REPOST

My sister recently decided that once a week she was going to post a blog on her myspace page about being more environmentally conscious. I decided to repost them so anyone who wants the information can have it. So here is her first one and I hope someone finds the information useful. :D

Everyone can make a difference and everyone should try

The subject title for this blog is a quote by John F. Kennedy. I thought about this quote and then decided to try this project, and I hope you all will like it. If anyone knows me really well, or spends time with me, they will know that I'm a little bit of a greenie. I have spent hours reading books on the subject of green living, and more hours looking up information and great sites on the net. I have decided to write a blog every week or two to share some of the information I have found. A blog is a greast place to do this (I have decided) because you don't have to read it if you don't want to. That way I don't feel like I'm shoving something down anyones throat. If someone is interested, this info will be there for them with just a click of the mouse. My hope is that most of you will read these and be able to get something from them. I also hope if you like the info you will pass it along. You can even copy and paste them to your site if you want. Some of these will be long, some just a few lines. From now one I will always put "green gal" in the subject so you will know that this is a green blog instead of a personal one. If any of you do like the information, or if you use it... let me know. It would be great to know I won't be putting my heart, time and information out there for nothing.



For my first green living blog I want to share some thoughts on our need to use reusable shopping bags. First let me give you some facts on the subject.

1. It takes over 1000 years for a plastic bag to biodegrade.

2. Across the globe we us between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags each year! (More then 380 billion in the US alone, thats over 1 million per MINUTE!)

3. It takes over 14 million trees to make the paper shopping bags we use each year.

4. The process to make all of these bags, both plastic and paper,puts tons of pollution in both our water and air.

5. Plastic shopping bags cost retailers over 4 billion dollars a year in the US alone.

6. Hundreds of thousands of marine mammals and turtles die every year from eating plastic bags.

7. It takes over 12 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL to make the shopping bags used for ONE YEAR in the US alone.

8. 14 plastic grocery bags contain enough petroleum to fuel the average car for a mile.

So, now that we have that information, what can we do?? We can purchase our own reusable bags and bring them with us when we shop. To make that easier for us all to do I will tell you about the best options I have found from all of my research and from hundreds of customer reviews. Here are some of the best bags at the best deals that I have found.

1. Chico bags @ chicobag.com. If you want one bag to carry with you at all times, this could be a great option for you. They come in lots of colors, and they fold into themselves. Once folded they are small and could fit into a purse, or they also have a hook that you can hook on a beltloop. They are very cheap to buy, but they hold a lot!

2. For the greenie willing to pay a little more for style B Happy Bags @ bhappybags.com might be right for you! They are over $20 a piece, but they come in lots of cute fabrics. The fabric is upholstery weight cotton, and stands up well, much like a paper bag would. Also they are made in Phoenix, Arizona so the carbon footprint to ship would be much less then from something that needed to be shipped from over seas.

3. The bags I like to use are Envirosax from envirosax.com. You can buy one for only $8.50 or you can buy a set of 5 with there own pouch for under $38 bucks. They are super lightwieght and fold to be really small. The five pack pouch fits in the pocket on the side door of my car (no more forgetting my bag). Plus one of these bags holds what 2 plastic sacks would. Each one holds up to 44 lbs!! They come in really cute prints too! And, for you greenie guys out there (who maybe wouldn't enjoy a flower print) they make them in solid colors to including black and grey. They also have an organic line made with organic linen or hemp if you are willing to pay more.

If you would like to check out lots of different reusable bag options a great site to use is reusablebags.com. They also have lots of options for reusable water bottles and you can check out there line of reusable lunch products. (It will give you a head start on my next green blog how to green-up your brown bag.) If you want to help spread the word they also have a line of buttons and stickers that say "Plastic Bags Blow-Bring Your Own Bags".

I really hope we will all use this information to change our own habits, but also to encourage us to spread the word and get others out there to change their ways as well. We always want to know what we can do as just one person to make a difference, I believe this could be a great start. Getting America off the plastic addiction would make a huge difference to this beautiful planet!!

Good News

Cody was supposed to leave today to go to Washington. It is rainy and very cold so I guess there is ice in the planes so they canceled the flights going out today! He doesn't have to leave until VERY early tomorrow morning now but we get a couple more hours with him! YEAH! Also, someone asked me what happened to Tyler's arm. If you looked at my last post he has something on his arm in the playground pictures. Don't worry, it's just a Cars Tattoo he got from his cousin for Christmas! haha no injuries. I hope everyone has a great day. I think I still have a little updating to do but at this point I might just say screw it.

