New Farmer's Market in town!

I got this notice in my mail last week about a new farmer's market coming by the new mall around here so I did a little research and wanted to share what I found at azcentral:


• 9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. first and third Wednesdays of the month, October through May.

• At least 12 vendors will be at each market. The main focus will be on foods but other items will be sold such as aprons and tablecloths.

• The market will be located on the side street by Just Dogs Gourmet. SanTan Village is at Williams Field Road near the Loop 202. ( I read its by FitChix)

• Information: www.shopsantanvillage.com. Pin It

Bountiful Baskets

This morning, bright and early (for me and the boys), I loaded up the kids in the bike trailer and rode down to the park to pick up our very first bountiful basket order! And I can not wait to do this again in two weeks!

What is Bountiful Baskets? How did I hear about this? You got all of that for how much?! (those were all the questions I was asked when I showed it all to my parents afterwards)

Bountiful Baskets is a co-op program you can learn more about here. The first time purchase is slightly more than repeat customers, but it was still a great deal! Pick up locations are all over the area, and I just so happened to have one a block away from my house! Everyone was friendly, and even though it was running an hour late and i had to bring the kids back, I plan on doing it every two weeks when it is offered. And its not just fruits and veggies. They also have other offerings at different times!

I heard about this from my friend Trisha who highly recommended it, and now I am recommending it too! Try it! Even if its only once, it will be fun to see what you will get, what you can cook differently, how much of it is stuff you normally already buy, etc.

Also, I just so happened to have my produce bags that I made with me (which was an accident as I brought big bags to take the produce home in and found them in there when I arrived), so I was able to sort it all out as I packed it up. I was there maybe 3 minutes tops. Quick and painless. And everything will be eaten as it was all stuff I normally buy or use!


Here is what we received this time:

Basket of Cherry Tomatoes
Red Potatoes
Celery
Broccoli
Bag of Baby Carrots
4 Green Peppers

7 Bananas
Strawberries
LOTS of plums
LOTS of pears
3 mangoes
bag of grapes


AND!! The autism raffle ends today, make sure you stop by Just Devine for a chance to enter!! Pin It

Happy 4th of July!

What a fantastic country we live in! We are blessed with such freedom!

(and hopefully you aren't terrified of fireworks like this guy is! (That would be Jaden...not Micah, in case you were wondering... :) )

And because ANYTHING better for the environment is great news, here's a fun article on fireworks going green! Fireworks Going Green!

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Monkey Bathroom

Home with the Treslers continues as we take a peek into the Monkey Bathroom

I always says I would do the boys' bathroom differently once Jaden was potty trained, so back in January, Micah and I did this while he was sleeping. I should show the ugly before pictures of what we used to have...I do have pictures. I sold the old bathroom set at the yard sale for 5 bucks with the print. A steal for some one with that taste. I had been suckered into it back when we got the house. I am getting off subject....

Anyway, Jaden is our little Monkey Chicken, so we redid the bathroom for a great price in Monkey theme. (I did the vinyl today on the door and the walls)

Aim, Wash, Flush and Brush. Good motto for boys.

Jaden thinks it funny that the monkeys peek on him, so I put this one on the towels to keep him company.

Gotta have a monkey rug.

The stool, canvas and tissue box holder were already on hand, ready to be painted, so I matched them all to the shower curtain.

And last but not least, a tip for the day. To save water and laundry time, put a hook up for your towels you reuse. The boys' bathroom has 1 hook but both towels dry fast on it. Theres a frog underneath and then Monkey Chicken's.

Til next time, Home with the Treslers. Pin It

Hanging Tomato Plant

Micah saw this cool idea online the other day and my mom happened to give me a tomato plant at the same time, so we made this together.

What you need:
tomato plant, preferably a small one 2 liter clean bottle hot glue hole punch wire heat gun (or you can skip that step) and pliers fabric, burlap, whatever potting soil tomato plant

optional:
flowers to plant on the top ribbon to finish the edges

Directions

• cut off the bottom of the 2 liter (you can reuse the bottom by making into a flower but thats a whole different post)
• punch four holes for the hanger
• carefully heat plastic and use pliers to invert the neck of bottle into itself
• cover bottle with fabric *and ribbon, this will dress it up and also help the lifespan of the bottle in the sun
• carefully place tomato plant at a bit of an angle inside the part you just inverted (the bottle opening) and fill up with potting soil. on the other side
• attach hanger
• water and hang!

