We have had a really fun and enjoyable weekend. I got to spend it with people I love and we had lots of our favorite foods. The pace was slow and I was able to savory every second. Even got to see a movie with my Dad, my hubby, and my youngest son. We saw Wrath of the Titans. We just don’t have enough of these weekends!

We dug out the bunny decorations and fake grass we have used for years. The Easter Dinner table was set…

And we were ready to eat! Shortly after I snapped the picture below, my youngest son completely filled his plate with carrots, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli. That is all he ate. Considering all the other good stuff on the table that is pretty darn weird!

As is customary for us on Easter, we had prime rib. Nom, nom.

For dessert we had organic, primal carrot cupcakes with creamy dreamy, cream cheese frosting. The recipe came from Make It Paleo. YUM!!!!! And they are so healthy… carrots, coconut flour and coconut oil, nearly a dozen pastured eggs, cream cheese, dates, and pure maple syrup.

How was your holiday?

When Easter rolls around the the eco conundrum that all green families face is what to use to dye or paint the Easter eggs. Actually the bigger dilemma for me is the fact that I buy nasty, factory farmed, bleached white eggs to make the dye job easier but we consider the paint/dye as well. Since my beautiful pastured brown and green eggs won’t dye well (we’ve tried) we buy the conventional white ones for this endeavor and we don’t eat them. Some day we may get around to trying to blow the yolks out so we can reuse the eggs but until that time we use one of three ways to get eggcellent color.

Dying Easter Eggs With Natural Homemade Food Dyes

Most people color their eggs with store bought egg kits that contain dyes made from petrochemicals, but in times past eggs were colored with plant materials found in nature. It’s fun to get back to the basics!

To dye eggs with natural coloring put raw, white-shelled eggs in a pan and cover with water and a teaspoon of white vinegar. Add your coloring agent and bring to a boil and then let the eggs simmer for 15 minutes. Rinse and allow to cool.

You can also hard boil them first and then fill glass jars with water and the coloring agent, putting the jars in the microwave for 2-3 minutes and then stirring. Then allow the eggs to sit in the jars overnight.

For pink and red colored eggs use cranberry juice, beets, or raspberries.

For yellow eggs use saffron or tumeric

For purple eggs use red wine.

For blue eggs use red cabbage leaves or blueberries.

For brown eggs use grape juice, rosehip tea, or coffee.

For orange eggs use yellow onion skins.

Dying Easter Eggs With Natural Store Bought Dyes

Our favorite natural egg dying kit is Eco Eggs (see above photo).  Gorgeous no?

The dyes are made using natural plant, fruit, and vegetable extracts. It includes three natural dyes (orange, blue and purple), a color chart for creating 6 colors, and instructions for coloring eggs.

Coloring Easter Eggs With Natural Plant Based Paints

This is the route we went this year and we turned to GLOB Natural Paints, which is an old favorite of ours. Specifically we used the Glob All Natural Paint Pigments Set. You can use them for egg painting as well as regular painting and even tinting natural play dough. The set has four colors.. basil, lemon verbena, pomegranate, and berry blue. The powders are all crafted from fruits, vegetables, flowers, and spices. Just add water and you have paint. They even smell like the yummy foods/plants used to make them!

The eggs in the top photo are what we ended up with. I think for more perfect photo worthy eggs the Eco Eggs dye is better but for kiddie fun the Glob paints are tops. My kids had a blast mixing the paints and then hand painting their eggs. We also like the marbled look.

How will you dye your eggs this year?

Leading up to Valentine’s Day you are likely to read articles about gift ideas, ways to make it magical, or perhaps what candy and chocolate is the most ethical and healthy. You don’t typically see articles about what to do if your kids came home from school with a metric ton of candy and sweets and you don’t actually have the heart to confiscate it. That would be me. I don’t buy any Valentine’s candy his time of year. Not a single piece for me or the kids. When we have to send the kids to school with Valentine’s we either make our own cards or go with ones that have little toys, bookmarks, or pencils instead of candy. But it is understood that when they come home from school they are going to have a paper bag full of Valentine’s Day booty. Since they don’t get candy very often I don’t worry so much about it, but then again I don’t dismiss it either.

