city sprouts fundraiser

oh cambridge...so crunchy i love it! we have this fantastic program called city sprouts which is run in conjunction with the cambridge public schools. it's mission is to promote a respect for the earth and healthy eating through gardening. each cambridge public school has a garden and a garden coordinator. the children are encouraged to drop in and help the coordinator maintain the garden. our school coordinator, louise, has gotten toby to eat things such as chives and spinach. as far as i'm concerned that woman is a miracle worker. seriously, look at these tiny gardeners. it's totally cute. and they love it. it's amazing really to see these children work and have such a fun time doing it.

city sprouts is having their annual fundraiser at the whole foods on river street this saturday june 6th from 11-2pm. $5 will get you a hot dog or hamburger, chips and a drink and 100% of the proceeds goes to this wonderful organization. so really, go...i mean really...where else in cambridge can you get lunch for $5? and for a worthy cause? no brainer. see you there!

if you can't make it and would like to contribute to this lovely organization, click here.

shop local

you know how you hear all the time "shop local". and you think great, i'd love to! but where how? and then you just go to target like you always do...mostly because you are so tired and your car just drives itself there? well fear not my tired friends, i'm here to tell you about an awesome local event called mommies who shop. mommies who shop is a night out for us moms to meet the girls and have a few glasses of wine while at the same time finding some great local artisans who make super cute stuff for our kids! there is always a spa there so you can be pampered while you shop. what's better than that?

toby + rei shows at all the mommies who shop events because we love meeting all these super hip moms and hearing them ooh and aaah over our stuff, but also to find great stuff for our own kids. the next show is in weston, ma on June 10th from 6-10pm at Regis College, 235 wellesley street. get directions here.

some of my favorite events partners are:

1. hoosier magnolia - looking for some baby gifts? nothing says summer like the backlog of baby gifts you need to buy and hoosier magnolia is just the place to stock up! i especially love her beautiful and unique mobiles (shown above), because as you all know i love birds. michelle, the owner/designer, is so nice and wonderfully creative and i get so many compliments when my kids wear her clothing. check out the beautiful hand sewn giraffe dress on jasper above.

2. sheabella tutus - i mean really? 2 nice ladies from brunswick, maine? cute tutus? whats better? if you have a girl in your life, you must buy her one of these fantastic homemade tutus. and then let her run free into the woods with her friends. run free little ballerinas, run free!

3. zooguu - these are the cutest little plush toys ever. so unexpected and different. i love them. how cute is this little bird? i know, i know again with the birds, but they have tons of different animals trust me.

tickets are $15.00 if you pre buy them on line and if you buy 5 tickets, the 6th one is free. so see you there!

swap meets

so, it's spring time (thank god) and as I am cleaning and purging the kids gazillion clothes (where do they come from?) i am starting to think about where all these clothes go. some of these clothes are so cute and have only been worn a few times. like when you buy your kid winter shoes and then the day after you buy them their feet grow two sizes.

anyways, sometimes i am organized enough by season to take them to the consignment store. my favorite is kid to kid in natick. you bring your crates of clothes, they assess them and either give you cash right there or they give you a store credit which they add 10% to total. and then it's like buying free clothes! to find your local consignment store, check here. if you live outside of massachusetts, check here, and then click your state.

finding a children's consignment store these days is tricky since the CPSIA regulations are making it impossible to buy second hand children's clothes. another way to help your clothes find a second life is to go to a clothing swap. these are gaining in popularity, there are some great local swaps already set up, to find one in your area check here. but- i'm wondering if it would be way more fun to have one at your house with your friends, some wine and garbage bags full of clothes. like this lady...but instead of wine she had baked potatoes. whatever. you say potato, i say pinot grigio. at the end of the party, the organizer could take the remaining clothes and donate them to local schools or rosies place or some other fantastic charity. if anyone is interested or has any cool party ideas, please post a comment.

watch out!

as kate browning always says, watch out! toby + rei hits the big time with our tees in the garnet hill catalog, "growing up garnet hill".  introducing the next generation of the robot tee, he is dip dyed (think tie dyed, but you actually dip the tees into a vat of dye) and printed in bright orange.  i think he is the best one yet.  he comes in size 2, 4 and 6.  size up though, the tees run a tad small.  

if you don't receive this catalog, it is super cute and i am loving all the girls bathing suits.  it makes it feel like it's maybe not 12 degrees and snowing here.  a little breath of spring air.  big sign.  

anyways, buy our robot tee through garnet hill here and we will love it when they sell out and we can be all like, really?  who knew?

what's for dinner today, baby?

when my son was born 4 years ago there were two organic options, make it yourself and earth's best jar foods. as a mom who had a full time job, the "make it yourself" option was just not an option for me. i mean, really, i could barely get to work with my hair washed on most days.  don't get me wrong, earth's best jar food is great...for jar food. but the problem with jar food is that you have to cook it at such high temperatures that it loses a lot of the flavor of the food and some nutrients too. so i was happy to see that after jasper was born there were some more organic options that didn't include the jar.

the first is local boston based business, little lettice organic baby food. the founder, sara cabot, is a mom of 4 who made all of her own baby food.  i am impressed. 4 kids?  homemade baby food?  this woman is like a super hero.  for reals. anyways, little lettice is available at whole foods, south end formaggio kitchen and a few other local stores. it's more expensive than the jar food for sure, but really the taste is amazing.  they have the best apples of all the options i tasted. they also had a bit more texture than their jarred counterparts. which was great for us because little jasper (remember: sensitive sally in all ways) was resistant to texture and it was a great step in the texture pyramid.  thank goodness we had early food intervention for her otherwise i wouldn't have "texture pyramid" in my lexicon.  aren't you guys lucky?

the second one i found and have enjoyed is happy baby food.  this food is delicious and is found also at whole foods in the frozen section.  the portions are small and come in ice cube like trays, so you just pop em out and defrost and serve.  brilliant.  the peas are my favorite for sure.  they have a hint of mint.  yum!  the foods come in 3 different options; purees, smooth + sorta chunky.  

what's great about both options is the flavor.  i really can't say it enough, the flavor of the fresh frozen food vs. the jar food is incredible.  go ahead, i know you are dying to taste your baby's food.

bio bags

i've recently been told that our kitchen trash system is so confusing that no one is ever quite sure where to put what. i agree, it's hard to know. brown cardboard, not coated cardboard goes in the compost with all food scraps except meat, and cheese and fish and corn cobs and on and on. our whole kitchen system is green and it makes me feel good. except. the tall kitchen garbage bag. that thing from glad is so not going to decompose. ever. so even if i put my groovy g diapers in the trash instead of flushing them, the bag will be on our earth forever. not good.

so i was psyched to find these puppies at my local whole paycheck..err..whole foods. bio bags are 100% bio degradable and are $6.50 for 12 bags. they are made from corn or some crazy thing? read more about them here.

the bags are also available at drugstore.com.

and for those of you dog lovers out there, they make a dog waste bag too. so the all natural stuff that comes out of your dog won't be trapped in plastic for 100 years. you betcha that's earth friendly. these come 50 to a box for $6.00, any joe six pack can do that math.

wink.

back to school - part three

my friend alex, who somehow always knows where to find the good stuff, just sent me the 411 on this awesome lunchbox alternative. the company is called laptop lunches and they use an american version of the japanese bento box for transporting lunches to school. the set pictured above is $20.99 and you can get all kinds of accessories for it, like extra containers and an insulated sleeve with a non toxic ice pak. the insulated sleeve looks like the heavy neoprene that doesn't contain lead like the other insulated lunchboxes out there. fantastic...thanks for the tip alex!