Now, obviously dressing in earth friendly clothing is only one small step. But if your tee, or in this case your little one’s outfit gets someone thinking than that’s a good deal. Plus how cute are baby tree huggers?

All of these baby items are organic and ultra cool so if your family has some tiny tree huggers (or are expecting some) I’d hit this shop. These outfits would also make great baby shower gifts.

Organic Think Green Onezie on sweet pea

Organic Cotton Treehugger Onezie on forest or sky blue

Organic Cotton Love Your Mama Baby Onezie

Don’t know a little — no worries. Soul Flower has clothing for the older of us and also neat gifts.

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Today you get me. I will not however post my picture because I’m no where near as cute as my son.

I randomly drew from our ten entries and the winner is….

Homemom3!!!

Thanks to Busy Body Books, Tree Hugging Family will be awarding Homemom3 with this great 2008 Zigzag BusyBodyBook Personal & Family Organizer. This is the perfect prize for busy families.

To see cool close-ups of this prize click here.

Along with great outer design features, Busy Body Books go above and beyond the norm to help you get organized. They offer a unique grid system that allows you to keep track of multiple tasks. Look at all of the great touches these organizers offer:

• “2 Monthly Planners
• One planner to record birthdays & anniversaries! Another to note next year’s appointments & future events.
• Months-at-a-glance
• An overview to help plan ahead for the holidays, vacations, or special events.
• Key contact pages
• 2 Pages for your emergency contact information, doctors, coaches, babysitters…
• Removable shopping lists
• Perforated pages for creating handy grocery or gift lists.
• 2 Pockets
• Inside front & back covers provide a deep pocket to hold important papers, receipts, coupons…
• Bookmark
• Easily flip to the current week with this unique bookmark that grabs the spiral.
• Notes
• A full page each week for notes, to do’s, lists, or alerts. Plenty of notes pages in back of BBB too to record and keep important information.”

Congratulations Homemom3; within the next few days you’ll receive an email with specific details about your prize. The Family & Relationships Channel hopes that you adore this organizer as much as we do. If you bought your organizer ahead of time this year it would also make a great holiday gift.

Thanks to everyone who played and great big hugs to Busy Body Books for participating in b5media’s Blogtoberfest!

Don’t forget there are more chances to win Blogtoberfest prizes all around the channel and right here at Tree Hugging Family so stick around.

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If you aren’t already using refillable dispensers it’s time to start. You can buy refillable containers everywhere. You can buy hand soap in bulk bottles or try something much better which is to buy on large refillable bottle and refill it with soap from the co-op or other natural food shop in your area. Most natural shops have an area with turbo sized bulk natural soaps. You simply pump soap into your bottle and buy. They charge by the ounce or pound.

If you want to buy new plastic dispensers make sure you get bottles you can recycle and really think about the energy it takes to make the dispensers. Is it worth it? Another option would be bar soap but for my family that gets crazy messy.

Remember each small step you do adds up and this is a really simple one to try.

It’s the Blogtoberfest icon! Which means a super keen (and secret) prize is hidden behind this special blog post. If you want to win the great prize that I’m hiding simply leave a comment. Simple. Not a bad way to win a prize. Within a week the winner of the hidden prize will be announced here at Tree Hugging Family so check back often.

Also of note; did you know you have lots of chances to win great Blogtoberfest prizes? Today, October 12th, your chances (and prizes) are hiding at the following blogs:, Inside Fatherhood, Marriage Actually, and Play Library. Visit them all and leave a comment — you may win even more!

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The best part is that any tree hugging family can grow their own organic lemon tree!

Viva Terra has some of the most amazing eco items at their website; including a tiny Organic Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree. It grows full size lemons though so lemon dishes a plenty are good to go.

For the kids check out this giant lemon! Now that is a lot of ice cold lemonade.

For the older more adventurous kids maybe a lemon battery experiment is in order.

Wow, the amazing lemon and the tree it grows in… Don’t you want to hug a lemon tree today?

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Here’s a view of the whole tree tower: 

And there are tiny sleeping branches!

You can get it with leaves, flowers, and butterflies as well. Learn more at Sitting Pretty Kitty.

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He looks a tad concerned in this one — maybe camera shy?

And now he’s got his fishing game on…

Here he really looks happy to be in the great outdoors. He probably gets it from his mama who says, “At 8 months pregnant, I still hiked up to the waterfalls in the mountains in Central WY. Talk about an adventure!!!” Now that is true tree hugging style.

