Boom Boom Cards at Giving Gifts

Arielle and Linnea have been learning about good deeds. They play a game called "Fairy" with their big sister. At first, the fairy just granted wishes. But, some little girls were getting greedy and making a lot of wishes. So the fairy said, "You must do three good deeds first."

"What's a good deed?", they asked.

The Boom Boom cards from Giving Gifts arrived just in time. What are Boom Boom cards?

Boom Boom Cards Original Deck ($12.00)

Boom Boom cards are a deck of 26 cards. Each card is printed with an act of kindness. You do the act of kindness, log it on the website and pass the card on to a friend.

The girls were very excited to do the good deed. Arielle read the card.

Our first good deed was "Plant a seed!" This was easy because we had cone-flower seeds left over from Arielle's birthday party (more about that in a few days). Cone flowers or Echinacea are especially Earth-friendly because they provide food for birds and butterflies.

The seeds are from Green Bird.






Then we decorated the pots with stickers. Not so Earth-friendly, but fun.





After we did our good deed, I went to BoomBoomCards.com and registered our deck. When you register, you can choose a charity that will receive a donation. We chose NatureBridge, a non-profit organization that helps students connect with nature through activities in outdoor classrooms.

I wrote about our activity and posted the picture. Now, I'm sending the card to Eleanor who will write about her family's experience.

The next card says make a card for someone who lives far away. Good idea. The girls can't wait.

Giving Gifts is a Canadian company that sells eco-friendly and fair trade toys and gifts that are good for both the recipient and the environment.

In addition to the Boom Boom Cards Family Edition ( $16.00) that we used, they sell beautiful Blabla bird rattles ($30.00), natural art products, Envirosax (cool Sesame Street ones), lunch boxes and other treats.

Giving Gifts has offered our readers ten percent off all purchases. The code is "Sara10." That's another good deed.

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.