Being Green is really hard to do on a budget. We all have to make priorities. For example, while my family would love to eat only organic and free range food, it's simply not in our budget. So, we make choices. In our case, we choose to prioritize organic milk over other things in our shopping cart.

I have recently become more aware of a great organization that helps point out the no-cost and low-cost things you can do to live a happier, healthier life with your children. Healthy Child, Healthy Word has a program called 5 Easy Steps, which provides a terrific resource for families.

Step 1: Manage pests safely

Step 2: Use non-toxic products- cleaners, body care, home furnishings

Step 3: Clean up indoor air

Step 4: Shop smart  eat more organic and healthy foods

Step 5: Be wise with plastics

Another resource is the CHEC HealtheHouse site where you can find environmental tips for your home. While you might not be able to go totally organic, they provide some very simple recommendations that don't cost anything, such as washing and pealing your fruits and vegetables to remove any chemicals. (See article. ) Also, did you know that taking your shoes off when you walk into your home is a simple way to limit the spread of pesticides? I can do that! And it costs absolutely nothing. (See their article )

In my never ending search to find snacks and drinks that are not loaded down with sugars, I think I have found the perfect option for drinks ... Minute Maid's Fruit Falls.

We don't typically let our kids drink a lot of juice because the pure juices are way too sugary and the non-pure drinks worry us with additives, corn syrup, and worse. We prefer for our kids to drink milk or water but sometimes they want something sweet, especially on hot summer days when they need the electrolytes that juices offer.

Fruit Falls are different from regular juice drinks because they are really more like flavored water. They have great flavors that our kids love, but they have a relatively tiny portion of juice in them, therefore less sugar. Plus, they are made with real juices, not corn syrup or other additives. It has only 5 calories and less than one gram of sugar. Here is the official word from Minute Maid: Fruit Falls

I also looked at similar options, like Capri Sun, but don't be fooled. They are packaged and positioned the same, but Capri Sun's Juice drink has 90 calories and 25 grams of sugars (Fruit Punch flavor)!

Halloween at Scandinavian Child is always a treat. We take our silliness very seriously.

Everyone showed up to the office this year in costume and we were joined later in the day by well-dressed kids and pets for an office party. There were surprisingly few (none) political costumes, unless a pregnant nun is considered political. We had a few aspiring doctors, an 'outrageous' Frenchman, and a fabulous lady bug with a coordinating outfit for her dog.

Please visit our Facebook "Halloween 2008" album for a full assortment of photos and to see me dressed as Fay Wray, carried by my own personal King Kong!

It has been a crazy month for pretty much everyone, hasn't it? On top of the economy, the elections, and anticipation of the Holidays, Scandinavian Child has been in the middle of big changes of our own. In addition to rolling out many new products and brands over the next few months, we also moved to new office space.

We would have moved earlier, and avoided this chaos, except that the space we originally wanted fell through at the last minute. ("Fell Through" is generous to the property owners who backed out at the last minute when another tenant showed up wanting a larger share of the building.) I was devastated, because the space was just a few blocks from my home. In the end, it worked out for the best. We now have much nicer space that is a lot more comfortable for all of us.

And, through a twist of unplanned fate, we now share a backyard with Kelly's elementary school! Amazing to be able to break away and have lunch with her. There is a great deal of stress around being a small business owner, but once in a while being the boss does have a few perks that help make it worthwhile.

For fun, here are a few pictures of the team in front of the old office building (one of our current staff minus a few folks and one of the ORIGINAL four SCI employees who are still here.)

And the new building...

This year's First Candle Windflower Ball celebrated the event's 10th anniversary and honored some important contributors to the cause. If you don't know about First Candle, you should. They probably had some impact on how you put your baby to sleep every night. Through efforts such as Back to Sleep, this group has been instrumental in the steep decline in SIDS over the past decades.

Founded in the 1960s as the National SIDS Foundation, they eventually merging with other groups to become the SIDS Alliance. In 2002, they expanded their role beyond SIDS to other causes of infant death as well as still births and miscarriages ... helping bring all children survive to their first birthday, while supporting families who have lost a child at this tender age.

One of First Candle's current campaigns is called Bedtime Basics. This campaign encourages families to provide a separate, safe sleep environment for their babies. You can read more here... Bedtime Basics . This year's Windflower Ball honorees were Halo Innovations, Regal Lager, and Scripps Howard. You can read about these important individuals and organizations here .

Click here for more information on First Candle.

For the life of us, we can't find the Web site that originally posted this information but we like it so much, we just had to share it with you all. Hopefully you'll find this as helpful as we did. ***********************************************************************

Know your 123s

Maybe you've heard the expression, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," but ever wonder about the meaning of those code numbers imprinted inside triangular recycle symbols?

"1"  Products/packaging contain polyethylene terephthalate. Examples include water bottles and soda bottles. "2"  Products/packaging contain high-density polyethylene. Examples include laundry detergent bottles and milk jugs. "3"  Products/packaging contain polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples include baby bottle nipples and vinyl toys. "4"  Products/packaging contain low-density polyethylene. Examples include plastic grocery bags. "5"  Products/packaging contain polypropylene. Examples include yogurt or sour cream containers. "6"  Products/packaging contain polystyrene. Examples include Styrofoam packing peanuts and coffee cups. "7"  Products/packaging contain a hodge-podge of plastic #1-6 chemical polymers (a.k.a. the miscellaneous category)

And an easy way to remember which are easiest to recycle: the lower numbers 123 are easiest, the higher numbers 5 ,6 and 7 not so much! Some bigger metro cities are implementing newer technologies to be able to recycle some of the higher number plastics, in LA we recently have become able to put Styrofoam in our blue bins, yay! call your local recycling plant to see what plastics and other items you can recycle curbside!

