When it comes to finding toys that are non-toxic, sustainably made, creative and fun – I always turn to Etsy. You can find the best toys made by artisans that have a focus on the environment and the health of your children. When it comes to choosing the right toys – my favorites tend to be heirloom quality toys made using sustainably harvested or reclaimed woods. The key is to make sure that the wood has not been sealed using toxic chemicals and instead with a non-toxic, food safe oil to protect the woods natural beauty. When it comes to wooden toys, there are so many different options available, you can find teethers and rattles that are perfect for babies – cars with wheels and pull along toys that will entertain toddlers and games and manipulatives that are great for older children.
While browsing through Etsy today, I found a few wooden toys for babies, toddlers and older children – all of which are made using sustainably harvested woods that are finished using non-toxic oils. Regardless of your child’s age, there is something here for all children – if you have a little one’s birthday coming up, these would make great gifts!
For Babies
Smiling Tree Toys These adorable rattle teethers from Smiling Tree Toys are lovingly handcrafted from local and sustainably sourced hardwoods, and organically finished with Smiling Tree Toy’s blend of homegrown organic Carmelina oil (a relative of flaxseed) and beeswax. You get your choice of color from different sustainably sourced woods too.
Seven Acre Toy’s rattles are made with FSC certified North American hardwoods, and have been finished with a food grade beeswax and mineral oil blend made locally for them by a dear friend. All rattles are sanded smooth and are completely free of splinters and rough spots. Not to mention, they come in a great selection of wood. + Wooden Claw Rattle $28
For Toddlers
Little Alouette Little Alouette has the sweetest handcrafted wooden toys for toddlers. The toys are crafted from locally sourced Ohio Maple. Isn’t the guitar fantastic? And the intro mustache teether is Little Alouette too!
Little Sapling Toys These wooden Toy Skittles Bowling Pins from Little Sapling Toys is one of my favorites! Each set comes with ten maple pins and two hardwood balls. They are sanded smooth and finished with a light local beeswax and organic jojoba oil.
Bannor Toys Bannor Toys makes the best eco-friendly blocks handcrafted from responsibly harvested trees around the world. Each set of natural color wooden blocks is completely unique and contains 20 blocks in a mix of 6-7 woods. The blocks are finished with a beeswax and coconut oil finish and each set comes with it’s own storage bag. Eben has a set of these blocks, they are fun to play with and beautiful enough to leave out on our coffee table in a large bowl – you know for impromptu building!
Timber Green Woods Most older children enjoy puzzles, these wooden Circle Geometric Puzzles from Timber Green Woods will fit the bill. Each piece of sustainably harvested wood is laser cut into a geometric puzzle. This very challenging circles jigsaw puzzle includes a laser engraved “cheat sheet” on the bottom, which makes it difficult even for cheaters! It is finished with non-toxic and food safe oils and comes packaged in a bio-degradable plastic sleeve.
The weather around the country has been super cold this week, so you may need a handmade hat and scarf to cozy up with. If you are looking for cute outerwear with a great purpose, look no further than Krochet Kids, Inc. I love everything about their fun scarves and hats for the entire family – the styles, colors, and that each was handmade and signed by women artisans in Peru or Uganda who through Krochet Kids Inc. is able to support herself and her family. Fantastic!
For many people our furry companions are just another member of the family. We want our pets to live happy, healthy and long lives. When it comes to your pet’s lifestyle, there are many ways that you can make it more eco-friendly – which is good for your pet, your family and the environment. Read on to learn how to green your pets favorite pass times; eating, sleeping, playing and pooping.
1. Eating Consider choosing a natural and organic pet food that is free of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, artificial preservatives, artificial flavors, artificial colors, artificial ingredients or genetically engineered ingredients. Click to Tweet: If you pet has any type of allergy, simply switching their food to a natural, organic version can have a huge positive impact on their health. You could also take classes to learn more about the value of organic and natural pet food for the health of your pet!
