Southern Veggie Baby: Fall Favorites

I'm here today to talk about one of my favorite things! Drumrollllllllllll…. shopping! ;) I love to shop for my son because as a boy mom it can be a challenge to find cute things for baby and toddler boys. If you look at Target there will be 5x as many clothes for girls and they are almost all freaking adorable. And then you have four sad little racks for boys and most of them have characters on the front. I am not a character clothing fan. Until my son can talk and tell me what he wants to wear I will steer clear of all the characters!  Here are a few favorites I've bought, looked at, want to buy, plan to buy, etc. for my little guy for the fall. 

Gap Cable Knit Sweater

I think Gap comes out with this every year. I didn't buy it last year and then tried to buy it on sale and it was out of his size, so I got it early this year when they had a 40% off sale. Speaking of which, just FYI, never buy Gap or Old Navy full price because they always have sales. I just login and add everything to my cart and if there's no sale, I wait and check back and all my stuff is still there unless it's out in which case it wasn't meant to be. We were able to snag a few pairs of Baby Gap jeans a few months ago for $8 a piece when summer clothes were coming out. Again, I just don't buy full price since he grows out of them so quickly. 

Old Navy Graphic Tee

Navy and Orange Football Tee

If you live in the South then you know it's college football season and I would be remiss to not include some navy and orange gameday clothes (War Eagle!). I love Mud Pie! They have awesome sales and almost always have a discount code or free shipping. Fun fact, our son was chosen to model for them last year but he didn't get "the call" because of a lack of sample sizes, etc. We still love them :) I think their clothes run a bit on the small side so I have always sized up. 

Turkey Tee

                                       Mini Man onesie                                 Striped one piece

                                            Plaid shirt                                        Navy Jacket

Can we just talk about that jacket please?! How cute! I am loving the new Cat and Jack line at Target. I love almost everything and they only carry a few of each size in the store so you maybe feel like your kid will look original?  Everything has mostly been sold out in the bigger sizes when I've been so I got a couple onesies the last trip that my husband picked out. If he likes it, I'm like yeah let's buy it! :) I think we will need to get a jacket this year, but maybe a fleece or sweater will do. I'm holding out hope he'll need that jacket though ;) 

I bought one pair of Christmas pajamas from Mud Pie already and tried to buy some Carter's at Target. They were already sold out in the store in all sizes except big kids. What the heck - it's only September. One thing I will not get used to in kids shopping is having to be two steps ahead of every holiday. Last year I missed the boat on special Christmas pj's because I waited until November and then couldn't find any good ones. Silly me! My son has been wearing Halloween pajamas since August because by golly, I bought those suckers when I saw them in his size!! Never mind that I had to crank the air down because who wears long sleeves inside in the South in the summer. 

I hope you other boy moms have got some good ideas and maybe found something new you haven't look at before! Happy shopping! 

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Welcome to Southern Veggie Family!

Hi and welcome to Southern Veggie Family!

As a new mom to a boy toddler my life has changed a lot in the last year. I went from working full time to being a full time stay at home wife and mom. We also moved about a week after our son was born (I don't recommend that if you can help it!) so I was juggling unpacking boxes, nursing a newborn constantly, trying to lose weight, cook, clean and the list goes on and on.

I've always been creative and crafty but lately haven't found an outlet to do things that I want to do. Partly because I don't know what it is exactly that I want to do! I would love to learn how to sew, learn calligraphy, refinish furniture, make stuff out of wood (after a trip to the ER for our son's first Christmas I've been forbidden from buying a saw - can you blame my husband for that one?!), etc. While I make the occasional burlap or mesh wreath, spray paint and respray paint our wooden monogrammed initials and picture frames, try to come up with playful food art for our son, or rearrange furniture in every room, I've still been wanting to do something.

Enter this blog. I love reading blogs, watching Youtube videos, and finding other moms, crafters, vegetarians to connect with on Instagram. I'd like this blog to not only document our favorite recipes, family activities, and travel adventures, but also to try to brush up on my writing skills and even connect with others!

So, what does Southern Veggie Family mean and why that name? I've played around with a lot of names in my head and tried to find a direction for this blog and this is what I came up with for now. This could change or develop into something else but for now, this is what it means to me:

Southern: This is more locational and geographic than descriptive. Our family lives in Central Alabama, deep in the heart of the south. While I love monograms, iced tea (unsweet for me), and seersucker, this blog is more about where we are than any kind of guide to southern traditions.

Veggie: Our family is vegan! We don't eat meat, dairy, fish, eggs, or wear or buy leather products. We do eat honey, so maybe we should call ourselves beegans. Honey and bees are something I would like to learn more about and research and this very well could change in the future but for now, honey is here to stay.  Additionally, we do have wool sweaters and this is something I would like to research and learn more about as well.  While we not only practice those restrictions listed above, we also try to aim for a whole foods plant based diet. For us, this means we try to eat as little processed food as possible. We don't cook with oil - we don't even have any in the house. We use silicone bakeware when possible and parchment paper is something we go through regularly.  I say try because we aren't perfect and life is often crazy, hectic, sleepless, etc. and so we sometimes do rely on processed food that does have oil in it (Amy's frozen meals, Morningstar burgers, and even frozen french fries on occasion!).  The thing we always look for though is that the food is vegan and animal product free.

Family: First and foremost we are a family! There's me, my husband, and our son who just turned a year old. I want to capture things we do as a family, products we buy for our family, and things that individually matter to each of us. We won't be sharing any photos of our son on this blog for privacy reasons. There is so much bad stuff out there in this electronic age and people with fetishes and bad agendas and that's not something I want to expose my child to whether anyone reads this blog or not.

Hopefully this gives you a good overview of what you can expect to read on this blog. I hope you enjoy reading and stay a while!