Valentine’s candy is actually pretty bad for our children’s health. That is the just the truth of it. It is loaded with immune suppressing sugar and other junk ingredients like artificial dyes and additives. Consuming all that candy is literally putting their immune systems under a form of attack and during a time when they are already vulnerable… few sunlight hours available, activity can dwindle, and cold and flu bugs are going around like party favors.

If you want to get creative and trade the candy for money or other treats go right ahead. That actually worked with my youngest son this year. My daughter would not be swayed. Rather than let it bug me I just decided that it is a grand opportunity to teach my kids how to take care of their bodies after they have had a lapse in judgement. Giving them insight into how their body works when we eat junk and how we can nurture ourselves in the aftermath is just as important in my mind as teaching them about healthy eating. They need to know how to heal themselves when their healthy habits take a detour.

You might decide to try and ration the candy so they don’t go crazy and eat it all at once but that is actually not a good idea. Let them eat up all the candy. It just extends the immune suppressing abilities of all that junk so it’s best to get it gone and start the healing. Whatever they don’t eat that afternoon/evening might even magically disappear. Give me the rest of that candy and I will take you to a movie on Saturday morning, deal?

Here are some other ways that we give our family an immunity boost after gorging on candy. These tips work for Valentine’s Day or any candy centric holiday (ie Halloween and Easter).

Broth – Once that candy is gone we go into a week long spree of nourishing, nutrient dense, broth based soups that are heavy on the veggies, garlic, onions, and ginger. My dutch oven get a mighty workout all week long.

Hydration – The drink of choice after Valentine’s is good old fashioned water and I make sure it is alkaline as well. No natural juice, smoothies, or sweetened teas right now, just water.

Fermented Cod Liver Oil – Very nutrient dense and helps boost immunity and sleep. This brand is especially good because it is fermented, unheated, and it retains the natural vitamins and enzymes that are destroyed in the processing of many other brands.

Garlic - It has strong antiviral and antibacterial properties and can help ward of illness. I will often use an entire bulb in our soups after we have had excessive candy exposure.

No White Stuff or Grains - Sugar is one of the white things to be avoided but also white rice and flour. Make pancakes with coconut flour or give them a cereal of just chopped almonds, pecans, pine nuts, and shredded coconut. It is especially important not to eat any white stuff after a candy binge but grains just convert to sugar in the body too so it is best to avoid them.

Ginger - Ginger warms you up so fast you think you might be having a hot flash. That is of course why it works so well. It raises your body temperature and fights off viruses and prevents them from replicating. It is also anti-inflammatory and it supports our immune system.

Elderberry - This amazing herb is an anti-viral and it helps to fight viruses by warming your body temperature. It also has strong antioxidant properties that boost the immune system. You can make your own or you can buy it in the form of Sambucol.

Exercise – Take the kids out for evening walks, dance while you do chores, and go on some weekend hikes. Exercise boosts immune function.

Whole Foods Vitamins – Give your kids vitamins sourced from whole foods (ala apples, mango, etc), not one with synthetic ingredients.

Plenty of Rest – After an event like Valentine’s Day we send the kids to bed earlier so they can get plenty of rest… their little bodies need it. All week long they are required to hit the sack an hour earlier than usual and this gives their immune system a chance to recover from the shock of all that sugar.

How will you keep your kids healthy after Valentine’s Day?

Feel that love in the air? Yes, Valentine’s Day is around the corner. After Halloween I think Valentine’s is my fave holiday because it’s all about ooey gooey love in all its forms. This could be love for your partner, love for your kids, love for your extended family, or love for your friends. We don’t celebrate love enough in my opinion so heaven forbid we let the official love holiday pass us by without celebration.

This of course does not mean we have to give in to the mainstream and rather commercial version of the holiday. We can choose to go minimalist and keep it simple or we can give the day our own green twist. We can say “I Love You” without great planetary cost. Here are some ideas.

Go Local – If you plan to buy a gift or go out to eat try a local place close to your home. Save that trip to Paris for your second honeymoon. Try a small mom and pop restaurant for dinner and you will be surprised how good the service is. A store with wares sold by local artisans will ensure a unique, lower impact gift. Celebrate Valentine’s and help support your local economy.