I love this last one.

A big old thanks to Mysti and all the other families who have sent their tree hugging family photos in. It’s great to see so many happy healthy kids enjoying the great outdoors.

If you want to see your family here at Tree Hugging Family send your photos in; you can snag my email by clicking on the “contact me” link to the side. We’d all love to see your family in nature.

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At Tree Hugging Family we of course smile on peace and frown on senseless hostility and violence. To make a difference today and everyday here are a few things you and your family can do.

• Visit Peace Action; even become a member! Learn about how to make your vote count for peace, read the peace blog, find a peaceful event near you, catch up on new legislative projects and much more.
• If you haven’t heard of Peace Fleece you need to read their story and see how one small idea about knitting has the capacity to change lives. Peace, like going green is small steps.
• Read, We Can All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take To Help End Racism by Clyde W. Ford.
• Kids can visit the People for Peace coloring pages.
• Spend time with your children or other family members; there’s an old Ashanti proverb, “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.” It’s not far fetched; start creating peaceful ideas at home before you go marching around a city with banners.

Lastly…
Speak non-violently. A long time ago I worked in social services programs with homeless youth. At one transition home I worked with we had a rule: You can’t say violent words towards another person or yourself. It’s actually really hard to do.

The youth and staff would get in trouble for calling someone, “lame, stupid, or worse” that’s pretty easy for some people. I don’t say mean stuff as a rule. What was hard was me. I always say, “OH I’m so lame” (say if I dropped something). But doing this exercise was a great practice in calm and respect.

You may think your home is free of violence but if people are constantly using words against themselves or others than it’s not. Even in joking — which believe me I am guilty of, but there’s a limit.

Can you go one week using only respectful words at home? A day? It’s hard at first but gets easier.

Happy Peace Day!

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Anyhow this post’s title is a bit tricky because I do tend to think all little tree hugging kids are adorable… Still, these pictures are extra adorable. The talented Kate from a favorite b5 blog of mine; Babylune sent these “meadow cuddling” shots to me.

This is a picture of Kate’s little one, BJ, (5 years now), doing some yoga!

Then we have MC, age 1, examining a flower. This may be one of the cutest kid pictures I have ever seen.

These pictures bring up a good idea of how to get great children photos — take them outside and find the brightest green landscape possible and shoot away. Just beautiful!

Many thanks to Kate and her family for sharing their tree; um, meadow hugging kid photos. 

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Also if you’re worried that your photo taking skills aren’t up to par don’t be. Look at the kind of pictures I take:

This is Cedar at around age two in one of the Redwood forests in Humboldt.

Notice that I myself cannot take pictures very well. Flash anyone? In fact the poor child’s face appears to be glowing. Which attests to the fact that I also cannot successfully manipulate photos on my computer. He was having a great time though. Soon after this he found a big old stick and climbed around on that fallen tree you see behind him.

This next photo is where Cedar thought he was part of the fish family. He’s not.

This is at the the Samoa Peninsula — the beach in front of our house in Humboldt. Mostly he liked to slide in the sand but on this day he got to the beach and took off running towards the ocean like a crazy person and JUMPED in. (He was under two years old). After we freaked and fished him out he rolled around in the sand so it wasn’t very pretty. But fun!

As he got older he learned not to full force jump into the freezing ocean (it’s not Southern California; it’s 60-65 in Humboldt year round so the ocean is cold).

He did take up a fun activity where he’d pick up sand and stuff it in his face. Which may be better than sugar?

For now this is all I have which means you need to email me pictures of your fine tree hugging family in the great outdoors! Much like, in fact exactly like Hilary did. Go nature kids!

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I love this picture. One, her kids are adorable playing near the lake, (pond?), river (much like the turtles but, you know, more human-like and less brownish) and two, it’s always great to see families outside in the great outdoors. I also really enjoy the look her son is giving her at the moment. Classic kid camera face.

Hilary writes green-style for b5media as well. She has a great blog called Eco Friendly Driver that covers all green things that go. Hey, that would be a good Dr Seuss book — “All Green Things That Go.” Maybe. Anyhow Hilary is a great writer and her blog is packed with tips and information about electric cars, money issues to consider, new hybrids, ethanol, and other way to drive greener, smarter, and better. Visit today.

Why not introduce your family here at Tree Hugging Family? Even send pictures like Hilary. I’d love to see them.

Lastly don’t forget to grab the kiddos and stop by last week’s Nature Detective game; a new one goes up tomorrow.

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