Environmentally Responsible Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day Sofi and I "adopted" a Koala on behalf of her friends, printed out a picture of "him" hugging a tree and made thank you cards for all of her friends.

Other years we have knitted flowers from local yarn and used sticks from the backyard as "stems" or created felt mice from hearts folded in half with knitted tails. There is always something creative you can do for holidays! And here are some good reasons to be creative...

From The Organic Consumers Union

Tis that time of year when more than 20 million Americans are buying sweets and flowers for their loved ones on Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, these tokens of love aren't as sweet or pure as they may appear. Over 40 percent of the world's conventional chocolate (i.e. non-organic and non-Fair Trade) comes from Africa's Ivory Coast, where the International Labor Organization and US State Department have reported widespread instances of child slavery. Meanwhile, commercial flowers, most of which are produced in countries such as Colombia, are the most toxic and heavily sprayed agricultural crops on Earth. In order for you to deliver your bouquet to your beauty, poorly paid workers in Third World countries put in up to 18 hour work days for poverty wages during peak flower buying times such as Valentine's Day. But don't let the bad news squelch your Valentine's plans. Show your love by choosing Fair Trade and organic flowers and chocolate for your Valentine's Day gifts. Check out OCA's Buying Guide, watch an entertaining flash movie and take action against the 5 major chocolate and flower corporations: http://www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/

Hoppy Holidays

Our BLOG post this week is a holiday wish from our bunny, Sweetie Pie and also a big thank you from all of us here! Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year by purchasing items from our store (http://stores.ebay.com/herbnhome), downloading items from http://www.thewaldorfchannel.com/ , enrolling in our program (http://www.earthschooling.com/), joining our group at http://www.herbnhome.com/ and buying unicorns (http://www.buyaunicorn.com/) and photos at http://www.imagenations.com/ .

Seriously - and I am not embarrassed to say this - without your support and purchases we would not have had a holiday season at all this year! We are very thankful for all of our clients and customers! When you own your own business you appreciate everyone so much and each purchase makes a difference in our lives. A download is a carton of milk, a unicorn purchase paid for our Christmas tree, an enrollment in our program purchased Sunii's winter snowgear and he has been able to be outdoors sledding every day now that he has a snowsuit and boots! it is really cool to see how direct it all is! We love you all!

Our rabbit Sweetie Pie also wants to wish everyone a hoppy holiday - Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, Solstice, Kwanza - everything! She especially wants to thank the person who bought something that helped paid for "her" tree.

Here are some tips she would like to share for a better holiday season:

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #1: Buy your rabbit a tree to eat for the holidays so she does not eat your gifts.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #2: Cats look better in boxes wrapped up with bows.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #3: Don't even TRY to put a bow on me for this photo.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #4: Humans don't always appreciate the way rabbits trim trees.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #5: Bows don't taste as good as carrots.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #6: Humans don't seem to appreciate the little "gifts" that I leave under the tree. Perhaps if I wrapped them?

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #7: If you are cute and fluffy people can forgive a lot.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #8: Turkey is really good for holiday season. Rabbits don't taste very good at all.

Sweetie Pie Holiday Tip #9: Did I mention how good a cat would look in a box with a bow on top?Sweetie Pie Holiday

Tip #10: Carrots - the gift for the person who "has everything" - and eco-friendly too!

Advent Story Ribbon

This is now located at www.BEarthBLOG.com

A Waldorf Independence Celebrations - Global and 4th of July

This can now be found at www.BEarthBLOG.com

9-in-one Holiday Cookies

This is my FAVORITE holiday cookie recipe. After you are done making the base dough there are instructions to make 8 different cookies and when you end it looks like you made 8 batches of cookies but you didn't! I make these every year now and I don't even bother with other kinds of cookies. Why make a thousand cookies over days and days if I can make one recipe and it LOOKS like I made thousands of cookies over days and days? This coming so soon after my "Easy Pumpkin Pie Recipe" will probably establish me as one of the laziest moms around...but really - I love to find recipes that are easy so my kids can help more and so I can have more time to do more things! And these cookies are so buttery and yummy! They are gourmet. Hint: the hardest part of this recipe is gathering all the ingredients. Make substitutions if you need to - don't stress yourself! And I have a 9th idea...how about taking a bit of the white dough and spliting it in half, adding a bit of peppermint and red food coloring to one half and then twisting those into "candy canes" - see? Now you have NINE cookies! Here it is (I got this from a magazine 12 years ago...not sure what the copyright limit is on magazine articles and I can't find it online so I apologize if I am stepping over any boundaries here...)

8-in-One Cookies

Basic Dough

4 sticks of butter (2 cups)
1 cup of light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 lg. Eggs
2 tsp. Vanilla extract
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Beat all except flour until fluffy
Gradually beat in flour
Take ½ of the dough out to make chocolate dough by adding ¼ cup cocoa and ½ tsp. Vanilla.

Divy the dough into 4 parts each and add the following to them:

CHOCOLATE DOUGH divided into four parts makes:
Chocolate chunk
Hugs and kisses
Chocolate-marshamllow thumb-prints
Chocolate-vanilla spirals

VANILLA DOUGH divided into four parts makes:
Oatmeal/peanut butter cookies
Jam Thumb-prints
Apricot-pecan cookies
Chocolate-vanilla spirals

Oatmeal-peanut butter
1 part Vanilla dough
½ cup oats
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup creamy peanut butter

Jam Thumb Prints
1 portion vanilla dough
32 almond slices
1/3 cup apricot or raspberry jam

Roll Dough into 8 inch log
Slice into 16 pieces
Roll pieces into balls
Thumb-print balls
Put a small dab of jam and an almond in the “print”
Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees



Apricot-Pecan
1 portion vanilla dough
¼ tsp. Ground cardamom
8 small dried apricots, diced
¼ cup chopped pecans

Mix cardamom and apricots into the dough
Roll and slice as in the jam prints
Put balls on greased cookie sheet
Bake 12-14 minutes

Chocolate Chunk
1 portion chocolate dough
¼ cup vanilla chips
¼ cup sliced almonds

Mix and bake as in recipes above 10-12 minutes in flattened balls.

Hugs and Kisses
1 portion chocolate dough

Roll as in jam thumb-prints.
Instead of jam put a “hugs and kisses” Hershey’s Kiss (The white and black ones) in the middle before baking 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Chocolate Marshamallow Thumb Prints
1 portion chocolate dough
small jar of marshamallow topping or small marshmallows

Roll Dough into 8 inch log
Slice into 16 pieces
Roll pieces into balls
Thumb-print balls
Put a small dab of marshmallow sauce or 2 small marshmallows in the print
Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees


Chocolate-Vanilla Spirals
1 portion vanilla dough
1 portion chocolate dough

Roll out both doughs to approximately the same rectangular size.
Put the rectangles on top of each other and roll as if making cinnamon rolls
Slice into circlesBake on a tray for 10-12 minutes at 350

A Gift For You: Poem for Crafters

This is now located at www.BEarthBLOG.com