my moments

As I watch my children grow, I often wish that I could capture little moments and have them forever. These precious moments fill my whole being with love and light:

• my newborn son laughing in his sleep
• babies gazing up at me while breastfeeding
• sleepy sighs
• my three year old daughter telling me I am her best friend
• "love you mama" followed by a sweet tiny lip kiss
• the smell of a newborn's breath...I wish I could bottle it
• midnight grins from my son
• the feeling of my daughter slipping her little hand into mine as we walk
• sleepy heads snuggled under my chin
• gummy smiles
• tiny giggles
• freshly bathed babes
  

Party hardy

So the month of July is a busy hot mess of celebration in our house! We have wedding anniversaries, 5 birthdays (in our immediate family alone!) and all the summer festivals, wedding and other fun we can find.

As I planned Hana's 3rd birthday and my husband's 34th (as well as attended the others) I started to look for some eco friendly birthday party options. I of course want to still have a cute and realistic party as well. I decided to turn to my good friend Etsy for some inspiration. And naturally she didn't let me down...
Check out these great eco friendly and fabulous eco friendly party finds!

These are upcycled vintage linen party banners found here. So cute for a little one's birthday bash. They are reusable and really fun!




Here are some reusable napkins for daily and party use! I love these... so funny how I can love napkins. Here is the link to the seller Love For Earth




These are some great party favour options. Usually you get a bag of plastic dollar store junk... played with for an hour, then we throw it all away. I think these would be used over and over. Here is the seller Chicks & Chickadees.



For Hana's party I used biodegradable plates that we just tossed into the compost (there is another post another day!) at the end of the day. They are made from fiber waste and helped me maintain my goal of an easy peasy party. Luckily these are available everywhere now...even Walmart!

Hope a couple of these ideas will help you plan a great yippie party!

Play in our day

Today we went for a family outing to a local city park. It has recently received a new shiny playground with slides, climbers, monkey bars galore. As I watch the kids scramble around on it I think back to a time when I was a child and we used to go down to the small stream near our house and play similar games in the trees and hilly banks of the stream. That stream is no longer there due to housing development in the area and since we live in the city, there isn't any real places I can go with Hana and Kai to just play in nature like that. Shiny plastic playgrounds on woodchips are the only option.

I wonder why the cities around us need to always put in this type of playground when they are revamping a aging play structure or creating a new park. Don't they know that there are wonderful options that are both easier on the budget as well as easier on the environment - not to mention a unique and cool playspace! I am talking about 'natural playgrounds'. I was first introduced to this concept at a conference I went to for work that was based on the work by Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods. Here I met the founders of Evergreen and Beinenstock two Canadian natural playspace creators and designers. The work they do is both inspirational and common sense! Basically they create a playground made from natural materials and designed on natural elements such as hills, streams, meadows, trees, willow tunnels etc.
Here is an example of what it can look like:

Now I don't know about you, but this type of playspace seems to make sense to me for so many reasons! We all know that kids don't need fancy new shiny toys, they like the box just as much! These playgrounds are kind of like the "box" so to speak. They are cheap to install and maintain and the kids love them. It is us parents that need to look at the play value here and not just see a space with a hill with a slide stuck into it. We are easily dazzled by the brightly coloured play structures and "safe" playgrounds, but really.... think about it. I would hazard to bet that the injuries sustained on a hill or from the top of a tree root are far far less then those from toppling off the highest point of a playground about 9 feet in the air!

I encourage parents who are like-minded to take a look at the Richard Louv site http://richardlouv.com/

Welcome!

As any good Yippie, I am required to have a blog. Sooooo...here it is! Let's do a little intro of sorts.

First off... Yippie, what the heck is that! Well it is a term I coined when trying to describe my family's lifestyle. We are university grads with good jobs work'n for the "man" (aka government) and we love the finer things in life (good food, nice home, decent cars, current style of clothing, etc) yet we also have a love for the earth and our environment and try our best to do the right thing for it!
So you will see us sipping on a Starbucks out of our reusable mugs wearing Lululemon, checking the tide chart on our iphones and planning the beach cleanup we are about to venture on with our family... get the picture??

Secondly who am I and who are we...
I am a mom, a wife and a professional. I have two children, Hana age 3 and Kai a mere 10 weeks. My husband is a kind, loving, generous, smart, talented man...one I cannot live without.

The intention of this blog is to document my findings as I fumble my way through motherhood, marriage and life in general. I like to think I make fairly good choices and often make discoveries through trial and error that are worth sharing with others!