Happy recycling! And remember, if you think this is just a trend, people have been environmentally conscious since the last oil crises 30 years ago, and the movement has never gone away, just more awareness now, and thankfully so. Baby steps is all it takes.....

I know that a speech or book is really great when I find myself quoting them over and over for weeks. Such is the case with Carol Evans, CEO and President of Working Mother magazine, as well as the author of This Is How We Do It: The Working Mother's Manifesto.

Ms. Evans came to Raleigh a few weeks ago to speak to our Working Mother's Luncheon group, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Now I would not classify myself as a 'feminist', but walking into a room of several hundred working moms is nothing short of inspiring. On this particular day, I was overwhelmed with things at the office, but decided to attend this seminar anyway (arriving 30 minutes late, but luckily before the speaker began).

The topic of the day was 'Strategies for Making Life Work'. The most interesting part of the presentation for me was when Ms. Evans talked about her belief that you should combine work with home and home with work ... what she calles "Fusion Family." I was stunned. This idea flies in the face of one of my strongest beliefs about being a working mom, which is that (with some very obvious exceptions), you need to be 'in the moment' and focus on work at work and family with family.

To my relief, her point did not actually run counter to this belief. Her advice is simply that it makes sense to share your work experiences at home with your children, and your home experiences at work.

Why bring work home? Well, for the same reason you ask your children each day to tell you what they did in school  to share in each others' day and also to demonstrate to your children that you are doing significant and meaningful things when you are apart. The hope is that this will make your work, whether by choice or by necessity, a good example to your children. The Rule: Do not talk about the bad things that happen at the office, like threats of pink slips or that colleague who drives you crazy, this should be left between you and a friend or your partner (too true!).

Why bring home to work? Simply put, how will you ask for a few days off for your son's broken leg if your boss doesn't even know you have a child?!? In my office, I like to take it a step further than that. We believe that we are, in many ways, a community of people. If I don't know that you are preparing to move your home, struggling with a parent's illness, or celebrating your child's major academic achievement, then I can't support you when you are distracted at the office. We can't avoid the fact that experience at home will affect us at work. However, this too has rules: Keep it in check. Don't babble on and on about your Rhode's Scholar child or constantly drag everyone down with one story after another about your mother's sciatica.

I haven't quite found time to tackle the rest of Ms. Evan's book, but it is right there at my bedside. I will keep you posted as I discover other gems that I am sure to find between the pages. If you have a quote that you love, please share!

We had a great time at the ABC Show last month! It's always fun to see the hot new colors for the coming year. Scandinavian Child debuted several new colors and patterns in the Svan and lillebaby lines.

Svan, in particular, is very rich with new colors for their Bouncers and Cushions. They are launching their 2009 bouncer model in just a few weeks and with it comes many new color options. Also, this new Svan Bouncer design features a deeper recline and easier to clean Velcro attachments for the fabric parts.

New Bouncer color options include an ESPRESSO base with vanilla/sage, vanilla/chocolate or chocolate/turquoise fabric! We also are launching the BabyStar® balloons pink pattern with an espresso base.

New Svan cushion colors include: a gorgeous Turquoise, classic Oatmeal, and BabyStar's fantastic and fun Balloons Pink and Connect the Dots Blue patterns.

In the land of lillebaby, we are excited to announce a new EuroTote color - Whole Latte Love! (I have a Latte Love for the name.) It's a fabulous neutral color that moms and dads everywhere are sure to love. This color will also be one of four fabulous EveryWear colors.

If YOU have great ideas for hot new colors, you can always send in a comment through our Web site . Many of these colors came about directly from customer feedback! Check back on scichild.com to see more of what's new in the coming weeks!

Hi Cariboo fans, The publisher of Organic Baby Resource, an informational guide for parents interested in organic baby care is currently gathering reviews for Cariboo.

From now until October 31, they are having a contest and giveaway that encourages parents to submit reviews on organic or all natural baby products.

Do you love your Classic Bassinet? Can't say enough good things about your Cariboo Activity Gym? Tell the world and possibly win a prize.

For more info on Cariboo, check out Cariboo.us.

Did you know that September is Baby Safety Month? Like most of these "awareness months", it should be baby safety day every day. But that being said, it is a great time of year to remind families of key safety issues.

This year, the "official" focus is on car seat safety. It's a great year to focus on this category for a number of reasons. One reason this interests me is that for the first time since Kelly was born (6+ years ago), there are many more options on the market including the out-of-this-world Orbit seat and the latching Clek booster seat.

I personally am a huge fan of the convertible car seats that go from 5 pounds to 40-80 pounds. Thinking green? There is nothing more green than buying one car seat, instead of two.

My brand of choice for baby is Britax. I have to confess  I used an infant car seat for the first few months with both of my kids, and now regret it. The convenience was clear, but I do have concerns about the effects of 'baby in a bucket' (keeping your baby in a prone position instead of laid flat, which some say limits oxygen saturation).

Now that we are in the 'big kid' phase with Kelly, we have been really enjoying our Clek car seat. It clicks in with ease and has a much more comfortable seat (foam instead of a thin cover on hard plastic) that Kelly loves.

NOTE: Many states require booster seats at least to the age of 8 years old, depending on height. The age limits seem to be going up, so relying on your friends' advice might not be good enough. Here is an NHTSA link on booster seats: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/childps/ParentGuide2005/index.htm

If you are looking for more information on baby safety, here are a few other links that I think you'll find helpful:

JPMA September 08 Release on Baby Safety Month

NHTSA Car seat Safety Tips

CPSC Household Safety