dirty candy

I forgot Valentine's day is like Halloween.  All that darn candy.  I have a friend who lets her kids eat as much as they can stand on the first day and then the bag disappears.  Our bag is still around and the girls have it on their mind as soon as their tired eyes pop open.  Here's an eco-friendly trick to get rid of the love day treats - compost them!  If you don't have a compost bin, you could just place them deep in your house plants or outdoor plant soil.  Or you could take them to work and let your co-workers gobble them up.  Here's some more tips from my eco-buddy over at Green Halloween http://greenhalloween.org/blog/?tag=how-to-compost-candy

cold mice

Ice cream good.  Mice bad.  An ice cream mouse...tasty.  We made these the other night at pre-school family night.  Here's what you do - place a scoop of ice-cream or frozen yogurt into a cupcake liner and then let the kiddies decorate it to make a mouse.  Use vanilla wafers or mini cookies for the ears, craisins or jelly beans for the mouth and eyes and a pretzel stick for the tail.  Make it organic by using - Julie's Organic Ice Cream and Newman's Own baked pretzels.

allergies and congestion

Janae has had chronic sinus infections for oh...about a year.  Her symptoms?  Yellow snot, headaches, and severe congestion.  Her pediatrician has been treating it with antibiotic which clears the issue but the infection pays a visit 2 months later.  So she had an allergy back prick test.  The cause?  Dust mites and grass.  We have now encased her pillows and mattress, kicked up the air purifier, dutifully vacuum her room twice a week and wash her bed linen once a week in hot water.  And she does a daily sinus rinse (nasal irrigation) and a prescribed steroid nose spray - fluticasone. It's working. Want a homeopathic sinus recipe? Just mix iodine-free salt, baking soda and water. Allergy Buster is a homeopathic nose spray option. And instead of the antibiotic, I now give her the allergy tablet cetirizine when her symptoms flair. Allergy shots are another option if your kids can deal.  There are side effects to everything, so do your research.

manners baby

We actually started the "Can I be excused from the table?" a month or so ago.  Had to.  Here's a taste of what they were doing - sitting and eating children, 4 minutes in, getting up, walking, running, playing, food in mouth, food on floor, mess.  I was done.  Tonight we sat down to eat dinner.  TV was off. I had the girls tell me things they could do to show good manners.  Eat with your mouth close.  No talking while eating. Saying excuse me when someone is talking or you walk in front of them.  They sat the whole time.  Talking.  In his weekly blog, Rosemond says - "We will spend at least as much time helping our children develop good manners as do helping them get good grades in school, which means we will cut back significantly on the time helping with the latter (in consideration of the fact that good manners, which are expressions of respect for others, will take one further in life than will good grades)."  Read more at www.rosemond.com

Happy resolutions.  

Feeding the Reindeer

Santa is almost here.  While he delivers presents and chows down on the treats you and the kids baked, his reindeer are outside starving.  Hello. Ok, well they're hungry, so here's a recipe to fuel em- Mix 1 cup of oatmeal with 1 tablespoon colored sugar crystals or substitute the crystals with colored glitter for the bling effect.  You can even add birdseed to the mix but not with the glitter recipe.  Take the kiddies out and sprinkle on the lawn the night before santa makes his annual round so he can find your casa.  Make the dust with the kids, bag it, and hand it out to the neighbor kids or you could buy reindeer dust on Etsy.

smencils

Need an original fundraiser or stocking stuffer?  How about a gourmet pencil that smells like watermelon or chocolate? 100% recycled newspaper smencils and smens come in fruit, holiday and valentine scents. To maintain the tasty scent, they come in individual corn-based biodegradable freshness tubes. The verdict - The pencils write well but use a really good pencil sharpener. 

solar christmas

So we set up our freshly cut tree, I turned Pandora on with the "Holidays with the Temptations" and the girls started decorating.  While the fake vs real tree debate lives on, there are options like replanting your tree or just recycling the bugger so it can be mulched.  Save some energy and try keeping the lights on for shorter periods. And check out these solar powered Christmas lights.  LED lights are always better too and easier to find.  Now go make some ornaments with the kids!