Gift Experiences Rather Than Stuff – Instead of shiny baubles and aftershave why not give the gift of fun? Get a gift certificate for mystery dinner theater, an opera, a cooking class, Disney on Ice, movie tickets, or the like. If your partner loves art get season passes to your local art museum and make it a goal to have a date night there once a month. If your kids love paintball, buy tickets for the whole family so you can enjoy the first Big Game Day come spring. Nothing says love like bruising each other with paintballs. Stuff ultimately means less to us than happy memories so get out there and make some together.

Go Non Toxic – Perfumes, flowers, bubble bath, lotions… all the mainstream stuff is smelly and potentially toxic. No, seriously. Valentine’s is no time to expose the loves of our lives to dangerous chemicals!  If you want to get your partner something along these lines go for natural, organic ingredients. Check out Juice Beauty, Pangea, and your local Whole Foods for some better options. You might also want to try love themed essential oils for a healthier “scent”.

For kids skip the toxic nail polish and lip balms, there are much better options. HoneyBee Gardens and Piggy Paints have pink/red colors that are safe and perfect for Valentine’s. Looking for USDA Certified Organic Lip Balm? Try All The Better To Kiss You With.

Flower Power – Flowers should also be grown without chemicals if you have to have them. A better option would be decorative blooming branches so that they can be used all year long. You could go also with a houseplant that will clean your indoor air and decorate your home year round. A lucky bamboo plant is a nice option for loved ones. Also a Feng Shui Tree is a lovely twist on the flowers/plants theme.

Healthier Sweet Stuff – For chocolate go Fair Trade, organic, dark (70% cacao and above), and raw if you can swing it. The stuff they sell in the Valentine’s isle at your local grocery is CRAP. Don’t eat and don’t gift it. Try Buddha Chocolate, my new personal favorite! Another good option is Equal Exchange chocolate bars. Both offer salty, dark chocolate that is ethical and to die for. Gnosis chocolate is certified raw, vegan, organic, and kosher.

We may decide to forgo candy altogether and take the family out for local artisan ice cream made with cream from grass fed cows. I LOVE our local foods community here in Ohio!

Give Greener Cards – You can really send clever messages inside e-cards so if you can go that route, do it. While getting a physical card is always fun, we end up with feeling as though we have to keep it and do we even look at it the other 364 days of the year?

For kids you can always buy recycled Valentine’s Day cards or make your own with recycled materials for your own kids and for them to pass out at school. You could even save valentines from previous years and reuse them. Who will know? If your kids insist on giving out treats, stick a Valentine’s smencil or a Yummy Earth Lollipop to the recycled valentines.

Go Vintage – It’s green to reuse old stuff so finding a vintage gift for your sweetie is totally earth friendly. Perhaps the wife would like some vintage Pyrex or Fire King mugs. The hubby might enjoy antique fishing lures or a well loved tackle box. Kids’ stuff isn’t always safe when it is old so perhaps some vintage inspired toys like these wooden sailboats or a rag doll.

Hopefully this post gives you some eco ideas for Valentine’s Day and beyond.

When it comes to extended family my fave gifts to give this time of year are ones that incorporate photos of my kids. I have done mugs with the kids photos several times and even calendars with new photos of my darlings each month. This, I hear, makes it more tolerable to get by without seeing their cute faces in person every day. I am fortunate that I am not totally heinous in the picture taking department, and that I have a decent camera, because I have lots of good shots to choose from. This year will follow the same path as previous ones. I have already ordered the annual calendars, the mugs, and a new one for this year is big canvas prints of some of my fave shots.

Easy Canvas Prints saved me some dough by sending me a 16×20 canvas wrapped print of my choosing and that fits into my gift giving “plan” quite nicely. I knew immediately what photo I wanted to see mounted on canvas… a Fall photo of my youngest kiddo that I have fallen in love with.

This beauty….

was turned into this…

The photo of the print is a bit dark. I hate using a flash when taking pics of Christmas lights because it drowns them out. It came out lovely though. The ordering process was quick and painless and the shipping was fast. Perfect!