Boise Farmers' Market

We went to the Boise Farmers' Market today just to check it out. It it HUGE! Too big for me in fact. I did how ever pick up a few things for my smoothies and am pretty excited about using them! I got a half flat of beautiful YUMMY raspberries as our plants aren't doing that well and I REALLY want to make some smoothies with raspberries in them. I also picked up a bag of spinach and 2 pints of juicy sweet black cherries! 

I invented my own cherry pitter! :) Yes that is a beater to a hand held mixer! It worked REALLY well!

ALL READY FOR THE FREEZER!! 

Can't wait to put these in my smoothies!!! 

These raspberries are so good I had a hard time not eating them all before they made it to the freezer! I love fresh fruit! I will be going to the Farmers' Market a lot this summer. I will however stick to my small town Nampa one as the Boise one is WAY too big for me. I'm just like my mom when it comes to big crowds! I just don't like them!

Ever tried something and just COULD NOT drink or eat it. Well I tried! This smoothie had beets and beet greens in it and I just couldn't do it! I sure hope the spinach is easier to drink than this!! This has a banana, beets, beet greens, milk, milled flax seed, almond butter, and a little cinnamon in it. Need less to say its pretty but it sure was yucky!!! Oh well live and learn!

Still working on the garden blog post! Mom, I can't wait to show you how well it is coming along! So proud of myself! 

Fun times trying new smoothies and my FIRST garden

I should get my Slim-Fast 3-2-1 stuff today so my smoothies will become mostly my night time snack. Although the last two nights I have enjoyed a bowl of Vanilla Frozen Yogurt with blackberry puree on top. Using last years blackberries finally! I don't know what I'm going to do with this years but we will have a TON as I'm sure there are a million flowers on them right now!

Yesterday for lunch I had a Pineapple Carrot Smoothie! Pretty good but this recipe I posted is what I will do next time as I didn't think my first try had enough carrot flavor. I can't wait until I can use my own home grown carrots! 

Today for breakfast I made a Berry Nutty Smoothie. My first one with peanut butter! YUM!! I will for sure drink this one more often! It is VERY filling too! 

I must say I am proud of myself for the garden that I have planted. This is my very first garden.....all by myself! (Sure thankful for Facebook and all my mom's cyber help!) I'm working on getting all my garden pictures together to do a 2013 garden post but it seems to be taking FOREVER today!  

Just thought I would sneak a super cute picture or two into this post! I sure could just squeeze the cuteness right out of him sometimes!

 Pretty sure he is the cutest thing ever!!!

I made homemade almond butter today to make adding almonds to my smoothies easier and cheaper.

 Plain Raw Almonds

I have a Costco sized bag of almonds and didn't measure I just poured probably 1/2 the bag into the food processor and started grinding...............

 10 minutes.....
A nice fine almond powder.....

 20 minutes.....

I was starting to wonder and then.......... 

 30 minutes.....

It started to look right..........

 Took almost 40 minutes!

The End......................for now!

I'll say it again....I'm not very good at keeping up with this! :) 

I'm going to really really try to do better at keeping this up!

I became a stay at home mom right before Thanksgiving 2012 which was the best decision for not only myself but my family. I now watch 3 little girls during the week. It's what I love to do! There is a HUGE problem with it..........I've become a lot less active then when I was a front end supervisor at Wal-Mart. Needless to say it has resulted in me being heavier then when I was 9 months pregnant. It it just too easy to eat junk food all day! Not that I feed the kids junk food. I'm sorry to post these pictures but this is my turning point. I'm DONE looking like this. I am SO tired all the time and I've GOT to change not only for myself but for Randall and Nicholas, too.

I weighed myself yesterday for the first time in a LONG time and I shouldn't have. YUCK!!! I refuse to say just how much yuck there is here but that will change. This won't be a crash diet but a change in eating habits and for now nightly walks (weather permitting.....it's been raining the last 2 days.)
I started actually eating/drinking breakfast yesterday. This week I'm starting pretty slow and have just had a few home-made smoothies and had lots of fresh fruit instead of doughnuts and cookies. Yesterday I had an Avocado Smoothie for breakfast that was actually VERY VERY good. I don't care for Avocados much but I know they are super good for me so I thought I would give this a try. I found the recipe at http://www.bhg.com/recipe/avocado-smoothie/

Today for breakfast I had a Blueberry Swirl Smoothie and I also found at   http://www.bhg.com/recipe/blueberry-swirly-smoothies/

These smoothies and others that I will post become my night time snack (we might have a bad habit of eating a bowl of ice cream every night) as I am starting the Slim Fast 3-2-1 diet, well as soon as I get it! I was checking prices and found that http://www.walmart.com/ has a special one month package of just about everything you need. You get to pick our own flavors and everything! Besides my fresh fruits and veggies and dinners I won't have to do much thinking about breakfast, lunch and snacks.

On a much cuter note....

I LOVE THIS KID.......

Ok....Ok...I'll stop! But I can guarantee there WILL be more!!