The Healthy Parenting Blog

The Basket Hunt!

Each year at Easter, we hide the Easter Baskets..or ahem, the Easter Bunny does. He also does something that my mother did for me when I was a kid. She leaves clues. The kids come downstairs on Easter and find one clue on the table for each of them. For Connor, its like a pun where he actually has to first figure out what the clue is pointing to. Here’s an example;

They call me a box
But I don’t look like one
Inside me you’ll find letters
Check me daily for some

A place to cook
Not in the kitchen
Under my lid
Might be some chicken

I spin in circles but
I’m not a ride
The only passengers I have
Get dried

For a few years for Owen, I’ve printed out pictures as the clue (van, bike, oven, dryer, mailbox, etc).  This year, I’ll probably use short words.  Each clue takes them to a new place, which has another clue.  I try to make this last for a good 20 minutes and have them go back/forth, inside and out.  The final clue they search for is where their Easter baskets are!

They love it as much as I recall from my childhood. 

Easter Eggs!

We dyed some Easter eggs this morning and I wanted to share the results. The above purple is from blueberries. I didn’t follow to the T any instructions. I put about 2 cups of frozen blueberries into a pot and covered with water and about 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Let come to a boil, then simmered for about 10 minutes and strained out the blueberries. The color is mottled but a very pretty purplish blue.

We had no blue as I forgot to buy the red cabbage which is supposed to make a really nice blue! Next time.

This is an egg in the beet juice. I cheated and used the beet juice from 2 cans of sliced beets I had in the cabinet. I added a few tablespoons of white vinegar and simmered it for awhile. It makes a nice pink egg.

The color to the left is the yellow from tumeric. I put about 1/2 cup of tumeric in a pot with about 2 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. I brought it to a boil and then simmered for about 15 minutes. My plan was to mix the blue dye and yellow dye for a green dye but since I didn’t have the blue, I figured I’d try the purplish color and yellow. The result was pretty good but the bizarre thing is that the dye actually looked orange but turned the eggs green!

Here is the an egg in the “green” dye;

And the result is below in the bowl with the other colors…not too bad!

And here’s a look at some of the eggs together. We used wax crayons to make doodles on some..and we also doodled on the finished dyed eggs with magic markers.

I made all the dyes first and we dipped/soaked the eggs at the table. The longer you let the eggs sit, the more colorful they are. It was fun all around!

EWG Answers BPA Questions

The Environmental Working Group answers basic questions on the BPA issue. A great site to send someone who isn’t aware of the BPA concerns as its a simple read with clear and concise information.

The HP Blog’s BPA entries.

An Organic Green Easter

Easter is coming! As per usual, I’m behind in getting started but save the info for next year if you’re already 10 steps ahead of me.

Basket

One thing everyone can do to green up Easter is to NOT buy those throw away Easter baskets. There are many greener options available these days. For one, invest in a nice basket that will last many years. I have used the same straw Easter baskets for each of my boys for about 5 years now.

You can also buy galvanized tin paint pails at your hardware store and have your children help you paint them or you can decopage them, if you are crafty.

Another idea I found was to use an actual outdoor hanging plant basket, which might be suitable for older children or the adult in your life that likes the Easter Bunny to visit.

Grass

I still bought the Easter grass last year and was hoping to find an alternative this year. If you start a few weeks early, Creative Kids at Home offers a great instructional on growing your own real grass for your Easter baskets.

This is a great opportunity to let your kids help out with the greening up of Easter. Now more than ever, global warming is an important topic that kids want to know and do something about. So I think for this year, we will hold a “construction paper rip”event. We have tons of construction paper (who doesn’t?)….so I’ll let each child pick their colors and rip into tiny pieces. The explanation is for our house an easy one, since we’ve always told our kids that the Easter Bunny (and Santa) use the wrapping paper and supplies at each house. So they will be helping to supply the Easter Bunny with a more environmentally sound option. Perfect!

Candy

Baskets do not need to be filled to the brim with candy. Things like stickers, small games, books, balls, etc. all make wonderful additions to your child’s Easter basket. If you have any icing bags laying around, you can fill it with any orange item, add some grass to the ends and you have a homemade carrot to add to your basket.

For organic, natural and free trade chocolates and candy, here is what I found;

Jelly Belly is now offering naturally colored and flavored jelly beans.  

