This can be tricky. It’s all about the presentation. Make simple activities seem even more fun by presenting them in a creative way.

I like the idea of making cards, one for each activity, and then having you child randomly choose one when you need something to do.

I have also seen dice with pictures on the sides depicting different activities to do. I bet you could easily make a dice (or several) out of paper.

Think outside the box!

Here are some things to add to your list:

• Color- make it simple or add some spice by making your own crayons first!
• Check out crayola.com for a whole list of summer craft ideas
• Blow bubbles and make your own bubble solution:

1 Cup Water, 2 TBSP Light Karo Syrup or Glycerin, 4 TBSP Dishwashing Liquid

• Hide-and-Seek
• Play Chase or Tag- older kids will probably like coming up with variations like these
• Put on plays with finger puppets or hand puppets
• Make sock puppets or paper bag puppets
• Sing songs
• Make a band with different instruments- make what you don’t have
• Collect rocks or seashells- sort or decorate them
• Make an obstacle course- use furniture, blankets, whatever you can find
• Make a fort
• Go for a Nature Walk- Make a list (or pictures) of what you might find and check them off as you go
• Make a car, rocket ship, house out of a big box
• Read!! Join your local library’s Summer Reading Program
• Picnic in the park
• Fingerpaint- use things like shaving cream or pudding for something different
• Make your own play-dough
• Make a bean bag toss game
• Dance to music- older kids can create routines and put on a show
• Make your own puzzle
• Pasta necklaces
• Dress-up
• Scavenger Hunt
• Treasure Hunt
• Make and frost cookies
• Make juice popsicles
• Record each other on a tape recorder
• Make paper hats
• Give piggie back or horse rides
• Collect flowers- we love picking dandelions around here!
• Make paper flowers out of coffee filters- from the easy to the more difficult
• Play with squirt bottles filled with water
• Make binoculars and go bird watching
• Use a magnifying glass and go bug hunting
• Act out a story from a book
• Draw with sidewalk chalk
• Make a superhero costume out of what you have on hand
• Play “Red Light, Green light”
• Play “Simon Says”
• Check out Regal’s Free Family Film Festival
• Check out one of Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks for kids from the library and try some yummy recipes- we are huge fans of Salad People!
• Fly a kite
• Make horseshoe game

This is just the start, there are so many things you can do this summer! Encourage those imaginations and let the creativity fly!

It’s official. It’s summer! And it actually feels like summer here the past couple of days. I even had to break out a fan the other night for the boys’ room. Luckily my kids aren’t really at an age when they get bored easily, but it can still be hard to come up with ideas for fun things to do, whether or not they are all that creative. Sometimes even taking the time to do something simple can be the most fun! Here is a list I have accumulated over the last year or so… Enjoy!

Fun For Babies:

• Blow Bubbles- love the Gymboree bubbles, they last and last!
• Peek-a-boo- use your hands, a hat, a scarf or blanket
• Finger Puppet play- use stickers on your fingers if you don’t have traditional finger puppets
• Sing songs- especially songs with hand or body movement, like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”
• Go for a walk- point out fun shape, colors, animals
• Read a book
• Dance- while singing or to a CD
• Roll a ball back and forth
• Play with pots and a wooden spoon
• Play with texture- a small paintbrush, a loofah, a silky scarf, etc.
• This Little Piggy
• Put safe objects in a drawer or cabinet to play in- just watch those fingers!
• Stacking games- boxes, measuring cups
• Massage
• Flying Baby- for when baby can hold her head up by herself
• Balance Ball- put baby on his tummy and gently roll back and forth
• Flashlight Fun- turn out the lights and shine flashlight where baby can see it, older babies can chase the light
• Check out storytimes at your local library or bookstore.

But the best thing to remember about playing with your baby is to have fun! Get excited, talk to her about everything, reward her with lots of smiles and enjoy your baby. This is just the start, what do you love to do with your baby?

