• 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!

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).

NASA’s top 10 view of Earth, taken by astronauts on the International Space Station.

They are stunning. And really put our place on this planet in perspective.

Hope you did something nice for the world today.

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!

Are you shutting off the lights tomorrow?

It’s Earth Hour between 8-9 p.m. Residents and corporations around the world are turning off their power to make a statement about climate change.

Almost every municipality and many businesses in Durham are participating. I’m dying to see whether the Region shuts off the eye glaring, power-sucking lights of their monstrous parking garage and headquarters at Rossland Rd. and Garden St. in Whitby. Everytime I drive by at night, that corner is absolutely shining. I bet the residents who live behind the lot will love it.

We will of course be participating. Already got the candles and bbq lighter ready to go. I’ve told Eric that watching COPS in the dark does not count. Which sucks ’cause this weekend’s new episode has spike strips and foot pursuits and helicopters.

*sigh*

Hilarious cartoons of dos and don’ts for testing baby bottles, feeding, entertaining and sleeping and many more.

Check them out here.

So, c’mon now: Anyone guilty of any of these? If you’ve stuffed your baby into a backpack, I’ll forgive you, because haven’t we ALL wanted to do that at some point? But if your significant other has tried breastfeeding the baby a la Peter Griffin, well…you may have some issues.

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.

As with most of the fun and unique finds online, I stumbled upon SouleMama a few days ago. She takes the most mesmerizing photos, and I so want her book.

I am enamoured with her 30 Days of the Everyday: “my overwhelming wish and motivation for this project is that it will be a part of really seeing. Because what’s happening right now - right this very moment in my family life as these three little ones grow, learn, and explore so very much each and every day - it feels really special…and fleeting. And I really want to see it, in the slow tiny, simple, and very ordinary moments that make up each day.”

This site feels a bit like the above already, as I clamour to record life with Lucy and the little moments that make up our world with her. But there is something about a visual to accompany words, especially these early days that, while we’re living them, can feel so long but blink by in a breath.

For the month of February I’m going to record the simple and fleeting tidbits at Chez McDougall-Foster. I hope you seeing enjoy them as much I’m looking forward to the challenge and reward of capturing them.

Day 1: The infamous Doggie. Watching Happy Healthy Monsters. With fruit (kiwi, today) stickers. Best mornings ever.

Lucy woke up this morning covered head-to-toe in everything we ate yesterday. Oh, happy morning. Although her appetite wasn’t what it normally is, she was acting peachy and had no fever, so we still sent her to her Papa’s for a previously-arranged special playdate.

She barfed in the car (poor Lucy! poor Warren!), but is currently watching Happy Healthy Monsters and munching on apple sauce and crackers. I know this because I keep calling to make sure she’s not projectile covering every square foot of my father-in-law’s condo.

That worry and stress, combined with magazine production, means the vast majority of my brain is frazzled. So please feel free to find fun elsewhere this Friday:

The Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager: Type in a name and it’ll show you how popular it is going all the way back to the 1880’s. Cool tool.

The Aussies think Canada is dangerous!

Jim Gaffigan does Hot Pockets: We saw this guy on TV a while back, and I literally almost peed myself laughing so hard.

Durham’s dirty restaurants: I used to do this story when I was at the paper. Calling up restaurants and asking if they had a comment on getting busted for raw chicken dripping into lettuce containers was both disgusting and thrilling.

Eat Smart Winners: On the flip side, check out these local places who’ve won awards for healthy and safe eating.

Juno: Go see this. It has some of the most wicked dialog I’ve ever heard, and I’m pining for the soundtrack. We were all sniffling at the end.