A busy weekend

We went to the Blueberry Festival this weekend, which is always enjoyable. It's a little pricey to get in, but it gives us something different to do and the money goes to a good place. Leah's favorite part was definitely the petting zoo. They had ducks, pigs, cows, goats, and sheep (to name a few!).

I also wound up being super crafty this weekend, too! I bought some new yarn and made a hat for Leah. It came out so cute, although she doesn't want to wear it (not even to model!). It was so easy, though, and has a lot of space for extra creativity! Here is the link for the pattern.

I had yet another craving for muffins (I love them!) so I decided to make lemon poppyseed muffins. In the end, they didn't turn out too lemon-y or poppyseed-y, but they were yummy! I toyed around with the recipe using vanilla yogurt, coconut oil, applesauce, and agave instead of some of the regular ingredients, and they are very tasty!

I also made raw chocana pudding, which was my first "raw" dish. It was okay... nothing amazing, but not bad, either. I used the recipe from Mothering Magazine and doubled it. It wound up being 1 avocado (Florida), 1 banana, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 cup agave syrup (instead of honey), 2 tbs. coconut oil, and 2 tsp. vanilla. You throw all that in the food processor, blend until it reaches your desired consistency, and finito! It is very sweet and I can see how, if made the right way, could probably fool someone into thinking it was the real thing. I didn't really like the taste of the avocado, though, so I'll have to try it again sometime with a Haas. Overall, pretty good (even better after being in the fridge for 2 days!).

The other neat thing I did was something I'd been meaning to try for months. I have been using soap nuts for a while now for my cloth diaper laundry. You can click the link to find out more. Basically, soap nuts are nuts from a tree that you can use as soap! I am not totally sure if I want to keep using them for my diapers (since they are all natural, there is no whitening agent), but I really like them overall! Anyway, you can make all kinds of things with the soap nuts, so I decided to make handsoap. It was very easy: I just boiled about 4 cups of water with about 15 nuts for about 15 minutes. I then let the liquid cool and added a few drops of tea tree oil (anti-fungal and smells yummy!). Now, the liquid is in an old soap pump I had saved. It washes well, although it feels different than you would expect because it is purely liquid. I was quite excited, though!

And lastly, because I love my daughter so much, and she is so adorable, here is a video of her being cute/showing off her animal sound skills (and she knows many more!).