You can also put flowers at the top to make it a hanging plant as well.

Here it is in its tiny glory.

And the best part of this was, we don't need a tomato plant cage/stand because of gravity, we recycled and we used everything from what we already had! Pin It

Produce Bags, Napkins and Grocery Bags

On Thursday, I was sewing a bit. I made 8 napkins for the boys so we can eliminate paper waste, and I started making produce bags so we can eliminate more plastic bag waste. I still have tons more to sew for both the napkins and the produce bags but I got a bit started.



I am also going to be making some grocery bags out of old tshirts and pillow cases (I started the tshirt ones). I am going to post the links for directions on here as well as the link for the produce bags in case anyone else would like to do them too!

Tshirt Grocery bags
Pillowcase Bags
Produce Bags

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Dr Bronner's

Dr Bronner's Magic Soap is absolutely the best soap I have ever bought! I have been usi8ng it for a week now, and the possibilities for this soap are neverending!

First what is it? Castille Soap is soap made from vegetable oil, or in this case, pure olive oil. You can make your own using these recipes or buy this fair trade pure organic soap. I chose to buy it.

What is fair trade?


Dr Bronner's site states:

"For our 60th anniversary, we are pleased to announce that we are now certified Fair Trade! We take care of our employees with generous salaries and benefits (no deductible PPO health insurance and a great profit-sharing/retirement plan that we fully fund), we cap executive pay at five times the lowest-paid position, and we give all profits not needed for business development to support progressive charities and causes. Now we have extended this philosophy to the farmers and workers around the world who produce our major raw materials (representing over 95% of our annual agricultural volume). Along with their families and communities, they benefit from fair prices, living wages and funding for local development projects. Shifting our supply chains to certified Fair Trade ingredients makes a big difference in the lives of several thousand farmers and workers — and is money well spent. We worked with the respected Swiss certifier IMO’s Fair for Life program to coordinate and certify the following projects around the world."

Now for the coolest part. It has SO many uses! For other uses besides the ones listed below, google it! You will be surprised at just how versatile this is! So far, I have used it for cloth diaper laundry, face soap, and baby wipe solution! I cant wait to keep trying it out for more things and it will eliminate the need for the other products in our house.

According to the website:

"Although the label claims eighteen uses, we do not have the space to write all these uses on the label and still accommodate for my grandfather’s philosophy, as well as the new labeling laws that are periodically implemented. In reality, there are far more than eighteen uses, as people constantly write in to tell us about yet another utility of the soap. We won’t detail them all, but below are some of the major uses and dilutions. For everyday body-washing: Get wet and pour soap full-strength onto hands-washcloth-loofah. Lather up, scrub down, rinse off, and tingle fresh and clean.
For other uses, dilute from one part soap into 40 parts water for light cleaning, to cutting it in half or using it full strength for heavy-duty grease-cutting jobs. For shampoo, people have been telling us for years that they like using our soaps to shampoo their hair. Now, paired with our new Citrus Conditioning Rinse and Organic Leave-In Conditioning Crème, it works better than ever. For details, click here. For the laundry, use 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup for one regular load; adjust as needed depending on hardness of water. I've been told that adding a dash of baking soda makes it even better.For pets, lather up well and apply to their body. Be careful to keep the soap and the lather away from their eyes. I find a mixture of peppermint and eucalyptus works best. For toothbrushing, apply a drop or two of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap (I prefer the peppermint) to a wet toothbrush. Brush as you normally would, rinsing accordingly. Be careful about using more than a couple drops of soap, as you might start foaming at the mouth (last time I checked "rabid chic" was not hip). Many people with sensitive or softer teeth like to use our soap as toothpaste because it lacks abrasives. If you're very interested in specific ratios & uses, you could find the book "Clean House, Clean Planet" by Karen Logan and published in 1996 by Pocket Books division of Simon & Schuster. They give a blurb on how individual consumers can place orders by writing to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675. She presents hundreds of great ideas and manners to clean the non-toxic way, which gives rise for many examples that use an all-natural liquid soap like Dr. Bronner's."

Let me know if you try it and what you think!