Today I am feeling kind of crumby. I hate that because it makes me paranoid about the pregnancy. Not that anything is wrong but it makes me worry about going into labor to early. I am 35 weeks along which is pretty good but I hope I can make it 3 more weeks because that is when Cody gets home. Tomorrow is the 6th which means my due date is exactly one month from tomorrow. Yikes...

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

We had a lunch playdate with Sarah, Julia and Colin both Tuesday and Friday. We had lots of fun. Both days were nice and warm outside so we went to the playground after lunch. That was nice for Tyler and I got to take some cute pictures. You know how I like taking pictures. Here are some of the pictures from both days





These are from Tuesday. I was so sad because the picture of Sarah and Julia was actually a posed picture and I was using my little camera that I keep in my purse and sometimes I forget that it takes pictures different. So I thought it had taken the picture and I started to move the camera and Julia started to climb again and then it took it! DOH! But I thought it still ended up being fairly cute.








I really like the first one of Julia here! She was saying "HANDY MANNY!" haha


In between our lunch dates with them, we drove a little over an hour to meet Katrina for some shopping, lunch and some more playground fun! Tyler's 3 favorite things to pass the time. It was nice because it was our first time seeing Katrina since June. We met her at IKEA



Then we Had lunch at Fridays and it was REALLY good. After that we found a playground that was actually in the parking lot with the IKEA. So we took Tyler and let him run around.







That first picture of Tyler and I cracks me up because my stomach looks HUGE! I told Katrina to take one that had my stomach in it because I didn't really have nay with Tyler and I together where you can see my preggo belly very well. I looked at it after wards and was like "Holy crap I look huge" and Katrina laughed at me and reminded me that I wanted her to get my belly in. Heehee

After we left Katrina we met Cody in Temple and went to Target to try and buy Kayla some stuff. Yeah they pretty much didn't have anything I wanted for her. Oh well. This was my pathetic attempt at an update blog. Hopefully it wasn't too boring and that the pictures were enjoyable. :)

A baby Shower Game

Since this is my second baby, I didn't want a baby shower. A couple of people told me, "But it's a girl so it's different." Nah! I don't need to have another one. However, I thought it would be fun if I could do a typical shower game here on my blog. WOO WOO I decided the best game to do over the internet would be the "Guess how big mommy is" game. To be fair I will tell you this: My waste was already about 37 inches around BEFORE I got pregnant so you might not want to go any lower then that! haha I am posting a couple of pictures of my belly from different angles to help the process. NOW, I would gladly do a game prize but I am not sure what to use as a gift. Any suggestion? Something that is fun and easy to ship. So leave me your measurements. And trust me when I say I will NOT be offended at how big you guess, otherwise I would not have put this on our blog for every one to do. I will wait about a week or so to post the results. I will say Friday which is January 9th. Leave me your measurement and your prize suggestion as a comment or if you have my e-mail address you could e-mail it to me. Have fun with this because I wanted it to be something that was fun to do and not a pain. :)




Also, just so there is NO confusion, I measured myself after taking these picture and that is the measurement I am going to use.

Being Silly

I LOVE having a camera on me at all times. Okay well, sometimes I don't have one on me and that is exactly when I need it but I am so glad I caught THIS moment on film! Tyler was getting tired and it was close to bed time so he was watching some TV. However, he had been playing with this Backyardagain's clothes hamper I bought just to put some toys in. He likes to put it on his head and run around the house. He thinks it's hysterical. So here he was just sitting on the couch with it on his head. I love how not only was it on his head, but he managed to get his legs up into it as well. Ahhhhh, I love kids...

