Earth-Mother's Day Giveaway

Amy over at Crunchy Domestic Goddess is having an awesome Earth-Mother's Day give away.

And I would love to win!

My two favorite things -- although she's got some GREAT stuff....

BYO Bags - reusable produce bags. They are made from nylon mesh, and are reusable, lightweight, breathable, washable and durable.

And the reusable Wrap-n-Mats. The Wrap-n-Mats double as a sandwich wrapper and a place mat.

In fact, I think I'll be purchasing both if I don't win!

To enter, you need to visit Amy's blog, leave a comment, sign her Mr. Linky and link back to the contest.

You have until May 11th to enter.

Earth Day Offer from CleanWell

We suffer from eczema in our family. My oldest son has it very badly. We have a hard time keeping it under control. However, by making some changes we are able to manage the outbreaks.

One thing we cannot use the normal, common hand sanitizers sold in most stores. The alcohol in them, which kills the germs, causes my oldest son (and me too) to have an outbreak on contact.

We discovered an all natural hand sanitizer called CleanWell and it has become a staple in our house. Unlike most hand sanitizers CleanWell is 100% natural, 100% green, 100% biodegradable, cruelty free and 100% poison free.

And, for Earth Day, they have an on-line offer that I would like to share with you. They are offering 30% off all products through Friday, April 25th on their on line store. Just use the discount code ED08 upon check out.

This offer is good on line only. However, you can also find CleanWell at Target and WholeFoods stores. Check here for a store near you.

I have not been paid for this, nor did I receive any compensation or free product. I just love this stuff so much and I really believe in it and wanted to share it. I think it's important to limit our children to the number of unnecessary chemicals.

CleanWell smells better than the "alcohol" based products. Not only are they better for the environment, but they are better for your family as well.

Green Dreams

Sheila over at My Memories is hosting an Earth Day Green Dreams Round Up.

She's invited readers to post their "Green Dreams" -- or a wish list of sorts.

So, my three Green Dreams...

1. Since we are in a drought still here in Atlanta, I'd love to have the ability to recycle water. Right here in my house. When we lived in Australia so many people had rain collection barrels and the rain water was used for much of the "waste" or non-drinking/food related water. How great would it be to use rain water for your garden watering or flushing toilets?
   
   I'm also up for recycling my dishwasher and washing machine water for these tasks too.
   
   
2. I love the idea of buying locally grown produce and buying from local farmers. Where my parents live, in the summer time you can't drive by a corner without seeing a farmers stall selling locally grown produce. I really miss that living here. Not only is the produce cheaper, it tastes much better than what you get from the supermarket.
   
   I have just discovered we have a few farmers markets around in the summer time. Since I'm going to be around a bit more this summer, I plan on hitting them fairly regularly!
   
   
3. Finally, I really, really hate junk mail. This includes newspapers, fliers, unrequested credit card applications... the whole shebang. I know there are services like GreenDimes, where you can subscribe and manage the "types" of junk mail you receive.
   
   Honestly, I don't know why you need to pay for this type of service. It should be something that companies do, for free, to be more environmentally friendly. If you want to receive junk mail or information, then you should sign up to receive it.

So, this is my list of my three green dreams.

If you'd like to play, just visit Sheila, pick up her button and drop your name in her Mr. Linky!

And to leave you with an Earth Day conversation I had with Josh when he got off the bus today....

Me: Did you talk about Earth Day at school today?

Josh: What?

Me: Earth Day? Did you talk about it?

Josh: Today is Earth Day? No, we didn't.

I must say I was a bit shocked, but then the CRCT testing* starts tomorrow so I'm sure all the school is focused on that test!


*CRCT stands for: Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. I'm sure I'll be blogging about it some time this week!

Week of the Young Child (Day 4): Take it Outside

Now that spring is here and the weather is starting to get warmer it the perfect time to get outside.

Some of the activities we enjoy almost daily are playing sports, going to the play ground, swimming (in the summer) and having picnics.

But if your family is anything like mine, and we love those activities, but sometimes we want to mix it up and make it a bit more fun for both grown ups and kids.

We have a State Park about a half an hour away from our house and love to go there for walks in the woods. We quickly found the kids needed something to do on these walks so I searched the internet and found all sorts of links for "Nature Scavenger Hunts."

The kids loved having something to do while we were on our walk. Now, every time we go, Scavenger Hunts are a must! And with the internet doing all the advanced planning for us, I just make a few adjustments to the lists and off we go!

The wonderful thing about the scavenger hunts is you can adapt them to all age groups and environments.

For little kids, print up a list with pictures instead of words. The kids can either check off the items as they find them, or draw pictures. If your kids are older, give them more cryptic clues such as "find something a deer would eat" or "find something that floats."

Live in a city? Take a walk around the block or your local park and look for different colored shutters or window boxes or count the number of blue cars you see. You could even adapt this to use in the grocery store with your shopping list if you wanted.

With Earth Day right around the corner, you can incorporate the Scavenger Hunt into the perfect Earth Day activity. Bring garbage bag and some gloves and pick up trash as you go or, you can use the opportunity to teach the kids about the different things you see -- we tested to see what items floated and what items sank.

We are lucky enough to live in a state where we can go outside most of the year so we do the scavenger hunts in the winter too. We just change what we need to look for to suit the season. Believe me, being able to get out of the house in the winter time helps to maintain our sanity!

We also like to bring a "treasure" for the kids to find after they get all items on their list. Usually one of us distracts the kids while the other one "hides" the treat (usually it's a few wrapped chocolate Kisses or similar). It's a nice treat at the end of the walk.

Happy Hunting!