• The top 10 things kids stick up their noses, including how to get them out

• Saving at the supermarket: 15 great grocery store tips

• Managing clutter with baby toy alternatives from around the house, part 1 and part 2 — love the paintbrush idea!

We’re having a garage sale Saturday and getting ready to head to the cottage next weekend — keeping us occupied enough — but there’s also a ton of things going on in this fun region of ours the next week or so as we roll into Canada Day:

• Parent Source’s Canada Day Guide: Find out what your town has planned to celebrate our country’s 141st birthday, including where to go for fireworks
• Durham events from the local paper: Check out Metroland’s day-by-day event listings from across the Region
• Durham Tourism: All our local attractions
• Beach water testing: See if your local waterfront is safe for swimming
• SummerActive: Want out of Durham? This government of Canada website has event listings by age group from across the country

Do many of you get Today’s Parent? It’s a Canadian parenting magazine put out by Rogers, and I quite enjoy it. The past few months they’ve had a few fabulous articles on greening your house for baby and just in general:

How green is your home?: A room-by-room tour (kids’ rooms, bathrooms, kitchen etc.) to learn about the “environmental baddies” you may be harbouring, and how to fix ‘em. I really liked how they focus not just on the standard, big-ticket, expensive stuff such as new furnaces and windows, but on mattresses, bedding, paints, shower curtains and cookware. Literally the best resource I’ve read that compiles everything together. A must read.

The green nursery: Thoughts and tips on carpeting, paint, furniture and bedding in a vulnerable newborn’s bedroom. Did you know the glue that holds together many new cribs (particularly cheaper ones like *ahem* we bought from Sprawl-Mart) can off-gas formaldehyde for years?). Another excellent read.

Guide to less toxic products: From the Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia, via the above story. Endorsed by the Big Man himself, David Suzuki. The article includes this warning: “You  may find out more than you really wanted to know about the chemical soup that is modern life.” Yeah…proceed with caution.

Easy recipes for non-toxc house cleaning: Love them.

Now you see it, now you don’t: Cookie magazine and Apartment Therapy’s ohdeeoh recently held this neat contest to find parents’ best solutions for kid clutter and storage. There are some really neat, funky ideas here.

The 50 best Sesame Street moments: Walk down memory lane with these. Can you believe this show has been on the air for more than 35 years?! You must watch # 9 (Mr. Hooper isn’t coming back — oh, how heartbreaking…) and of course, #1, Ernie singing “Rubber Duckie.”

The source of women’s housework — their husbands!: You hardly even need to click here to know this, but still an interesting read.

The best baby laughs: A compilation from YouTube. Absolutely hilarious. Not as funny as my girl, of course, but up there (I still watch this video once a week, and each and every time it totally makes me cry with the happy).

Ever wondered where babies come from? Or need a rather no-holds-barred, to-the-point guide for your kids?

The Germans (is anyone surprised at this?) show you, in hilarious picture book form.

(Note: If you are educated on where babies come from, you’re smart enough to know picture book+ that = the book has nekkid people in it. Illustrated, yes, but the drawing of the smiling baby emerging from spread le…it’s probably not safe for work, people, is all I’m saying.)

Link via reader Athena of How Soon is Now. Thanks!

My sister-in-law’s best friend, Sarah, has a daughter just a few days older than Lucy. Sarah’s been reading here forever (hi Sarah!), and last summer nominated Durham Region Baby to the Just Mommie’s Top 100 Mommy Blogs 2007.

And wowee, lookiee here: We’re number 31!

Sweet.

Thanks so much, Sarah!

p.s. — Sarah is a huge proponent in cloth diapering, and recently started selling them via the innovative Diapering Decisions. Check them out. I am seriously considering trying them for subsequent babies.

I hope all of you have noticed the growing sponsors on the left sidebar.

I am a small town, community girl at heart. Although a decade ago I physically ached to bust out of my hamlet and catapult into j-skool at Ryerson, I knew after less than five years of living downtown Toronto that Big City living wasn’t for me. I knew after five weeks at the Toronto Star that a Big City reporter job was not for me.