This last weekend

Friday I can't remember what we did. Oh wait, it's all coming back to me. Tyler and I were cleaning most of the day. We were hoping Cody was gonna get off of work at early and then we were gonna drive out and meet him and go shopping. He ended up not getting off early enough for that to happen. So around 4, Tyler and I went to walmart to get a couple groceries for the weekend. We were having company over. Another one of Cody's brother's and his family were coming to visit. We were excited! Tyler had met Kade and Emily about 2 months ago in Utah but he hadn't met their daughter who was the same age as him. He did so good with his other cousins the weekend before, so I was happy for him to have another one to play with ( and someone to jump on the trampoline with him ) After we got back from Walmart, we jumped on the trampoline until Daddy got home. Then I went in the house and got us all ready to go to dinner while daddy jumped Tyler on the trampoline too! Then we went to El Tapatio. It was really good. The rest of the evening we just hung out. Tyler was very tired because he didn't get a nap. I didn't put him down because I thought we were gonna be going to meet Cody. That ended up being a BIG mistake. The next day was our anniversary. So before the family all came into town, we decided to go to Waco and do some furniture shopping. We also got lunch. By the time we were done doing all of that it was kind of late and Tyler was a cranky butt! Oh I forgot to mention that when we first got there it was raining and super windy! I think the weather scared most people because there was hardly anyone out and about. We got Tyler home and tried to get him to lay down but right as I was saying good night to him Kade and then got here. After that he didn't want to sleep but I wasn't about to put up with him being a cranky butt the rest of the day. I grabbed him and took him to my room and made him lay down. He threw a huge fit and screamed for like 20 minutes. Eventually he fell asleep but after about 20 or 30 minutes he woke up. I was so mad. So we got up and the family and Cody were at lunch but they got home soon after. I felt bad because Cody's other brother Lee ( who just moved to San Antonio in June ) came too! If I would have known that, I think I would have just kept cranky butt aka TYLER up. They came in the house for about 10 minutes and then left. So I on;y got to see them for a very short time. Good news is they live in the same state as us now and hopefully we can go visit them after the baby is born.

Okay, this is boring so far. Sorry. I try to make these interesting but when I get behind, sometimes I am just trying to get it "done". After Lee and his family left, Cody and Kade took Madison, Tyler and Maryn our on the trampoline. They had tons of fun. Here are a couple of pictures.


This is KADE and I LOVE it because it looks like he is torturing the kids by knocking them down! haha I LOVE trampolines. Adluts get to knock kids down and it's ok! :D


This one is cute because you can see how bad Maryn's hair was sticking up! All that electricity gets bad ont he trampoline and her hair was going crazy!


This last one is just a good one of all 3 kids. I on;y took about 5 pictures of them playing.

After the trampoline we just kind of hung out for a while. Here is a picture of Madison and Tyler sharing the arm chiar and the DVD player





We ordered pizza and pigged out. Then Kurt and Stacie went home and the kids had baths and went to sleep. Then Kade, Emily, Cody and I talked for a while and then went to bed around 11 or 12. Oh and I snuck to walmart while the kids were bouncing and bought Cody an anniversary card! heehee Cody bought me a necklace and it is so pretty! He gave it to me early though. He can't stand to keep secrets from me. The Sunday before I was getting ready for church and I said, "I should put my necklace on" I got it out and it was all tangled. I was trying to get it untangled and Cody said, "Don't worry about it, I have a new one for you" and went and got it. He's so cute! I'll post a picture of that later. I don't have a picture of it on my lap top yet.

The next day we went to part of church and then came home and had lunch and kind of sat around watching movies and stuff. NO naps again which was really hard at some times and not a big deal at other times. Cody was such a good daddy and played blocks with Maryn and Tyler for a couple of hours in Tyler's bed room. I was busy cooking and stuff in the kitchen.


Uncle Cody likes to tickle! So watch out. Maryn was getting her belly blown on here!


Here they are playing blocks. They would build big towers and then knock them down!

Cody and Kade took Maryn and Tyler out side to play on the trampoline again while I started dinner. We were having tacos and they were really good. While getting ready to come in fro out side Tyler decided he wasn't ready yet and threw a big fit! Daddy took away him trampoline jumping for a couple of days. :) It took him a while to calm down but after that he was okay again. We had dinner and Kurt, Stacie and Madison came over too. Then we just had another lazy day. I think it was nice. Hopefully Kade and them all had a good time. The next morning they got up and got ready for a long day of driving. I took some pictures of their kids while they were running around. They had a second baby back in June ( I think ) He name is Ailey and she is so smiley!





We look forward to getting to see them again. Tyler really liked his Uncle Kade so maybe we can go visit them one of these days. I have a bunch more updating to do but I need to go do a few things. We are meeting Sarah and Julia for a playdate today so I need to make sure I am ready to go! Hopefully I will get more updated later though because I have lot's more to say and lot's more pictures to post! :D

A busy week

We have actually had a lot going on this week. I can't update right now but I wanted to say happy new year to all! We have had a good week and I can't wait to update when I have some time. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some done. Until then....