My latest hobby - Community Supported Agriculture

I'm taking a break from blogging about Sara's birthday party, mostly because I haven't received the pictures from the photographer yet and secondly because I have a new hobby.  After watching the movie Food, Inc. I really started investigating local agriculture and the differences between food produced commercially and food that you can get from local sources.  I have spent several weeks researching local farmers and the processes they use, whether they use commercially available fertilizers and pesticides, what they feed their animals, how the animals are treated, etc.   I've read tons of other blogs with Moms that have the same concerns I have - "What is in the food I'm feeding my child?" 

I'm not sure that if I wasn't a mother that I would have given this subject much thought at all.  I'd probably continue to purchase commercially produced, over processed food and gone on my merry way.  But thanks to the fact that I have a beautiful two year old that I want to have the best that I can give her, this has now become a priority.

Earlier this week, I finally decided on a Meat CSA in the area that delivers meat to the local farmer's market once a month.  We selected Rainbow Meadow Farms located in Snow Hill, North Carolina.  The price wasn't bad - $600 for 6 months.  Each month you pick up $100 worth of meat from them, which could include any of the following: grass-fed beef, pastured chickens, pork, lamb or turkey.  They also offer quail and rabbit, though I'm not sure yet just how adventurous I'm going to be in the meat department...lamb is a stretch for me right now and I've asked that they leave lamb out of our monthly box for now. 

My next decision is if I want to join a local food cooperative that provides all kinds of local food from across the state.  They have fruit, veggies, beef, lamb, bison, seafood, chicken, turkey, pork, dairy products, including milk, herbs, grain, flour, and eggs.  I recently found out that the organic milk that I thought would be the best for my daughter is ultra-pasteurized.  Sounds good, right?  If milk is typically just pasteurized, ultra-pasturized sounds much better!!  WRONG!!  Ultra-pasteurization uses extremely high temperatures to pasteurize milk.  While it kills off the bad bacteria, it also kills off the good bacteria and makes a milk product that can survive unrefridgerated without spoiling for up to 50 days!!!  Now, I'm no expert, but that just doesn't sound right to me.  I can't find anyone local who sells raw milk, so I think I'm just going to go with a local dairy that doesn't use the UHT (ultra high temperature) method of pasteurization. 

Well, that's my latest hobby.  I hope you will follow me on this ride to find the best foods to feed my family.  I'll post after we get our first box of meat to let you know what we got and what I plan to cook with it!!

Sara's Sesame Street Birthday Party - Part 1

'm so excited that my first blog is about my daughter's 2nd birthday party.  I had such a great time planning it and coming up with ideas to make it special for her.   All of my inspiration came from this blog from Hostess with the Mostess.  She had the most creative ideas for a Sesame Street party that were different from the typical Sesame Street party.  I'm going to have to break this blog into parts - there are so many things that I created for this party, this post would be super long if I tried to fit it all in one! 

To start, I designed the invitations with help on making the characters from this video on YouTube.   The cardstock is all from Envelopments as is the pocket card.  I love how they turned out - they were all mailed in clear self sealing envelopes, also from Envelopments.  I was so touched that some of the people who received invitations actually framed them for their childs room! 

Front of the invitation

Pocket Side of the Invitation

Next, I needed a color scheme and since we decided to do a Sesame Street party and not just an Elmo themed party, I decided to use bright primary and secondary colors; red, blue, yellow, green, orange and purple, plus I added in some bright pink to make it a little girly!  The cake was one of my next priorities.  A neighbor recommended someone to me and she did a FABULOUS job!  She wrote all the kids names who attended the party on the cupcakes!    Here is a picture of how the cake turned out.  She even copied the characters I made for the invitation on the bottom layer of the cake!  PERFECT!  I'll have to see if I can find a better picture of the cake and cupcakes. 

The cake table was also a dessert table.  We had Cookie Monster's cookie jar full of homemade chocolate chip cookies, Twizzler's, Abby Caddaby's Magic Pretzel Sticks dipped in white chocolate and sprinkles and, of course, M&M's (who can have a party without M&M's - plus they fit my color scheme perfectly!)

For the other food, we had Ernie and Bert's mini hot dogs, Elmo's favorite food (mini pizzas), Elmo's goldfish, Oscar the Grouch's Trash Can Snack Mix, Barkley's Puppy Chow,  The Count's Jello Jiggler Numbers and Rosita's Chips and Salsa.  In addition, there was also a fruit and veggie tray and two large glass containers full of kid-friendly gummy fruit snacks. 

In my next post, I'll talk about what I did for all the Sesame Street themed decorations!