Tomorrow we’ll talk about activities for toddlers and up…

Today is the last day of our Babylegs Giveaway! Make sure you enter to win this adorable gift set!! See post below.

Don’t forget Clementine NW is offering Free Shipping on our entire stock of organic Babylegs during the Sew Golden contest! Are you feeling lucky?

Canadian Lakes Set to Become Toxic Mining Dump Sites: I first read about how sixteen lakes throughout Canada are scheduled to be quietly reclassified as “tailings impoundment areas” so that mining companies can legally dump their waste into them, instead of having to build their own containment ponds, on Grist. Of course, why not use this convenient pristine wilderness fishing lake instead of bothering with the cost and trouble of building their own containment ponds? Makes perfect sense to Elizabeth Gardiner from the Mining Association of Canada, who gave us this gem of a quote, “In some cases, particularly in Canada, with this kind of topography and this number of natural lakes and depressions and ponds … in the end it’s really the safest option for human health and for the environment.”

Other Sources: The Globe and Mail, CBC News

GE Creates Mega Hybrid: The GE Hybrid Vehicle team together with the US Department of Energy developed a prototype of an off-highway hauling vehicle. So if you’re in need of a new mine haul truck like the one in the photo, go for the hybrid! While it is kind of cool that they are looking to reduce the amount of fuel used by these monsters, it is pretty funny to think that what they are being used for is to mine more coal. Hopefully the technology will be used for even bigger and better things in the future.

Source: inhabitat, GE Global Research Blog

I was browsing around today and found this cool website that teaches you how to build cardboard furniture for kids. They have a stool, chair and a rocker. You just have to find the cardboard and have a few simple tools.

What a fun project this would be! Hunting for the right piece(s) of cardboard. Older kids might be able to help with creating the furniture. Younger kids could decorate it. Everybody could use it! Each piece is designed to easily withstand the weight of an adult. Then recycle it when the kids have outgrown it!

Foldschool is a collection of free cardboard furniture for kids, handmade by you. Use the downloadable patterns, print them out, follow the instructions and assemble a fun piece of furniture. Each piece is designed by Swiss-based architect Nicola Enrico Staubli.

Foldschool’s philosophy is simple. Mass culture is run by superficiality and ecological absurdity. Foldschool supports craftsmanship as a face-to-face approach to design and brings together product and user the closest possible.

To all the expecting dads, new dads, and veteran dads:

Happy Father’s Day!!

Some fun things to do around Portland:

1. Father’s Day Bird Celebration: Explore the birds of Tryon Creek with a short indoor program, followed by a trail hike! Bring binoculars to check out our feathered friends. Free event for all ages. 2-3pm. www.tryonfriends.org
2. Father’s Day Field Day: Dad’s get in free today at the Children’s Museum! Special activities all day! $7 ages 1 &up. 9am-5pm. www.portlandcm.org
3. Free Day For Fathers: Dads get in free with one paid admission at AC Gilbert’s Discovery Village. All ages. $5.50 ages 3 to 59. 12-5pm. www.acgilbert.org
4. Father’s Day at Oaks Park: Dad rides free with child’s paid admission. Free ride bracelet must be the same as child’s bracelet. All ages. 12-7pm. www.oakspark.com
5. Summer Sensations: A celebration of summer and strawberries with live music, farm animals, strawberry shot put, and more! U-Pick and Ready Picked Strawberries at Rasmussen Farms. All ages. 9am-6pm. www.rasmussenfarms.com
6. French Prairie Gardens Strawberry Festival: Hay rides, U-Pick strawberries, farm animals, food, and more! All ages. $3, plus the cost of fruit picked. $6 for a small picking bucket, or $12 for a large bucket. Pig train is $1. 10am-5pm. http://www.fpgardens.com/

What are your plans to celebrate Dad?

Here it is! Clementine NW’s first ever giveaway!