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Home Made Paper

Supplies Needed:

• Old bowl
• Old blender
• Wisk
• 3 cups HOT water
• Wire for the frame *I used an old wire hanger
• 1 cup of Shredded paper (recycled or not)
• old panty hose
• Anything extra you might want to add (buffalo snow is the purple bag) like gold specs, threads, glitter, etc

Start by making the frame with the old hanger and pantyhose. I just bent mine into a square and slipped the pantyhose over it. It was a little tight this way but it worked perfect.

Now get ready to mix it up! Pour the 1 cup of shredded paper and 3 cups of HOT water into the bowl

Stir in and let set for 5 minutes

Once it has set enough to soften, pour into a blender. I pureed it. To the point where it was pure liquid. This step is up to you how much you want it blended.

Place frame on top of the sink, or a baking dish or tupperware type container....anything to catch the water that will filter through. I did the storage container and it was the perfect size to rest the frame on top of so that I can press the water out of the pulp. I used my hands and a towel.

Now here you can either use your heat gun to dry it or sun dry it. It was a hot day when I did this, so I took it out and didnt waste time or electricity on it. It only took a couple of hours

Then, tada! Home Made Paper!!

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Mother's Day Gifts

Here are belated pictures of the mother's day gifts we gave. minus one.

Everyone got a framed picture of the boys (this one had black glitter framing it on the edges)

And potted flowers, so that they last a long time! We thought they were pretty "green" this way :)

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Recycle those broken crayons

There is nothing worse than a brand new box of crayons all broken up by your toddler (or at least to me anyway) or if he doesnt break it, you step on it by accident. Rather than throwing all of those broken or even well loved crayons out, melt them down and reuse them again!

I remember going to children's church when I was in kindergarten and coloring with these fun crayons. And when we made them yesterday, they even smelled the same (not to be confused with the smell of a brand new box of crayola crayons!) Talk about a great childhood memory! What is it about smells that can help or hurt a memory? mm! Ok I am crazy. Anyway.

The only bummer part about this is peeling the crayons. All of those years of peeling crayons when I was little did not help with this at all. My thumbs are killing me!

What you need:

• Broken crayons (which we had MORE than enough and still left over)
• Old Muffin Tin
• Vegetable Spray

Preheat the oven to 275. Spray the muffin tin for quick release and add peeled broken crayons in. Bake for 8 minutes. If you bake them too long, all of the colors will run together. If you bake them enough to be able to swirl them, do it with a toothpick before they cool. Once cooled, turn the pan over and tap on the bottoms to release the crayons. Tada!

We made two batches. The ocd side of me did one batch of the same colors and the wild side of Jaden did another batch with a mix of colors. If you mix the colors, dont bake too long or you will have a solid color of whatever was dominant.

If you are feeling really crazy, use metal cookie cutters on aluminum foil. We only have 2 metal cookie cutters; heart and circle, otherwise all we have is plastic, so a big no no in the oven.

Now JJ can color with them too because they are fat and sturdy! Perfect for his baby hands!

For more tips and tricks, google Crayon Cookies :)

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The Story of Stuff

I posted this in my mommy forum awhile back but I wanted to post it here too for reference.

Its an interesting (and longish) video about "stuff" in today's world.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/ Pin It

Support Local Farmers!

Its better FOR you, its better on your wallet, its better for the environment and it helps local farmers!



Today we went to two farmers' markets. The first one was ok, but it was a lot closer. We didnt buy anything there, but instead went to the second one and loaded up! We spent 8.50 dollars, so I threw in the bag that we can use every time we go! Our total with tax was 10 dollars! So now we can eat better, and have so many fresh local grown things in the fridge!

We bought apples, oranges, grapefruits, cucumbers, strawberries, jalepenos, green onions, and tons of garlic. Tonight we are going to make a salsa with some of this as well as our home grown cilantro :)

It may not look like a lot, but when you can buy a huge bag of garlic for a dollar, 4 cucumbers for 40 cents, 4 grapefruit for a dollar, a bag of oranges for 1.50, a dollar for a box of strawberries, etc. etc, thats definitely not grocery store prices.


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Earth Day

Yesterday, as some of you may know, was Earth day, and we as a family decided to do some things yesterday to honor it!



For about a year now, we have been slowly doing things to go "more green".

• Almost all of our lightbulbs now are changed to cfl's (except for those that havent blown out yet).
  



