Greening Sam and Avery

outdoor play party - santa style clean up

Hello Outdoor Play Party!

We are filled with the Holiday spirit at this house and decided we needed to do something nice. I am trying to teach my girls that there is more to the season than giving presents and lots of beautiful decorations.

So, I told the girls that we were going to play Santa for the day. Since he does something nice for us we should "be like Santa" and do something nice for other people. Sam responded by saying "Then Santa will see me being nice and put me on the nice list!". Not exactly the lesson I was going for but I guess it is a start!

Anyway, we got our Santa hats on, grabbed some trash bags and headed to one of our favorite parks.

The girls (and our friends Petyon and Taylor) got very into finding trash! I loved seeing them so committed to getting every piece of trash.

It was a pretty good clean up for only being about 30 degrees! And everybody had a good time.

Great way to combine outdoor play, exploring and a helpful clean up project for our community.

 Now on to the feature of the week! Happy Little Messes had a great idea this week to save some big seeds and let her kids "plant" a autumn garden. I love the idea of kids getting seed planting practice, digging in the dirt and using gardening tools just like they see their parent's using.

Great outdoor play Happy Little Messes! Thanks so much for sharing.

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us! Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

• Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

• Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!

• Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished.

Day 356: green mama blog hop - paperless

Our household is not entirely paperless. I do use disposable wipes for Avery (I know washclothes would be so much easier and better but I already feel like I am drowning in laundry!) and haven't been successful in getting all of the junk mail and advertisements stopped from entering our house (if you have any advice on this I would love to hear it!).

BUT we do pay all of our bills automatically with almost no invoices or statements coming in the mail. We do not subscribe to newspapers or magazines but instead buy only the ones we are really interested in or read them online. I cloth diaper Avery as much as possible. I have never been a fan of paper plates so they are not even an option in this house.

Most recently (about six months ago) I eliminated paper napkins and paper towels! This was a bit more of a struggle. Convincing my husband that it was okay to let bacon "drain" onto a cloth napkin instead of a paper towel took some convincing. And Sam had to relearn where to go if she had a spill and needed to clean it up, no more paper towels on the counter for her to reach.

Now, for my green confession of sorts! I have even recently given up disposable facial tissue (kleenex!). The girls and I blow our noses in the paper napkins!!!!  Is that an overshare? Does it gross you out? I grew up with a dad that had a "hanky" in his back pocket at all times. He always used that to blow his nose and it ALWAYS grossed me out. But now I LOVE it. So much softer on my face and then you just throw it in with the laundry instead of having all that kleenex waste. When we get sick our trash cans don't get all full up and my wallet doesn't empty from constant purchases of boxes of tissue. But I can imagine that some people might think this is going a bit too far. So, we do have a box in one bathroom for guests to use!

What paperless steps are you taking in your home? Do you talk to your kids about reducing your waste? So important to involve and educate our kids about the green decisions we make! Almost as important (or even more so!) as those green behaviors are in the first place!!!

Welcome to the 16th week of the Green Mama Blog Hop!

Please only join this hop if you deem your blog as 'green'. It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or if you're a pro.. this Green Mama Blog Hop is for you!

My goal is to have more and more people join each week! But that can't happen without your help. If you could please post the button on your blog, as well as in a post, that would be great! Thanks so much for your involvement! I want us 'Green Mamas' to befriend each other and be there for questions or support.

<a href="http://www.giveawaysandlife.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/sashica13/green-house-2-1.jpg" /></a>

~Lovely Hostesses~

And Then There Were 4...

Mommy Made Green

Greening Sam and Avery

The Little Hedgehog

Hopping Guidelines:

MANDATORY:    

* Add your blog's home page to the Linky list! I will be monitoring the blogs to make sure we only have 'green', family-friendly blogs involved.

* Follow the 4 hosts, Featured Blog and the blog ahead of yours. Make sure to leave comments on each of the blog so they can follow you back! The more you follow, the more will follow you back!

OPTIONAL:

* Grab the new Green Mama Blog Hop button and place it on your home page.

* Put the button into a post on your blog. Then leave a comment on this Hop post with the link.

This hop will be open all week but it will start over each week, so keep coming back each week to enter!

Welcome to the Green Mama Blog Hop! Enjoy!

Day 328: my little liter bug - green mama blog hop

I am raising a little liter police. Everywhere we go she is constantly picking up other people's trash, no matter what it is. An adorable problem to have really. On one hand I don't want to discourage the picking up, it is a very responsible and helpful thing to do, BUT it is also really gross! Today she was walking around at lunch picking up scraps of food off the floor at McDonalds. YUCK! At some point Avery and I may have to discuss her liter picking up. For now I am hoping she can be a good example and maybe we will leave parks, trails and restuarants a little bit better than we found them! 

