I didn't end up getting very much. A few weeks ago I saw a friend's basket and about died. I signed up for a whole basket by myself a week later and this is what I got! It fills up a whole laundry basket! Score! It took us 2 weeks to eat all of this food and some of it even started going bad because there was so much.

My neighbor and I decided to split a basket every week so it would be more fresh and we would actually have room in our fridges for everything. It's like Christmas every Saturday morning when we go see what yummy new things we're going to get. I love how we always get things that I don't normally buy at the store, either because I've never tried them or they're just too expensive. It's been fun to let my kids try new things. But then we also get things that we use regularly like romaine, bananas, strawberries, etc. pretty often. This week we got 2 mangos, 2 coconuts, asparagus, and "forelles" among other things. I always have to come home and google something--like forelles are the smallest kind of pear and have great flavor.

Anywho, in case you've never used/heard of Bountiful Baskets, I thought I'd pass on the word to help others like me who are just looking for a good deal. Each basket is $15, or you can get organic for $25, and you choose which weeks you get it. This week we also added homemade honey wheat bread, which is an extra $10 for 5 loaves. I can't even imagine how much this stuff would add up to in the store! The other day I went looking for strawberries at Smith's and 1 container was $4! Another benefit to Bountiful Baskets is that the food is more local than food in the grocery stores in order to support local farmers and smaller farms. Bananas would come from Mexico as opposed to Asia, and other stuff comes from Washington, California, Idaho, etc. Obviously summer is a great time for Bountiful Baskets because stuff might come from your own town. So look at the Bountiful Baskets website and see if there are pickup sites in your area. It's seriously like Christmas every Saturday (to nerds like me)!!

????

Alex just told me he was "scared of the question mark."

Good Morning!

This is the conversation between Alex and Ella when Alex came down from bed this morning (in such sweet, adult voices):

Alex: Hi Sweetheart! How's my sweet girl?
Ella: Good! You sleep good?
Alex: Yeah, did you sleep good?
Ella: Yeah!!
Alex: Oh good!

Followed by a big hug! :)

Ella Bella

Ella is just such a joy to be around. She's always happy! It's so fun to hear her putting her words into sentences lately. Here are just a few things she's been saying:

*What's the problem?
*Oh shoot!
*My nose is runny....need a tissue. (She's minorly obsessed with tissues and blowing her nose. It drives me crazy, but I guess she's following in my footsteps. Tanner calls me a grandma cause I always have tissues tucked in my clothes--you never know when you're gonna need one!)
*Wanna watch "Wiggles"
*It's okay, don't cry (mostly to her dolls who always seem to be sad and sometimes to Alex)
*Just a minute...
*"Probly" not



She ALWAYS says I love you, especially if you're being separated for any reason--of course when we leave the house, but even if I go get in the shower, if she goes down for a nap, and she even said it to our babysitter's husband when he left the house. She's such a sweetie!

She talks to her bears and dolls like they're really listening. When I go to get her from bed, she's holding one of them and says, "There's mommy." And then nods and keeps jabbering to them. She's such a good mommy to her babies. Good thing they can't breathe, though, because she likes to swaddle them in blankets really tight, and it usually includes their whole head.

She's always been a pretty obedient little gal. I'm so glad she's getting to the age she understands punishment and can go to time-out (even though it's really sad because she screams the whole 10 seconds she's in there and clings to you for an hour afterward). She definitely is getting to be more of a stinker and doing things she's not supposed to, but if I catch her and start counting, she usually obeys. She started going to nursery in January and she totally hates it! I make Tanner take her if I can because she's such a mama's girl, but she starts screaming the moment we approach the door. Even though she's screaming, she'll sit down at the table and just cry. She hates it, but she knows that's what we want her to do, so she does it. But by the time we go back to get her at the end of church, we can hardly get her to leave! The other night we were going to an activity at the church, and after we parked and started walking to the building she started saying, "Noooo puzzles!!" (That's what they have the kids do at the beginning of nursery.) Her teachers told us she hates the puzzles, but I think she just meant she didn't want to go to nursery. She thinks she hates it, but she really likes it once she gets in there.

