the boy (not) in the balloon

This week the news and internet were full of the story of a balloon taking off with presumably a child in it.

Turned out the kid had been hiding in the shed all the time.

My intuition told me there was more to it.
How could the balloon get in the air?
Why would the child hide itself?

When watching an interview with the child and parents he said something that triggered my attention and made me think it had all been a set up to get attention for the balloon.

I was right.

The father will be brought to court, it's said.
The charges are not known yet.

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Introducing nature to your child

I was asked when I started to make my children aware of nature.

Isn't it strange that we're now so conscious about introducing nature into the lives of our children?

In the past we just lives and nature was part of us.

When my children were born, the first 23 years ago, I wasn't conscious at all about the subject.
I just took my baby walking a few days a week.
Which was quite an enterprise... taking the pram downstairs three steep stairs.. and after that the baby. (Well, that was the reason we moved.)

When we moved, we had a garden and I put the pram in the garden for the afternoon sleep of the baby.
When he woke up, he heard the birds.
(And me chasing a cat! LOL! I didn't want cats to jump on the pram.)

I also often walked into the garden holding my child and pointing out the flowers, smelling the roses.
There mini-walks learned them that some insects needed to stay away and that could be done by slowly walking away. Not by trying to slap them.

When my children got a bit older and were able to walk themselves I took them to the park and we tried to find the plants we had in our garden and to see which animals were new. Like the ducks.
I taught them the difference between swans and geese, and warned them for their power.
Etc etc.

I just followed my heart and explained everything my dad explained to me, like never stepping at the part between the land and the ice on the lake, because the rim is the weakest.

It was fun!!

Over and over again.

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marketing on the streets

Now the storm is gone and the sun is shining people take on their normal spring sunday acitvities.
In moderation, as it isn't officially spring yet, and the temperatures are not yet good enough for a T-shirt and jeans without a coat, but there's a start.

There's a complete new feature on the streets here.

One of the youngsters, or should I say adolescents, is able to print on jackets and T-shirts, bags and caps, and they all wear the name and url of their blog.

It's a very effective way of marketing their own blog.
And as they also have the urls of the others in the side-column the exposure of their
urls is like a real marketing campaign.

Don't tell me they don't know what they're doing.

They want new skateboard facilities and they hope to attract many visitors to their blogs who are also willing to sign their online list of request to the council.

I love this form of creativity and told then they should carefully monitor the visitors to their blogs and confront the local shops with their success. Good sponsoring is always wanted for youth activities!

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personalized candy bars

So, the year started out well.

Now we have to chew ourselves through the taste of january.

That's a bussy month here.
Not only because the schools have a lot of meetings this year, which is a real job with 6 kids, but we also have 5 birthdays in our house, and some others elsewhere. And we have some other festivities.

Time to find the right party favors, hand outs and little presents.

One of the kids found this site: CandyUnderCover.com, and it seems the perfect site to buy all in once.

Candy Under Cover stands for the finest Belgian milk chocolate covered with custom made candybar wrappers.

The whole idea started with the preparations of a birthdayparty in 1998.
Cheryl Salto wanted something else than the usual treats for the schoolmates of her son.
Now she owns CandyUnderCover.com and AllinOneFunFavors.com, two online shops selling quality items.

The idea of personalized candy bars was a golden one.
Her chocolate bar favors can be used at every occassion.
There are: personalized kids candy bars, bridal shower candy bars, bar mitzvah candy bars and bat mitzvah candy bars, and christening favors.

A friend use the bars to announce the birth of her son at her office and it was a huge success.
People didn't only have a nice bit of chocolate. Many kept the nice wrapper. Some laminated it, others put it in their scrapbook.

Another friends used the edible wedding favors along with the candy bar thanks million, which was a nice and sweet combination.

I've decided to make a special design for our own family chocolate bar. So the children can use it as treats at school, and i can use it as a thank-you, or as a special gift.

I'm sure it'll be a huge success!

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Healthy toys

I came across a site for healthy toys.

Maybe it's of help for someone.

I'm glad my children aren't as little anymore that I need to be afraid they poison themselves with their toys.

When they were little I taught them not to chew on things.

Only on the special teething rings and their furr animals, after I checked them for loosing hair, loose bits and after I washed them.

Oh..the link:

http://www.healthytoys.org/home.php

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