Natural Candy Store offers natural, organic and dye free hard candies and more.

Check out Global Exchanges Fair Trade  store.  They have tons of Easter candy, chocolate and items for your child’s Easter basket! 

Liz Lovely’s Organic Fair Trade Bakery - Kid’s Easter Treats

Sweet Earth Chocolates - Organic/Fair Trade Easter Bunnies and eggs

Vegan Divine - Organic Easter Egg Hunt packs

From Kate’s Caring Gifts, Chocolate Easter Egg Pack

and Vegan Chocolate Bunny

World’s Finest is one chocolate company that over 40,000 schools and youth groups use for their fundraisers. At Democracy Now, you can send a free fax asking them for fair trade chocolate.

Eggs

Here’s a cool option for dying easter eggs;

This is done actually by wrapping eggs in onion skins! Learn how here at Instructables.com

If you want to dye eggs naturally, here are a few ideas for coloring eggs naturally. Or check out Martha Stewart’s step by step instructions on how to dye eggs using natural ingredients. Serious natural egg dyers will want to check out Mama Lisa’s Blog entry, How to Dye Eggs Naturally. Its an amazing egg-speriment! She takes you through her step by step eggventure in dying with photo results.

Happy Easter!

Cool Eco Art Link

If you haven’t seen this site yet, its worth the look.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?icl=7

The Pox on my house…has left

I’ve been neglecting my blog while attending to pox and other fun things at home.  The chicken pox made its way through everyone in my house including my husband (which was not fun for him)….all a week or so apart.  We are now pox free!  YAY.  Back to our regularly scheduled program. 

We’ve Been Hit….

with the Chicken Pox!

Connor had what we though was a bug bite on his forehead Wednesday night… some “boo boo oil” (lavender) and all was well. Connor and Owen both woke up with a fever on Thursday morning without too much else in the way of symptoms. Owen has had a slight cold all week but nothing major or worth mentioning.

Then Connor has another bug bite on his chest on Thursday during the day. And Friday morning we woke up to the motherload! 90 “bug bites” so far including a few on his scalp. He’s handling it quite well. Owen so far has no pox but has the fever and got the fever about 12 hours after Connor. This is good because we were hoping that Owen was infected by the same source as Connor and not by Connor himself, as there might have been a 2 week incubation otherwise.

I’ve given Connor some Rhus Tox and Sulfur homeo remedies. He’s a little itchy but not overly so. I also read that apple cider vinegar is wonderful for helping with itch HOWEVER, I’ll add that one should expect pretty intense stinging, which we weren’t prepared for. I got that “you hurt me” look from my 9 year old. If its going to hurt/sting, they can usually handle it if I warn them! Anyhow, I made a paste from baking soda, water, lavender eo and a dash of apple cider vinegar which Connor says is helping (plus it dries so he can put clothing back on and move about normally).

I had the chicken pox as a child and have the scars to prove it. Dh thinks he never had it..so now we have to find out what to do there and possibly have his titres checked. We’ve been “meaning” to do this for so long since we knew it was inevitable the kids would get CP (and we wanted it that way) but of course, life got in the way and we never got it done. So now we’re faced with this “what do we do now” situation. So if anyone is in the same boat….go get your titres tested NOW!

This photo doesn’t look so bad, there are clusters of them in spots. What amazed me more is that my “little boy” is looking quite broad in the shoulders! Wow…how did I not notice that before? 

I’m Back!

Oh gosh, I can’t believe how long I’ve been absent.  Nothing too major going on there, just life but it has whisked me away from my online time since the Holidays.

I’ve made a new commitment to check in and write something at least a few times a week and even if brief, at least for a bit. 

Happy Holidays!

I am not a baker.  I’m a good cook so I can adapt to just about anything but my ventures into healthy baking have always produced pretty dismal results.  SO….I made a decision to first excel in the not so healthy baked goods and then gradually convert my recipes that rock. 

So this is the result of 2 days of baking not so healthy stuff (all purpose flour, florida crystals, brown sugar, etc), my neighbors and local friends are happy.  :)  We’ve got oatmeal raisin (dh’s favorite), chocolate peanut butter chip, sugar cookies with homemade icing and good old chocolate chip.  We made truffles too that looked really pretty but tasted not so good. 

Enjoy your holiday!

A Christmas Song Favorite!