Your mom goes to college...Kiwi College

Ever thought about making your house "green"?  Not the actual color green, think Eco Green.  I found this great site that offers free webinars on topics about going green, eating organically, raising organic/chemical free families and more. 

Check out the free webinars.  I participated in my first webinar last week, "Inspiring Health - Robyn O'Brien".  The session had a lot of great information about additives in the American food supply, food allergies and ideas to slowly incorporate organic and chemical free foods into your homes. 

You can check out this session and many more here:

http://www.kiwimagonline.com/college/

I think most of you know that we're pretty conscious about what we feed our kids.  Even Jack knows all about "high fructose corn syrup" and how we don't like it.  It's pretty funny to hear him talk about why it's bad and what we can choose that's better. 

I think it's great that Jack and Maddie would 9 times out of 10 reach for fruit over cookies. 

I hope you find some helpful information. 

Happy Learning!

Fresh from the farm!

Our kids generally don't complain too much about the food we make, but if there's ever a complaint, I just say "it's from our farm, isn't that cool?" It usually works, they eat, and we're all happy!

Tonight I didn't really have dinner planned...shocker, I know. I ended up using zucchini and tomatoes from our farm share, which were great! I made a "Mexindi" dish and it ended up being pretty tasty. I hate seeing our vegetables go to waste, so I try to use them any way I can. Tonight I ended up cutting the zucchini into little cubes and mixed them into some salsa, rice, ground cumin, curry powder, and chili powder. I pureed some black beans (to the consistency of re fried beans) and mixed the beans in for our protein. Put it all together and you get "Mexindi" casserole (I hate the word casserole, but can't think of a better word) :) I topped it all off with a little bit of cheddar cheese just to hold it all together. Yum!

Over dinner we were talking about the "Peach Truck" that's coming on Tuesday. In early July I picked up 25 pounds of peaches and 5 pounds of blueberries from the peach truck. I had all intentions of baking with both, but didn't have to. We ate ALL of it! I love having fresh fruit in the house. The kids loved the blueberries on their yogurt in the morning and Jack loved his peach each day in his lunch. We'll get the same thing on Tuesday!

If you're interested in getting fresh fruit visit:

www.tree-ripe.com

The site will give you the times/location of their deliveries. They also have orange and grapefruit deliveries later in the year. The lines get long so arrive early and ENJOY!

Father's Day Weekend - 2011

So "Blogger" had something against me blogging about our Father's Day weekend. The site just wouldn't let me post the pictures. I decided to try it again today and it let me. So, almost a month later, here are some pictures from our Father's Day Weekend. Above is a picture of Grandpa Kyle opening his "toes" from Jack and Maddie. Grandpa Kyle is always saying that he's going to eat the kids toes, so for Fathers Day we made him a jar of toes. Jack even completed the gift by adding a bottle of ketchup and mustard. The jar was filled with Brazillian nuts. Jack was giggling so hard when Grandpa was opening his gift.
Nathan really enjoys cooking. So we filled a bucket full of some of Nathan's favorite foods and spices. Fresh mozzarella cheese, cured salami, capers, curry powder, horseradish powder, wine, aged Parmesan, aged cheddar, figs, balsamic vinegar from Vom Fass and more! Nathan loved opening all the goodies. The kids also love all this stuff (minus the wine), so it didn't last long. Thanks to some breathable cheese paper that I found, we still have some of the cheese left. If any of you are cheese lovers, especially aged cheese, this cheese paper is great!
Awww, Grandpa Dave and the kiddos! Such a cute picture.

We had a picnic lunch along the Wisconsin River in Stevens Point. We had a ton of food and enjoyed great company. The kids were super excited because they got to go fishing!

Jack and Grandpa Kyle fishing. Grandpa Kyle LOVES fishing, so being able to take his grand kids fishing is extra special. We were all surprised at how long the kids wanted to fish. They really had a nice time. Below is Maddie and Grandpa Dave. This was Maddie's first fishing experience. I think she liked holding the pole the most. At one point Grandpa Kyle dropped a worm in her hand and she flipped it out of her hand like it was hot. It was pretty funny to see the look on her face! A great weekend was had by all. Happy Father's Day!

Wowza..What a Wonderful Weekend!

Fun in the sun pretty much sums up our weekend.

Friday night was spent on the patio with friends and the kids swam in the pool.

Saturday we took our first trip of the summer to the Sauk City pool. Jack and Maddie had a blast swimming in the big pool. Jack ran into a bunch of his friends. It seems wherever we go, he knows someone. It's great, a friend around every corner. Saturday afternoon was spent with our great friends Jeff, Liz and Moose! We dined alfresco and watched the fireworks.

What a Bea-U-tiful day!

Jack and Maddie were totally worn out on Sunday morning. We had to drag them to the breakfast table to eat. After breakfast they both fell asleep again! Sunday evening was spent with more great friends, Lori and Lauren! The kids had fun playing in the water and chasing each other around the yard. Nathan, Lori and I enjoyed good food, drinks and entertainment from the next door neighbors ;)

Monday was NOT another case of the Monday's! We had F-U-N. We slept in, well, the kids and I did. Nathan got up bright and early and was waiting for us to get up to go hiking. He finally woke us up at 8:45. 8:45! Yes, I got to sleep in until 8:45! I couldn't believe it either. Anyway...we woke up, got ready and piled in the jeep to go hiking. We went for a 2.5 mile hike at "Steinke Basin" and it was great! We then took a drive to Devil's Lake State Park and decided to go home, pack a picnic, and head back to Devil's Lake. Nathan was able to rent a kayak and explore the lake while the kids and I sat on the beach, swam and played in the sand. It was so fun to watch the kids play in the sand and explore the shells and rocks.

All of this fun and no pictures to show! Oh well. I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July weekend! We can't wait until next year!