Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars review

Happy Earth Day!

I love this time of year. I love it when people are focused on the good things we can do for the planet we share. I like seeing the "greener" options brought forth in store displays.

There are so many things we can do every day to lessen our impact on the Earth. I've always thought that sounded great, but since I had kids, it means more to me. I guess it's because I actually really care about what the Earth is like after I'm gone. My babies will still be here, and my grandbabies, etc.

I have truly enjoyed making eco-friendly changes like changing to more natural cleaners, switching to cloth diapers, wipes, napkins, etc. and starting to eliminate many of the plastic containers in my kitchen in lieu of glass or steel. I am learning more every year about how to grow food, and I have been opting more for local meat rather than the stuff in the store cases.

But Earth Day, to me, is more than just buying some twisty light bulbs and a metal water bottle. I really believe we shouldn't forget this stuff once April ends. I also think we should be instilling these responsible actions in our children.

Kids aren't grown-ups, though. We can tell them over and over why they should recycle or not litter, and yes, some of it will sink in, but I think they need to really love the Earth in order to respect it. That's why I like to take my kids out into the natural world as much as possible. I want them to love it as much as I do. I want them to realize what we are trying to protect.

This summer is Logan's last summer before he starts kindergarten--the beginning of his "real" school years. I feel like I need to make this summer something really special. Not Disney World special, but more quality-time-at-home-enjoying-the-little-things special.

I recently came across a book and checked it out from the local library and I am so excited about it, I just have to share. It's a book that I think is going to help me make this summer one to remember: Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars by Sharon Lovejoy.



This book says "Grandma's Bag of Tricks" on the top of it, but really it is perfect for parents, too. It is packed with so many awesome little projects that you can do with your kids to help them appreciate nature. They won't even realize they are learning things, they'll just have fun doing it.

I have read the book, and I am going to have to purchase a copy of it for myself, because I think it's something I'll go back to time and time again. There are just so many great things to do with kids. It kind of reminds me of having a children's museum at home.

I mixed up a container of the bubble solution last night and we're going to try making some big bubbles at home today. I have also tried one of the recipes out of the book, a macaroni and cheese recipe, and it turned out so delicious. And the other day, Logan and I tackled one of the title projects: Toad cottages! You decorate some terra cotta pots and then prop them up on small rocks so toads can hide underneath. We had a lot of fun painting them, and today we will be scouting out perfect locations around our yard.

Logan painting a toad cottage



Our toad cottages drying in the sun



There are so many more projects I can't wait to try out of the book, including making paper, butterfly feeders, making (and cooking in) a solar oven made from a pizza box, baiting moths for observation, planting wheat grass name gardens and creating whimsical welcome places around the yard for any fairies that might happen to stop by. It's just impossible to mention all the special treasures found throughout this book. I got excited reading it, just thinking about all the possibilities.

Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars is arranged in an easy-to-read way, and it's embellished with photos of the author's grandchildren and some extremely charming little drawings. The amount of thought she put into every part of this book is amazing. You can tell she truly believes in sharing the natural world with her grandkids.

I strongly suggest this book to any parents or grandparents who want to nurture a love for the natural world in their children and grandchildren.

Check out Sharon's blog here.

You can find Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars here at Amazon.com, as well as other books by Lovejoy, which I can't wait to read!

Jessica in bloom

The day after I turned 17, in 1993, my cousin Jessica died. She was only four months younger than me. I ended up with this awesome hibiscus plant from her funeral, and somehow I have managed to keep it alive, though we've had a few close calls. Still, it blooms relatively often for me, and I just adore the flowers. I woke up to one this morning and I will have another tomorrow.

We named the plant Jessica. Isn't she pretty?

Jordan's new tricks, and more

My baby boy is growing up in leaps and bounds.

The other night, Logan was playing Monster Jam on the Wii, and the announcer said "Grave Digger!" and Jordan all of a sudden started saying "Digger" over and over. Yeah, one of his first words is a monster truck. He's SUCH a guy!

He's also very curious and into everything. He loves to go up and down stairs, but has a tendency to just barrel toward them with no fear. I am so afraid he's going to fall! One of the best things I taught Logan at this age was to do stairs "the right way," which means turning around and going down backward, using his hands as well as his feet. After I taught him, all I or anyone else would have to say if he was going near stairs was "Do it 'the right way'" and he would immediately drop to his hands and knees and crawl backward the rest of the way to the stairs. I loved that, so I've been teaching it to Jordan as well.

Here's a video of Jordan, doing stairs "the right way" with me coaching him. You also get to hear him say "Digger." The funny thing is, I'm telling him not to get distracted when he's going down the stairs, then I keep asking him to say "Digger." Mommies are so annoying sometimes!

You can also see his amber teething necklace, which I will be reviewing soon. I am just waiting on some questions to be answered by the person who makes them.

And now you can see why I have to dig splinters out of the TOPS of his little baby feet almost every day! Ouch!



And here, just for kicks, is another video of my little monkey, climbing like crazy. I not only had to remove the plant stand, but also I have to put up the little blue chairs that go with the table because he won't stop climbing them. It's HILARIOUS when he starts dancing once he gets on the table. I wish I'd caught that on video but I didn't want to keep encouraging him to do it.