She and Alex play so well together! It's been fun the older she gets because now they can both entertain each other. The other day they went upstairs and played for 3 straight hours before they came back down, and without any crying. I went up the stairs and listened a few times to make sure they were still alive, but I didn't want them to see me cause I knew I would disrupt this magical time for them (and me)! They love to hug and kiss (a little too much), and wrestle. Ella kind of seems to be the leader of the pack, but they just follow each other around all day and generally play pretty well. Of course there are times Alex takes cheap shots at Ella or Ella sits on Alex's face but, for the most part, they just like to laugh at absolutely nothing together. What a great couple of kids--I sure love 'em!

Little Stinker

After refusing Alex's many attempts at getting a snack (an hour after he didn't finish his breakfast), he opened the pantry (where we keep both food and coloring supplies) and said, "Can I color, or......have some chips?" Nice try, buddy. I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid!

Another Great Year With My Valentine!

Well, another great year has passed and I find myself even more in love with Stacy than last year! I honestly know without a doubt that she is the best person I could have ever ended up with. She takes such great care of me that I don't have to have her call my mom when I'm sick anymore! The sympathy is a little lacking though. She tells me that I complain like a man and men complain more than women when they're sick. You can work a little on that sympathy this upcoming year honey. Anyway, this year I would like to pay tribute to some of her wonderful quirks! Anyone that knows Stacy knows that she is hilarious and random. Well, I get to see all of these quirks on a daily basis and they make me laugh and brighten my day. Let me name a few.

1- She has a condition where her mouth gets ahead of her mind. She'll ask for something before she can think of the name of that something, or talk about someone before she can think of their name. It turns out like this: Stacy--"Hand me that." Me--"What?" Stacy--"That...thing!" Me--"What thing? Could you be more specific?" Stacy--"You know! The thing with the little things on it!" Me--"I don't know what that is." Stacy--"Well! It's too hard to think of the words!" Another one that happened just yesterday went like this: Stacy--"Are they home?" Me--"Who?" Stacy--"Those guys?" Me--"I don't know who you're talking about." Stacy--"The neighbors!" Me--"Ummmm....we have lots of neighbors. Do you know their names?" Stacy--"I can't think of their names fast enough!"

2- I'm not sure many of you know this but Stacy has a bit of an addiction. I'm not talking about her chocolate addiction (that's no secret to anyone) but she has another addiction that she is a little ashamed of. Reading. I'm sure, by now, most of you have heard of The Hunger Games series of books. Well, there are 3 books and it took her about 3 days to read all of them. I would come home from work and she would get this ashamed look on her face and say, "Well...I haven't hardly worked today. And I haven't showered or got ready for the day. I just wanted to see what happened next!" She just had the first book at the beginning, then one day I came home and she had all 3! The next thing I know, she had finished the 3rd one! I didn't even know she had started the second! This is her secret addiction. We now have to set limits with her on how much she can read.

3- She has what I like to call the "feet-hands phenomenon." She can use her feet as if they were hands. It comes in handy because, rather than bend over to pick something up (which is considered laborious in our household) she can pick it up with her feet and lift it to her hands. She'll do this with many things. If she's sitting on the couch and her drink is on the floor, she'll lift it to herself with her feet. She'll pick up clothes, toys, garbage, pretty much anything with her "feet-hands." One night I bet her she couldn't eat a Snickers bar with her "feet-hands." She proved me wrong. She opened the wrapper and everything with just her feet! I asked her if she thought she could brush her teeth with her "feet-hands." She did it. I'm pretty sure if she lost her arms in a freak accident today, she wouldn't lose any abilities, including typing her work. I'm inclined to think this is a genetic condition because Alex has been picking up toys this way and just yesterday I watched Ella trying to pick up her bracelet off the floor with her little, chubby "feet-hands!" It's a gift you have to see to believe! I think it is hilarious and it is just another thing that I love about Stacy.

Well, this is the end of my yearly blog about my wife. I hope it has been enjoyable. These little quirks bring a smile to my face everyday and they are part of the reason I love my beautiful wife. On top of all of this, she is an amazing cook, hard worker (when she doesn't have a book to read!), and a great mother. Thank you for being the highlight of my life Sweetheart! I love you...more!