We decided to make the Sew Golden contest even sweeter! One lucky blog reader will receive this adorable Babylegs gift set! Three pairs of Babylegs in neutral, stylish detailing in cloudless blue and sunny yellow. All nestled in an adorable gift box! This gift set is the perfect introduction to Babylegs, or a great addition to your collection!

To enter to win, just post a comment on this post, sharing your favorite Babylegs design by midnight PST on June 20. Winner will be notified by e-mail the following Monday, so be sure to leave your e-mail address! In addition, everyone who posts will receive a free shipping coupon via e-mail for any Babylegs purchase at Clementine NW! Make sure you share your favorite Babylegs design!

Click this link to view all of Clementine NW’s Organic Babylegs!

Full Contest Rules.pdf

Privacy is of the utmost importance to us. Be assured your e-mail address will never be sold or used without your permission.

Congratulations to our winner, Kathleen! Thank you to everyone who participated!

I had planned on writing about something else today, but this infuriates me so much I felt compelled to write about it. I have seen several other great blog entries in the last day or two, but the more we can put light on this issue the better!

There was a recent article in the NYT that discusses ICAN’s monitoring of a new trend with insurance companies: refusing to provide adequate health coverage to women who have had a cesarean. Insurance companies like Golden Rule and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida are either denying women individual health insurance or are raising their premiums 25% for five years! But the real shocker, to me at least, is that these women are being told that to gain eligibility for health coverage and keep their premiums lower is to be sterilized! How in the world is this being allowed to happen?

Most women do not want to have surgery. Most women do not want to have a cesarean, let alone multiple cesareans. But with the cesarean rate at 30.1% in 2007, this is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. Pam Udy, President of the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) says, ” Most women are looking to avoid cesareans. But physicians often make surgery difficult to avoid by insisting on non-evidence based practices. These care practices serve the system well, but not mothers and babies.” These practices include inducing for going post-dates, inducing for suspected large baby, requiring fasting during labor, requiring women to be confined to bed for continuous fetal monitoring, and failing to offer continuous support to a mother in labor.

So about 30% of women giving birth in this country will have a c-section. The vast majority of these women will have a c-section that is deemed medically necessary, whether it becomes necessary through a real danger to mom or baby, or if it becomes necessary through medical intervention. Add to this the fact that so many physicians and hospitals won’t allow a VBAC and what choice do women have? Well apparently sterilization. When one woman, Peggy Robertson of Colorado, finally learned the reason she was denied health insurance was her previous cesarean, she was told that the only way to get coverage was surgical sterilization. Nice.

Whether or not you have had a cesarean, this really affects us all. If you want to do something contact your state and national representatives!

Contact Information for:

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

State Representatives (Box on left side, enter zip code)

State Insurance Commissioners

Also please visit http://www.ican-online.org/ for more information and letter templates for contacting your representatives.

Sew Golden refers to BabyLegs’ new signature gold-overlocking stitch found inside the seam close to the logo. Buy specially marked packages of BabyLegs in retail stores across the country from now until July 15th and look for your golden ticket, to win everything from blankets and bibs, a year’s supply of BabyLegs, to a Grand Prize trip to Seattle, BabyLegs’s headquarters.

To purchase Sew Golden Babylegs, just look for “Sew Golden Design” next to the design of your choice on Clementine NW. Good luck! I hope we have some big winners!

Also, check back next week for a cool Babylegs giveaway!

I love the new clothes from Fig Organics! They are super soft and super hip for all those stylish babies out there! Sleepers, onesies, hoodies, and more are available now in boys’, girls’, and unisex styles.

Fig produces fashionable clothing from Certified Organically Grown Cotton and in factories that treat their employees ethically, they are knitting their values right into the clothes they create. Fig Organics was started by Jen MacCormack and Michael Ziff from Twice Shy clothing. They wanted to be a part of the greater solution and lessen our environmental impact by designing, producing and distributing unique and fashionable kids wear with a conscience.

So go check them out!