Speaking of the little blue table, my boys ate lunch there together yesterday and it was so cute! Jordan was a very good boy and he just sat in his chair and ate the whole meal without getting down or causing any trouble. I think he felt like a hot shot getting to eat without being strapped into a high chair.

My guys having lunch together.









We also just rolled around on the floor being silly and loving each other
(Be warned: Me with no makeup!)





Oh, those kisses!



AND I got Logan to drink some milk! It started when I saw something about kids needing to just learn to like white milk on Jamie Oliver. I got thinking about Logan, who has refused to drink white milk since he was about 9 months old. I used to give him Instant Breakfast in his milk, and then he started to refuse that, too. He will drink some chocolate milk rarely, but basically he doesn't like milk, cheese, yogurt, anything with calcium! I have to buy fortified juice and give him calcium supplements.

Well, I started wondering if he'd drink a small amount. I let him use a shot glass. Don't worry, he doesn't know what shot glasses are for. He just think's it's a cool little glass.

BUT he didn't like the milk. He was gagging on it.

Then I had a thought. When I was little, whole milk started to gag me, too. (I give the boys whole milk at the pediatrician's recommendation because I have skinny kids). I used to put ice cubes and water in my milk, because it was too thick, and I liked it that way. Eventually I discovered skim milk, and started drinking that, and still love it to this day.

Well, I tried giving Logan a shot of skim instead, and he loved it! He, for some reason, thinks it tastes like almonds. He ASKED FOR AND DRANK a whole glass of skim milk at dinner and said he wants to have it at every meal.

SCORE SCORE SCORE FOR MOMMY!

Got milk?





And finally, here's the littlest monkey, trying to hold his sippy cup with his feet. He is so silly.



So, there's your little glimpse into the daily life of this mom and her two boys. They keep me on my toes at ALL TIMES!

Have a great day!

Busy times!

Hi friends!

I feel like I haven't had much time to blog lately because boy-oh-boy are the boys keeping me busy!

Logan's getting ready to end his first year of preschool. They actually do a graduation ceremony and I'm on the graduation committee. Basically that just means clean-up and *gulp* ironing graduation gowns.

The school year ends on his fifth birthday, and he's decided upon a roller-skating party. Fun! Over the weekend, I made these cute homemade invites (It's not a big party. Basically just family, but I always do invites anyway.)



Jordan has been a whiny whiny whiny tearful baby. Must be the molars I can feel coming through. He's got a really runny nose from it too. Not only that, though, he is into EVERYTHING and the scariest thing is he's a CLIMBER. Logan was not a climber. Jordan is up on everything. I have photographic evidence. I actually had to move the plant stand outside because I couldn't keep him off it.













All that and cleaning up meal/snack messes like this



three to four times a day doesn't leave me much time for other things I'd like to do, such as getting my gardens going. Oh well.

I'll leave you with a quote from a plaque in Logan's classroom:
"Discover Wildlife. Have Kids."

Have a great week.

Summer reading idea

National Library Week was last week and I hope many of you made it to your local library with your kids to take advantage of the wonderful things they offer. We did, and both the boys and I came home with some good books to read.

We love the library. Logan really enjoys selecting new books to read every week or so. The funny thing is, he has a lot of books on his shelf here at home that we have never read! When he chooses a bedtime story, there seems to be a rotation of favorites and the others sit there and collect dust.

A friend and I were discussing that recently, and she was lamenting the fact that her son and daughter had this great collection of books they had never cracked open. I realized the same thing, and came up with an idea: A summer reading program, much like the one the library does each year, but instead, the goal would be to make it through the entire bookshelf at home. That includes the big treasuries that contain many stories in one book, and the ones that he is on the verge of outgrowing and passing on to his little brother. Old favorites and new tales that are just waiting to be discovered.

I haven’t discussed the idea with Logan yet because the school year hasn’t ended, but I am hoping he’ll be on board for it. I don’t know what kinds of “rewards” I will offer, but I’m thinking the first goal for books read (perhaps the top shelf?) will nab him the bookmark of his choice at the local book shop (they have lots of really cool ones), and then maybe once he finishes reading each shelf, he will get to choose another book. I’m thinking the last prize will be going to the store to get him a brand-new backpack to use when he starts school in the fall, and probably a couple new books to go in it as well — maybe some books about kindergarten.

My friend thought the idea sounded good for her kids, too.

Of course, the best prize of all — though this kids won’t realize it — is just encouraging them to read, whether it’s on their own or together with their parents.

Right now, both my boys love their books. They don’t view reading as a “have to.” Rather, to them it’s a “get to.” I love the fact that they each take it upon themselves to sit down with a book several times a day. I get all kinds of warm fuzzies when one of them brings me a book and asks me to read it. Just the other night, Jordan, who isn’t saying more than a couple words, brought me his favorite book, Eric Carle’s “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” He climbed up into my lap and handed me the book, saying “Ba Ba,” which translates to “Brown Bear.”

I melted. Then I read it to him, three times in a row. Then I let him “read” it to me. He basically just turned the pages, babbled and pointed out the animals like I do when I read it to him.