• We started doing heavier recycling and now have about two smaller bags of garbage a week and therefore don't have to take out the garbage to the curb every week because its never even full.
  



• JJ is also cloth diapered now, and with Jaden being potty trained, we are hardly ever buying diapers. We still use disposable diapers for nursery at church or if we are leaving the boys with someone.
  



• We have pretty much eiliminated all fast food from our diet....which is a huge waste creator in itself. And we feel better AND it helps with money for groceries!
  



• We reuse as much as possible within the house too and have gotten creative with some of the stuff we would normally throw away.
  



• We stopped drinking bottled water and bought a water cooler last year, which has eliminated the use of so many plastic bottles and waste.
  



• All of our junk mail and paper we would throw out is shredded and recycled....a space saver AND it helps reduce the chance of identity theft!
  



• We keep our water heater at warm instead of hot...helping with energy usage and the life of the water heater (although it still seems like super hot water coming out!)
  



• Our windows are open as much as possible to not use the AC but we shut them all as soon as the ac is turned on. We dont keep our house as cold as we used to (or as hot as we used to i nthe winter) but its actually not as horrible as I thought it would be!
  



• We use rechargable batteries as much as possible and I dont remember the last time we have had to buy any (except maybe on the fly but I cant remember when we did that).
  



• All computers are shut down at night and nothing is kept plugged in if we dont use it often.
  



• We skip as many bags at the store as we can and will eventually be using only canvas bags (as soon as i can find affordable and durable ones)
  



• Our plants are also becoming more "desert" landscape, which helps on water consumption.
  



• And because of the price of gas, we have really taken a step back on how much we use (although this is still very unavoidable) but we try to never take two cars somewhere and carpool as much as possible.
  



• As long as its affordable, we also try to buy as much recycled products as possible.
  

It is sad however, that a lot of things that we would like to be able to change to are just too expensive for us to do.

Not only are all of these changes helping the planet, but its also helping with our pockets! It is so expensive just to live these days and we are trying to do what we can to help in all areas of our life! Plus, we are trying to take care of God's planet!



...and the corny quote of the day....we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but instead we borrow it from our children and grandchildren!
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So now that you know probably more than you care to about our views on "going green" (and not just doing it because its the "trendy" thing) here's what we did yesterday!



First, we kept off the computer. Shocking, I know, but we actually didnt miss too much.



Jaden and Jackson woke up super early with a pretty high fever (Jaden's was 102 and Jacksons was 101.6 for two days) so they hung out in our bed all morning until we went outside to plant some seeds for a vegetable garden. Tylenol kicked in and they felt a lot better but still werent quite themselves all day.



So we went outside and planted seeds:..the whole project was about 4 bucks (we already had the seeds) and if we can get vegetables from it, it will save so much money and eliminate all those yucky pesticides from the store!

Jaden's pumpkinsReady to grow!

Then before church we had to do some errands so we went and got new bpa free sippy cups *a toxic chemical used in most plastics ....even baby bottles. ...side note, Canada just banned this and the US may be right behind them* The boys have their names on them and these will be their main cups now. Plus they are a lot sturdier platic and wont fall apart like their other ones we are always replacing.

Thats all for now! I'll have non earth day stuff to post later :)

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Homemade Pretend Food

I saw this idea online and totally am running with it! They say to use wool felt, but I think this works fine and its only 20 cents a sheet.
The boys LOVE playing with pretend food, but I didnt want to buy the plastic stuff and I thought it would be fun to have home made toys. So, I made it myself! I was going to surprise Jaden with it all in one big box but the process is kind of slow because I only work on it all at night when they are in bed, so I went ahead and gave it to him when I saw him making a cake out of his carsagain last night, haha. He was so excited, he was laughing hysterically when I would show him everything! And of course he had problems sharing his new food with Jackson.

We are also saving some of the recycled stuff when we eat, strawberry containers (which I will fill with the felt strawberries), chocolate milk containers (I am going to shake a bit of chocolate milk colored paint inside to coat it, ranch bottle (only his favorite thing ever!). etc.

So far I have made two eggs, a complete cheeseburger, a carrot, grapes, banana, a piece of pizza and chicken drumstick..i think thats it so far.

I have a whole list of stuff to make still, i will update as i do them :)

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