2. Cleaning You don’t use chemical-laced shampoos, beauty products or toothpaste on your human family – so why use it on your pet? Especially since your pet most likely grooms themselves from time to time, ingesting residual cleaners from their fur. And if you have pets like ours (meet Noodles the Pug and Olive the French Bulldog) they are very sensitive to the products that we use on them. Olive, our Frenchie has crazy allergies (when we brought her home her skin was rashy, bumpy and itchy), once we switched her to an organic shampoo, she started to feel better instantly. Since she does have allergies, we bathe both of our dogs every Monday – it keeps the dander on their fur down and removes any allergens that they pick up when playing outside.
3. Sleeping Pets love to sleep – it is one of those things that they do really well and a lot of. Most likely your pet spends a large portion of their life snoozing away. Choose an organic pet bed that is cozy and safe for both your pet and the environment. I like to keep a doggie bed in the spaces in our home that our dogs inhabit the most, for example the living room, bedroom and their kennels.
4. Playing Choose pet toys and accessories that are sustainable, recycled and organic – you don’t want your pet chewing on a toy laced with toxins or chemicals. There are many great eco-friendly pet toys available that have a very small impact on the environment and are safe for your pet to chew away at. In fact, you can braid your own chew toys out of recycled organic tee shirts or sheets.
5. Pooping Always clean up your pet’s poop with a biodegradable poop bag and dispose of it properly or compost it. (Just don’t use this compost for your vegetable garden!) Cat lovers, choose a natural, eco-friendly kitty litter that is safe for your pet, your family and the environment.
If there is one goal that all of us should have for 2014 – it’s to be happier. After our health, isn’t our happiness really the most important thing? Too many of us go through each day not completely involved, engaged and happy. We find ourselves overworked, over-scheduled, exhausted and craving bedtime! Yet, we only get one life and to live it to it’s fullest is what truly matters. And as a parent, we usually only get to have our children in our home for 18 short years, you want those years to be the happiest they can be.
If you are looking for ways to be happier this year and you are a busy person (like me!) read on for my 7 favorite ways to get more happiness out of the new year. Even if you can only focus on a couple of them, I guarantee it will have a huge impact on your life – happiness and all!
1. Live in the Moment I seen couples eating dinner together in a beautiful restaurant, only to tap away on their phone and never even look up at each other. I have seen children and spouses being ignored while social media sites are updated or emails checked. I know that I have been guilty of being addicted to my phone – taking it with me everywhere, checking emails on the weekends, and posting Instagram photos instead of enjoying the actual moment. While the mister and I don’t bring our devices to the dinner table, it seems like media surrounds us everywhere. I would love to put my phone away even more than I currently am. Really, I would love if I didn’t even touch it after I pick Eben up from school and skip it all together on the weekends. I don’t want to look back and regret any moment that I wasn’t truly, fully present. I don’t want to miss a single conversation, smile or moment with my family – I want to live in the present.
2. Pick Your Perfect People For many years I found myself surrounded by people who weren’t helping me live my happiest life. I would be with these people and be thinking in the back of my mind – is it time to go home yet? Even worse, there were people in my extended family that brought me down every time I would see or talk to them. I decided that in order to live my happiest life, it was time to only surround myself with people who lift me up and let the others go. I want to celebrate those fun experiences in life with people that I actually enjoy being with and who are happy to be with me too. Plus, did you know that you are who you surround yourself with? Meaning: If you surround yourself with successful and happy people, it makes it easier for you to become successful and happy too!
Remember: You can’t change other people, you can only change yourself, so make the number one perfect person that you spend your time with – you! Tweet This!
3. Let Things Go By letting things go – I mean both physically and mentally. If your home is cluttered to the gills, unorganized and simply a mess, it will most likely affect your happiness. The same goes with your mental clutter – if you are constantly thinking of negative things that happened to you in the past or worrying about what is to come in the future, you are missing out on the beautiful life you already have right in front of you. Take some time each day, even 15 minutes and start to declutter your home and your mind. Give yourself permission to donate all of those items that you don’t love and to let go of all of the negative thoughts that aren’t serving you. You deserve it!