Don’t let summer vacation turn into a book-free period for your children. The more you encourage them to read, the better their chances of wanting to do it on their own. Let them see you reading. Check out books from the library that correlate with an activity you just did or are planning to do, or an upcoming holiday.

Or, like us, try a summer reading program with the books you have at home, or make arrangements to trade books with one of your child's friends and read through their bookshelf. Chances are their friend will have plenty of age-appropriate books your child doesn't own.

You have absolutely nothing to lose and so much to gain!

Need a good, natural sunblock!

I've never been great about using sunblock on myself, but I vowed to be better about it starting this year. I am much better about slathering my kids with it, though.

Recently, I bought a couple Neutrogena sunblock products. One was the Pure & Free Baby lotion (SPF 60+) for the kids, and the other was the Ultra Sheer Dry-touch Sunblock (SPF 55) to put on my face before my makeup.

We popped 'em open for the first time yesterday. I started with my face, and MAN! That stuff BURNED! It kind of went away, though, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

I gooped the boys up with the Pure & Free Baby and we spent the day outside in the sun. No burns for any of us.

BUT... This morning, as I got Logan ready for school, I realized that his face and neck, and to a lesser extent, his arms, were broken out in a rash in precisely the spots the Pure & Free lotion touched.

(The rash isn't greatly visible in these photos, but it basically looks like I slapped him silly.)





I checked out the baby and he doesn't have a rash, but Logan's rash and my burning face has made me rethink this Neutrogena stuff. I want to protect our skin, but what can I use?

If anyone has any suggestions for a good, safe, natural sunblock, please let me know! I guess I wasted $20 on the Neutrogena stuff because I don't want to use it again. Taking a look at the insanely long and un-pronounceable ingredient list, I wonder what, exactly, it's "free" of!

I contacted the company via their Web site. We'll see what they say, if anything.

ecoStore USA review

I've always wondered about ecoStore USA products. After all, they're one of the only "greener" products that can be found in the cleaning aisle at the grocery store where we do our shopping (Meijer). I've seen reviews of the products on other blogs and they have been pretty favorable.

I finally got the opportunity to try out some ecoStore USA's plant-based, non-toxic products myself for the purposes of reviewing them. They allowed me to choose two different things to try (at no cost to me), and I'll tell you, it was a difficult choice to make. They have a good variety of products from which to choose.

One thing I knew I wanted to try was the automatic dish powder.



I hadn't seen any other eco-friendly dishwasher detergents and I had been on the lookout for some because honestly, who wants to use toxic chemicals to clean the stuff they EAT FROM?! Not me!

ecoStore USA sent me the dish powder and it is a keeper! My best friend teases me because I pretty much wash our dishes before I put them in the dishwasher anyway--something I learned from Mom. In the past I have had bad luck if I put anything with a bunch of food still on it in the dishwasher. Well, for the purposes of this review, I didn't rinse the dishes quite as well as usual, because I really wanted to see how this dish powder stacks up to the Cascade gel I usually use. I also crammed the dishwasher quite full, for testing purposes.

The verdict? It's great! First, I love that I don't have to fill the detergent cup with the powder. One tablespoon is all you need. The dishes come out sparkling clean--even the glasses--and I haven't seen one iota of powder residue left in there, and that's why I stopped using powder detergent in the first place. There was always some white crust left on some of the dishes.

The ecoStore USA automatic dish powder has earned a permanent spot on my cleaner shelf. I am extremely pleased with it.

The second item I chose to review is the oxygen whitener.



I have noticed lately that a lot of our white laundry--especially Hubby's T-shirts and socks--is quite dingy looking. Now, much of that is simply the age and wear of the clothing, I'm sure. After all, Hubby wears this stuff to the gym on a daily basis. But he opened up a new package of white undershirts and I was amazed at how white they were compared to the old stuff. They looked almost blue and the old stuff was just yellow.

I have never used bleach on my laundry. To be honest, I'm afraid of the stuff, since a stray splash can ruin things. But the oxygen whitener is in powder form, so it can't be splashed. All you do is start the water, put in your detergent and a tablespoon or two of the whitener, and once it's dissolved, add your laundry.

Now, the whitener hasn't worked any magic as far as turning the old, dingy shirts white again, but I don't think that is even possible. The laundry does come out fresh and bright, and my hopes for this product are that with continued use, it will keep the new shirts from getting yellowed like the old ones. I will definitely keep using it.

ecoStore USA doesn't just sell cleaners for your home, they sell stuff for you, your children and your pets too.

Based on my experience with both the ecoStore USA products I reviewed, I am looking forward to trying out more of their products. As a matter of fact, I'm placing an order for toilet cleaner, citrus spray cleaner, baby soap and lemongrass soap.

To celebrate Earth Month, ecoStore USA is offering an awesome deal, too: Any normal order will be DOUBLED, and there is free shipping on all orders over $25, so now is definitely the time to give ecoStore USA a try!

Aside from Meijer, ecoStore USA products can also be found at Duane Reade stores.

Visit the ecoStore USA website here, and check out their Twitter page and Facebook fan page.