And so — having picked up a fiance along the way — we moved back to Durham. In that full-circle way of life, I landed my first Big Kid Job at the very first newspaper I ever worked for (at the tender age of 15).

And so began settling back into the community feeling I felt missing from downtown. That closeness has only intensified after moving to north Durham — now with a baby — back to the stomping grounds of my youth. We are planting roots here.

So you have no idea how awesome it is to have these wonderful local businesses on the site. To have other people value and validate what is so important to me, and what I strive to achieve with this site, is incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. And what better way to showcase Durham Region and the network of businesses that support it than share them with you?

I have purposely chosen not to go with a ad network. There is more money that route, but little if any control over content. There are restrictions on what you can say about your ads and advertisers (nothing, mostly), even where they can go on the site itself. I have no interest in that, and it defeats the purpose of what I am trying to create here.

Please take some time to visit them when you have a chance. A big fat thanks to all of you (and my endlessly patient and supportive sister) for the immeasurable help in reaching this point.

I’ve spent an eye-crossing amount of time updating and adding to the links section the past week or so. They desperately needed to be done to preserve my sanity, and also in response to what Mr. Google says people are looking for (namely: stuff to do, places to go, and birthday party centres — all for Durham).

Things are now split into what I hope are easier-to-navigate categories for y’all:

Durham links: The main entrance, also found on the right-hand toolbar over there, and directly above, under the logo

Places to play: Municipal recreation programs, indoor gyms, dance, birthday party centres

Stuff to do: Get out of the house with grown-ups (including, of course, Durham Mom’s Night Out!), Early Years Centres, public libraries, event listings, travel/tourism links

Durham daycare/nannies: Places to find childcare, resources

Safety and support: Recalls, breastfeeding, car seat safety checks, postpartum depression, parenting etc.

Local businesses and mompreneurs: List of consignment stores, baby gear, online sales, local entrepreneurs

Health: Labour, fitness, beauty

Fave Canadian retailers: The Eh! online stores we love the best

Coming soon: Baby shows, crafts and photography. Got any to add?

Have a site you love you want listed? A category to suggest? Business to add? Leave a comment or drop me an email. These are ever-expanding.

Enjoy!

I am literally seizing up at the amount of work at my fingers, so what better way to deal with it all than online fun?!

• Watch the new Post Secret video
•  Toilet paper wedding gown winners! Seriously, who knew something I wipe my ass with could be so beautiful?
• Normally I default to the vomiting pumpkin, but this year I want one with FLAMES!
• Elmo has his own potty time game. Lucy loves it
• Make a scrolling LED sign here
• Blog Action Day: next Monday, bloggers from around the world will post about the environment
• You do realize there are only 10-ish weeks until Christmas, right? Here are some super fun Christmas card photo ideas for the family

Tornado Eirinn: did you know that Jen O. is blogging? I have converted a follower! Hallelujah! Praise the Interweb! Jen is just as hilarious and sweet as in real life. Also, Eirinn is an adorable tyrant

Dollar racks @ Mulberry Bush: this great baby/kids consignment store in Pickering has dollar racks of summer clothes on clearance until next Tuesday, July 31

Snot siphon: OK, it’s called Nosefrida, but it’s really a tube you shove up your baby’s nose and suck the boogers out. But don’t worry! There’s a filter so you won’t get snot in your mouth! Raise your hand if you have a baby or toddler who will willingly allow a tube to be shoved up their schnozz

Unclutterer: Very, very cool website on streamlining your life.  Neat posts about an almost paper-free office, 10 things to do in 10 minutes, clutter-hiding furniture (seriously, check out the recharging station!), and my favourite: home organization

Instructables: want to make shadow sculptures? Rock candy? Know how to kiss or get jammed money out of a vending machine? Go here. Totally addicting

More confessions: from the creators of True Mom Confessions come True Dad Confessions, True Bride Confessions and True Office Confessions

Drunk babies: Apparently hand sanitizer, if ingested in large quantities, can cause drunkness, alcohol poisoning and even death in little tots. For goodness sake, please don’t smear chemicals on your children’s hands ever, but especially not just before a meal!

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?: Hilarious, tears-of-laughter-inducing photos of cats. I know it sounds ridiculous. Which is why it’s so damn funny