4. Make Yourself Your First Priority As parents, we all do this – we put our families before ourselves. I am extremely guilty of this, I will find myself not exercising on the weekends because I feel guilty that I haven’t been able to spend 100% of my time focused on the mister and Eben. Or, I will skip going out to dinner with a close friend because I feel like I should really be doing something for my family. This year, I really want to make myself the first priority. I want to get up early exercise so I can guarantee that it gets done everyday, since it is something that makes me truly happy. And overall, I want to make myself a priority so that I will be healthy and happy, which is what my family needs the most.
5. Say No! For many years I was a yes person – any time someone would ask me to do something, even if I didn’t have the time or didn’t want to do it, I would say yes. I learned over the years that it is definitely better to say no if I am unable or unwilling to do something. If you are constantly saying yes when you really aren’t going to be able to fill your end of the bargain – you let people down. If you find yourself repeatedly calling people at the last minute to cancel or reschedule because you really didn’t have time to begin with, it’s time to rethink saying no. Remember: It’s important to tell your children no too – you are their parent and one of the best things you can do for them is to set limits. 6. Date Night with a Twist One thing that I definitely want to work on this year is date night with the mister and Eben, separately. Since the mister works long hours, I do find myself enthralled with him when he is home. I really can’t get enough of him and sometimes when we go out to dinner I will find myself engaging with him more than Eben. This also happens on the flip-side, if Eben has been busy and I haven’t seen him a ton, I will get sucked up in him and the mister is left all alone! In the past, I have found that going on date nights with them separately has really helped. Eben and I will go out to dinner alone and chat about the new book he is reading, his favorite video game or the latest gossip at school. It’s a fun way for me to be completely focused on him and helps us reconnect. This year, I really want to go out on a date night at least once a month separately with each of them – and then of course the rest of the time we will be together as a family.
7. It’s Called a Vacation for a Reason How many of you have vacation time that you never use? I have heard time and time again that people don’t feel they have time and they will take that vacation next year. Forget it! It’s called vacation time for a reason – you need a vacation. How can you be the best you can be if you never get a break or never have anything to look forward too? For many years, (especially when I was starting my business) I would never take a vacation from work. I would literally take my laptop and phone with me on my family vacations and get up early to work each day, and then stay up late getting caught up on anything that I missed during the day. WHAT!? I would never feel like I had a break – I never got to sleep in, and was always worried in the back of my mind that work was waiting for me back at the hotel when we would go out. Last year, was the first time that I took an extended vacation from work (and left my laptop at home!) and I plan to do it every year from now on – maybe twice! It gives me the time to recharge, relax, refocus and I am excited to get back to work when I get home.
Remember: Your vacation should be as long as you can take one for – since it takes a few days for your mind and body to even begin to relax! Tweet This!
P.S. The above photo makes me smile – Eben was so tiny! YOUR TURN: Which of these 7 ways are you going to try to focus more on in 2014? Please leave your comments below – they support us all!
We have been adding a lot more meatless meals to our 2014 meal plan. One of our family’s goals to cut back on any organic meats that we were buying and replace those with great meatless alternatives. We recently picked up a beautiful head of cauliflower from the farmer’s market and the mister made the most amazingly creamy, organic, gluten-free, vegan cauliflower soup, it is so good and a great way to warm up on a cold winter day.
Eben has an odd aversion to cauliflower so when he said, “This is the best potato soup ever – can I have another bowl?” Of course, I just smiled and said, “Yes, of course you can!”. Ha! With it being kid-friendly, it makes it that much more a must for our winter meal plan, we hope you will add it to yours. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
1 organic head of cauliflower
1 organic onion, chopped
2 cloves organic garlic, chopped
4 cups organic vegetable broth
2 tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Directions:
Chop the cauliflower, onion and garlic. In a saucepan heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the garlic and onion. Cook until soft about 5 minutes. Add the cauliflower, vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the cauliflower is very soft, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and using a handheld immersion blender, puree the soup. Of course, you could add larger chunks of carrots, potatoes and celery too! Eben likes his served with a gluten-free grilled cheese sandwich. Serves 6.
