Will and his Carrot

Will and his Carrot.....feels so good on his teeth coming in.

...and he poses for a picture. (he actually smiles when I tell him too)

...and of course he has to ham it up a little bit. :)

...such a curious boy trying to grab the camera.

I love you Willie!

Wordless Wednesday "My First Tooth!"

Local Freshness!

My favorite part of the weekend is the farmers market. Look at these pictures!...so much color! They really look this good in person...and even better, they taste as good as they look!  :) 

There is just something about cooking/preparing food that you either grew yourself or know who grew it. Over the past 4 years or so I have developed a huge love for buying food locally. When putting something in my body it is a big deal where the food came from and how it was treated when grown. When I buy from the market I am able to talk to the actual person who grew this produce. It's kinda neat when you think about it.

Over at Heather Jane's blog she is doing a Go Local 2009 challenge: preparing at least one meal a week with fully local ingredients. You can check out the details here. Below is my lunch; just your basic strawberry salad with a couple different kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, sunflower seeds, and strawberries. You can see how red and juicy those strawberries are in the center as opposed to your store bought berries that have a little white. Oh boy, I sure am going to miss it when berry season is over, they are my absolute favorite! Ask any of my friends from growing up...they sometimes would buy me a package of strawberries for my birthday. :)

...and we are back!

Well, we have been back for a few days now, but we have been getting settled and ran into some fridge problems...yes, when we got home our kitchen smelled like EWW! Our fridge broke when we were gone for a week and all our food was rotten when we got home!! EWW! So unfortunately we had to throw all our food away and thanks to our landlord we got a new one! It looks pretty much the same as the old one, but its always fun to get a new appliance, and then I got to organize all our new food in our new fridge! yay! yes... I am kind of a dork, but I love doing stuff like that. :)...anyways, besides our fridge troubles we had a wonderful vacation!

We started our trip in Des Moines spending some time with each family. We got to see some old friends, and I also had a booth at the art market downtown. There was so much going on downtown that weekend, so we thought that could be either be good or bad for the art market and unfortunately it was not very busy. In fact there were times when no one was there at all! But the good thing was that the people that came were buying stuff, so I was able to make a little money, but not as much if it were busy. I met lots of local artist and exchanged cards with them. My mom came out and helped and it was a good time. Here is a picture of what my booth looked like...I might be doing the art market again in august and september so stay posted for info on that in the next couple of months.

After spending 6 wonderful days in Des Moines we headed down to Kansas City to visit my grandparents who have been looking forward to seeing us ever since we said we were coming; planning our meals (that's what italians do best.) My sister and her husband Josh met us down there, so it was so nice to see them as well. She has the cutest little pregnant belly! I miss you sis! We ate lots of good food and had good conversation...and Will actually started eating whole cheerios! The first time he got excited to eat any sort of food!...one after another he kept wanting more. It was so cute to watch. :)...but he wants nothing to do with any other foods. We are just taking it slow.

For the 3rd and 4th of July Thad, Will, and I headed over to St. Louis on our way home back up the river. They are hosting the All-Star baseball game next weekend so there was so much going on downtown St. Louis. We had a blast walking around and just watching all the people. We went to a free Counting Crows concert under the Gateway Arch, shopped at "the loop" and had fresh root beer at Fitz's on the 3rd. The next morning (4th) we took Will swimming for the first time in our hotel pool. It was freezing!!!...so I don't think he really liked it very much. We will take him sometime this next week again. Then we visited the St. Louis Zoo and toured the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. We had lots of fun but we were super tired on the way home that night. We missed the fireworks, but we saw lots of small town fireworks on our drive back to the Quad Cities. So all in all we had a great trip!...but it is always nice to get home. Click here to see our pictures from St. Louis...and yes I got excited with almost all the animals we saw at the zoo and took too many pictures so i only included a few. They do not look as neat in the pictures. Hope you all had a wonderful forth of July as well. :)

...and we are off to Vacation!

Yay! Now that Thad is on his 3 week break from classes we are going on vacation!...well, not the tropical kind with palm trees, but taking some time away. We are going to Des Moines for a week to see family and I will have a booth at the Des Moines Art Market downtown. So anyone around should come visit me. I will have lots of fun embroidered goods and fabric covered button earrings. The Art Market is sort of an arts fest meets garage sale; so there will be lots of inexpensive handmade and vintage goodies! 

Visit the website, http://marketstreetmediafoundry.com to find out more info. It should be a blast for the Des Moines Arts Festival will be going on downtown as well.

Then after a week visiting all the family we are heading to Kansas City for a night to visit more family, and then stopping in St. Louis on our way back home. In St. Louis we are planning on going to the zoo and to some fun outdoor shops in "the loop," and then also the arch. There is supposed to be a free outdoor Counting Crows concert under the arch on July 3rd so we are going to try and check that out as long as the little one will last. We plan on being home after the 4th of July. So anyone wanting to purchase something from my store while I am gone can still do so, but it will not be shipped until after the 5th of July. Thanks. Everyone have a great weekend..see ya after the 4th!

Skirts-Sewing Seeds

...and here are the skirts that I finished for Sewing Seeds. (posted about previously) I was able to make them super quick and easy with my new serger that I am in love with ! If you want to participate in sewing skirts for girls in Costa Rica please check out the details over at Randi's blog. You still have through the week to get them in the mail. It was such a joy to sew and pray for the girls who will recieve these. 

My Boys.

Happy 1st Fathers Day to the bestest husband in the whole world! I love to see Will's excitement when you get home and when you make him laugh. You have been and will be a perfect example for him of what a loving, patient, and hard-working man looks like.

 I love you very much.