Are you a Green Mama?  Join up this week and stop by some of the other amazing green mamas!

Welcome to the 11th week of the Green Mama Blog Hop!

 

Please only join this hop if you deem your blog as 'green'. It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or if you're a pro.. this Green Mama Blog Hop is for you!

 

My goal is to have more and more people join each week! But that can't happen without your help. If you could please post the button on your blog, as well as in a post, that would be great! Thanks so much for your involvement! I want us 'Green Mamas' to befriend each other and be there for questions or support.

 

 

<a href="http://www.giveawaysandlife.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/sashica13/green-house-2-1.jpg" /></a> 

~Lovely Hostesses~

And Then There Were 4...

Mommy Made Green

Greening Sam and Avery

~Featured Blog~

The Little Hedgehog

  

Each week, there will be a fifth, Featured Blog to be followed as well. To qualify to be the Featured Blog, you will need to participate in all of the guidelines. I will pick one at random from all qualifiers. I will email you the Monday before the Hop, if you are chosen.

 

Hopping Guidelines:

 

MANDATORY:

 

* Add your blog's home page to the Linky list! I will be monitoring the blogs to make sure we only have 'green', family-friendly blogs involved.

* Follow the 4 hosts, Featured Blog and the blog ahead of yours. Make sure to leave comments on each of the blog so they can follow you back! The more you follow, the more will follow you back!

 

OPTIONAL:

(You don't have to do these to enter the hop, but you must do both to qualify for the Featured Blog position)

 

* Grab the new Green Mama Blog Hop button and place it on your home page.

* Put the button into a post on your blog. Then leave a comment on this Hop post with the link.

 

This hop will open each Tuesday night and will be open all week. It will start over each week, so keep coming back each week to enter!

 

Welcome to the Green Mama Blog Hop! Enjoy!

Day 276: we saved a fish

Between rain showers today Sam and I took some time to go for a bike ride to the park. She is loving her new bike and starting to really get the hang of it.

Ride there and park play time were pretty uneventful. Just good outdoor play time for both of us.

But the park that we went to has a small pond near by that we decided we needed to walk around. Sam noticed that it was very "dirty". A lot of litter was in and around the water. She asked how it had gotten there and who would clean it up. At which point I made the decision that WE would clean it up. So Sam and I spent about an hour today with a big trash bag (also a piece of liter; rather convenient actually!) picking up all the liter that we could find. She loved finding long sticks for me when the liter was in the water and we couldn't reach it.

I grabbed a plastic bag that had been fully submerged out of the water and threw it up onto the ground behind me. Sam yelled, "MOM the bag is moving!". I looked back and sure enough there was the slightest little movement inside the bag. I reached in and pulled out a small fish about the size of my palm! She was so excited to help me let it go and watch it swim away.

After that the determination on Sam's little face to get every last piece of trash out of the water and check it for trapped animals was pretty incredible. We didn't find anything else.

But we did find LOTS of plastic bags, soda bottle and cans, three tennis balls, a flat soccer ball and many food wrappers of varying kinds. We filled up a pretty big trash bag until I could not close it. Our fingers were starting to get pretty cold so I said it was time to quit and go home.

We only got half way around the small pond.

I have no idea why the pond was so filled with trash. I guess stuff gets blown from the busy street nearby and collects in the ice/snow over the winter. I don't remember ever seeing it this "dirty" before. But I was so proud of Sam for helping me to clean it up. I am sure this is something she will remember and be asking me to do with her again. Plus she has already said we need to go back to the pond with her net!

________________________________________________________________________________________

The Nitty Gritty!

This was such a great greening moment for us. A true life lesson about helping to protect the things that we enjoy and love, and about giving back to our community and nature.

Have you ever been for a liter walk? Just take a plastic bag (or several) with you the next time you go on a walk around your neighborhood and have your kiddos help you pick up liter as you walk. It always surprises me that when I am actually looking for it there is a lot there. Somehow my eyes don't seem to see it most of the time. It is a great way to teach your kids why we don't liter and that it doesn't just disappear. I also find that doing things like this also helps to make conversations about why liter is bad, why pollution is bad and how we can help come very naturally; they don't need to be forced or read out of a book this way.

Sorry no pictures today. The occasional rain we were having made me very nervous to bring the camera along.