Duck... duck... no, it's Franklin Goose

Franklin Goose is a company that is devoted to selling safe, organic and natural products for babies, children and families. They sent us an organic, stuffed Franklin Goose doll ($35) to review.

Linnea saw Franklin and yelled "Mine!!!!"; she grabbed him and ran away. I then spent weeks looking for Franklin, so I could write the review. He is one busy goose with hardly a moment to answer questions. But, eventually I pinned him down.

- So Franklin, how have you been?

"Well, I'm always traveling.



I love to explore and recently I had a chance to visit the Virginia countryside.



And, check out the wild flora. Mmmm... the flowers are tasty.



It is very hard to find time for an interview.



With hardly a moment to rest...



...before I'm on the go again."



In addition to extensive traveling, cuddling and flower tasting, Franklin is Franklin Goose's spokes-goose. Franklin Goose offers natural, organic, and chemical safe toys for your baby and child. Their toys are natural, organic, or made of recycled materials. Paint is lead free. And they carry no electronic or synthetic toys. Franklin is a good example and he works hard to live up to their ideals. Franklin is made in New York by Ecoleeko out of organic cotton sherpa, hand-dyed bamboo fleece, bamboo yarn, and kapok fiber filling. He is sewn with organic thread, and is machine washable on the delicate cycle.

Franklin is the perfect size for a car pillow, throwing at your sister, and of course a good game of Duck, Duck, Goose!

And, Franklin asked me to tell you about our new giveaway. One reader will win a $25 gift certificate to the Franklin Goose website. To enter, visit Franklin Goose, take a look and their awesome collection of toys and baby care products and then come back here and tell us how you would spend the gift certificate. Just post a comment with some sort of contact information at the end of this blog post. Franklin will draw the name of the winner on August 10.

I'm back!

We moved and we're finally settled in our new home on the outskirts of Washington D.C. It's a big adventure after six years of living in a northern farming community.

New Playroom

The new house has a great play space. The basement family room is large enough that we could divide it into TV space for big kids and play space for little kids.


Lots of Trofast storage furniture from IKEA means we can store all the toys. And, the little alcove outside the laundry room makes a great play kitchen.



My home office is behind the white doors.


Best of all, the playroom opens up to an awesome back yard. Arielle has been looking for fairies.



Other big news:

Arielle started kindergarten. I'm working almost full time now and I can't really do justice to home schooling. The local schools are excellent, so Arielle attended the last two and a half weeks of kindergarten.
She loved it!

She also lost her first tooth. The tooth fairy brought shiny silver dollars and a great book about tooth traditions all over the world. The book is available on Amazon.

We have ballet and swim lessons coming up this month. I recently read that swimming lessons are the best way to protect your children from drowning. Grandma has a pool and lives near the beach, so swimming lessons here we come.

Coming up on the blog:

Toys and Games Online has asked us to do monthly reviews or giveaways in exchange for a little advertising. I'll be posting more about that this weekend.

An organic Franklin doll just arrived from Franklin Goose. We'll be doing a giveaway as well :0)

Check out the eco-friendly toys at Down to Earth Toys . Most of the toys are made in the U.S.A., but there's a brand new selection of European toys, including some realistic cookware. Like us, our friend Carrin is very concerned about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So, Down to Earth Toys is donating a percentage of every purchase to help with clean up efforts. There's a lot of wildlife at risk.

And, a store review and coupon code are coming soon from our new Canadian friends at Giving Gifts. Giving Gifts offers a variety of eco-friendly products for families.

And lots more.

Thank you for hanging in there and I appreciate all the supportive emails.