Reminder to enter the Natural Parents Network Holiday Gift Guide! This spectacular giveaway ends TOMORROW, November 25!


Head over to enter our huge giveaway extravaganza:
Natural Parents Network Holiday Gift Guide
Prizes are from 74 companies reviewed by 25 of our NPN volunteers. The companies are giving away 89 products and gift certificates, for a total combined value of $2,550!

Here are my giveaways from the guide:

Giveaway: 2 Playsilks from BirchLeaf Designs — $26 ARV {11.25; Worldwide}
Shop now with coupon code NPN and get 10% off through November 25, 2012!

Giveaway: Nursing/Maternity Wear $75 Gift Card & Virtual Bra Fitting from A Mother's Boutique {11.25; Worldwide}
Shop now with coupon code HOBO10 and get a 10% discount off virtually any item in the store (certain exclusions apply) through Nov. 25.

Giveaway: 3 Nutcracker Kids Ballet DVDs from Prima Princessa — $21 ARV {11.25; US/Can}
Shop now for these wonderful children's ballet DVDs — only $6.99 so very affordable for any little dancer on your list!

Giveaway: Superhero Cape & Kit (Reversible!) from Pip & Bean — $25 ARV {11.25; Worldwide}
Shop now for these high-quality, affordable capes and other dress-up goodies!

Giveaway and review at ourfeminist{play}school: Poetry of a Hobo Mama: E-book Edition – $10 ARV {11.25; World Wide} {2 copies!}
Shop now with coupon code SAP84AYJ and get 20% off all orders of the trade paperback at the CreateSpace store through December 31, 2012! And for this weekend only, the price has been reduced even further!

We continue to be delighted with the inspiration and wisdom our Carnival of Natural Parenting participants share, and we hope you'll join us for the next carnival in December 2012! (Check out November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January, and a summary of all our 2011 posts if you missed any.)

Your co-hosts are Lauren at Hobo Mama and Dionna at Code Name: Mama.

Here are the submission details for December 2012:

Theme: Childhood Memories: Our theme this month is childhood memories; feel free to write about whatever speaks to you. Here are some ideas: What are your earliest, favorite, strangest or other childhood memories? Is it easy or hard for you to remember your childhood? How do your childhood memories impact the way you parent? What childhood memories do you hope your children will have? What do you do to preserve childhood for your little ones (e.g., pictures, etc.)?

Deadline: Tuesday, December 4. Fill out the webform (at the link or at the bottom) and email your submission to us by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time: CarNatPar {at} NaturalParentsNetwork.com

Carnival date: Tuesday, December 11. Before you post, we will send you an email with a little blurb in html to paste into your submission that will introduce the carnival. You will publish your post on December 11 and email us the link if you haven't done so already. Once everyone's posts are published on December 11 by noon Eastern time, we will send out a finalized list of all the participants' links to generate lots of link love for your site! We'll include full instructions in the email we send before the posting date.

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a gift for you out of gratitude for your faithful readership.

This deal on my book of parenting poetry, Poetry of a Hobo Mama: The First Three Years, has never happened before! For this Thanksgiving weekend ONLY, the price has been reduced to $9.99 with FREE shipping!

Here's how it works — you can buy either from Amazon or directly from me for the same price:

Buy the book at Amazon, where I've reduced the price to $9.99 through Tuesday, November 27. The price is regularly $11.99. The paperback is eligible for FREE Super-Saver Shipping on Amazon orders over $25, so either fill up your cart to get to that level or pay Amazon's shipping fee. (I unfortunately can't provide discount codes on Amazon.)

OR:

Buy directly from me at my CreateSpace author's store. Enter code 4PV6AMYR for $3.59 off each copy, bringing the reduced price down to $6.40 plus shipping. CreateSpace shipping starts at $3.59, so it will be $9.99 with FREE shipping, and each additional copy in the same shipment will be cheaper and cheaper since the shipping decreases per item the more you buy!

We got our Halloween pumpkins from Stocker Farms,
which is chock-full of autumn fun for the kids.

Alrik loved playing in the corn pit.

Rubber duck races via water pump.

I'm aiming to buy local and handmade this holiday season, and from now on when possible. When it's not possible, I usually end up at Amazon.com…but even there, I can support small businesses.

Recently when I hit the button for Amazon.com in my tool bar for the zillionth time, it dawned on me that I was blowing it big time! I was missing out on an opportunity to do something really nice for any one of the many bloggers I adore.

By simply going to Amazon through a link on another blogger's page, anything I end up buying at that time will go toward that blogger's affiliate rewards. And it won't have changed my prices or shopping experience in any way! How amazing is that?


Even knowing this and wanting so much to spread this wealth around, I find myself taking the most direct route to Amazon when I suddenly need to go.

Teresa of Spirit Grooves and I talked about it and decided we would figure out a way to make this process so easy for everyone that no one need ever miss out on this opportunity again.

Just add one of our pages to your toolbar or bookmarks and think of it like the best route to your shopping destination. Here's mine; here's Tree's at Spirit Grooves.

This is one in a series of guest posts by other bloggers. Read to the end for a longer biographical note on today's guest blogger, Ariadne of Positive Parenting Connection. Ariadne has offered me some much-needed suggestions for encouraging my children to keep on walking, and I'm so pleased to pass them on to you as well.

Guest post by Ariadne of Positive Parenting Connection

When my sons were just 1 ½ and 3 years old, we lived near a town forest with many walking paths, a river, and some fields to play in. One of our favorite activities was going for a treasure hunt in the forest. Spending time walking through paths, climbing over fallen trees, throwing rocks in the river, and then having a snack all while dressed up as pirates was not only fun but it fostered a great habit of walking everywhere!

Walking has just always been something that we do as a family, but there were certainly times when one, two, or all three of the kids just did not want to walk any further, or did not want to leave the house, and other times there was some whining or frustration involved…. Over time we have figured out ways to make taking family walks something that is enjoyed by all of us. My children are now 6, 4, and 2 years old, and they have become quite used to walking, just about everywhere. These are some of the ideas that have worked for us:

Make it fun.

Collecting rocks in the river, going on a treasure hunt with a map and everything, making up a nature scavenger hunt are all great ways to keep the children totally captivated, interested, and happy to keep on walking. For a simple scavenger hunt, for example, we have drawn pictures of things we think we might be able to find along our walk. Sometimes we even draw super silly things like a purple elephant, and then of course I get to pretend to just have seen it and spark up more curiosity and the need to keep walking.