I love this 2010 calendar overlaid with bubble wrap so you can pop the days away – but seriously with a house full of kids, how long do you think these bubbles will last?  About eight or nine months, days, or mere minutes?  Fun idea, nonetheless.

2010 Bubble Wall Calendar |  $20.10

Order Your Holiday Cards Now from Tiny Prints

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• Orbit Baby – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano – clothes as unique as your baby

Dinosaurs decals get an origami look at happythought’s Etsy shop.

Origami Dinosaur Wall Decals |  $47

Learn how to make your own origami dinosaur

Order Your Holiday Cards Now from Tiny Prints

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano – clothes as unique as your baby

Looking for holiday photo cards that emphasize your great photographs?  Tiny Prints offers 24 great holiday photo greeting card designs created just for highlighting your great photographs.  These cards are different, especially if you went to the expense of taking professional photographs of your children and family.  So make sure to take a look at the photo cards in the Professional Photographer’s Collection at Tiny Prints.

Check out our other favorite photo card picks from Tiny Prints

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano – clothes as unique as your baby

Over at JCrew.com, I love that their 2009 Very Best Gift Guide includes “Grandparents Lists” to help grandparents with great gift choices for their grandkids.  Very smart for JCrew to help answer that question most grandparents ask us parents – “What do I get for the kids?”

Visit JCrew:  Grandparents List for Boys |  Grandparents List for Girls

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano – clothes as unique as your baby

Just in time for taking the best photo for your holiday cards, we stumbled upon photographer Kelly Willette’s series of guides for taking the best children and family portraits.  Her Portrait Cookbooks quickly and clearly show you the room settings and choice of poses that can best capture a memorable photograph.  The beauty of her advice is it’s simplicity and systematic approach that guides you to getting a diverse number of photos and poses to get those precious gems for the family album.  Written for professionals and hobby photographers including the growing number of MWAC’s (Mommy With a Cameras), Portrait Cookbooks come in four books – Posing Children, Posing Siblings, Posing Families, and Posing Seniors.

Posing Children from The Portrait Cookbook

My review copy of Posing Children came with 28 suggested poses and 10 room settings and a checklist of shots to get during a photo session.  With my daughter at the age of playing hide and seek when the camera is aimed at her, now I just need tips for making my daughter sit still.

10% COUPON: Coochicoos readers will get 10% off their purchase of any Portrait Cookbook.  Use coupon code: coochicoos when checking out.

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano – clothes as unique as your baby

Calling all mommies with influence – do you blog, have hundreds of Twitter followers, or just have lots of Facebook friends?  PujBaby is looking for your help.  Apply as a product tester and review their innovative Puj Tub, a soft bathing tub for your infant that folds up to store away easily.  All reviewers will be given a free Puj Tub for their review, and then are expected to post their review via blogs or social sites.

Quick – reviews will be limited to 100 product testers and the deadline is November 11.

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby
  – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee
  – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip
  baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store
  – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired
  Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky
  Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter
  – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano –
  clothes as unique as your baby

Just love this great collection of deer-themed holiday Christmas cards from Moo.  Set includes personalized holiday message on card interior and back with sustainable paper envelopes – $40 for set of 25.

We also love Moo’s set of JPG Magazine’s Photo Contest Cards.

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby
  – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee
  – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip
  baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store
  – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired
  Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky
  Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter
  – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano –
  clothes as unique as your baby

Welcome to the first post of Little Baby Green, by guest blogger Deborah Guyer Greene, where Deborah will share her stories, expertise, and tips about green family living.

As a co-owner of an environmental design center, I always get a kick when the door opens and an expecting couple walks in.  Typically the woman is 5-8 months pregnant and the man is somewhat doe-eyed, nodding as she insists everything must be green, eco-friendly, and non-toxic.  This, of course is a stereotype.   But, as with most stereotypes, there is some small truth and I have genuine empathy for both parties as they struggle to nest. and nest with the most natural materials possible.  ”Green” can be infuriatingly confusing.  As parents, of course, we want the best and the safest products for our kids.  As consumers we are inundated with next best “x”, the promise of a better “y” and now, the most fuel efficient, non-toxic, no visible footprint, regenerative and environmentally sustainable “z”.

Having a baby, in many cases, is the gateway to green.

We also want the best for our planet but it is the coming birth of child that springs many consumers into action.  Then, it’s the “where to begin” dilemma and soon we are overloaded with information, partial truths, and downright wives tales about going green. It’s a joy to watch a couple as they realize they can create a green nursery, one that is stylish and safe, and yes, one that is affordable to any budget.

Once they see how easy it is to be green, they can then open up and start investigating their own lives and living quarters.  I believe, this is just one of the ways children teach.  By caring for a child, we learn to care for ourselves as well.  WE want to be better, so we can make our children better.

I always wanted to name my firstborn Riley.  Well, Riley came into my life 13 years ago.  He was a beautiful, soulful Ridgeback/Great Dane mix and he was my firstborn baby boy.  The interesting thing about raising a dog is you are not teaching them to be independent someday.  They will always remain in the place of looking to you, taking your lead.  But the truth is, he led as well.

When he was eleven he was diagnosed with bone cancer.  I don’t mean to date myself, but in my recollection when I was a kid, dogs died of old age or getting hit by a car… not cancer.  Riley was amazing.  I decided against chemo but I did remove his front leg and treated him with herbal and eastern remedies.  Perhaps I’ve been out here in California for too long but I tell you what… what was a prognosis of 3-6 months turned into an inspiring year and a half.  For the next year, we spent mornings running on the beach, Riley galloping on his three legs.  Eventually, we would spend our mornings just sitting and watching the ocean. He taught me to practice peace.

In the end I let him go on that same beach and learned about grace.  Dogs like Riley are our gift and our warning.  If this wasn’t such a private and fast acting disease, we would be looking at an amazing number of tripods tromping along our streets.  We can look at our environments and make change.  We can protect those dear to us and make our lives better as well.

Little Baby Green is not just a blog about building a better nursery.  It is an investigation into how to bring sustainability to all aspects of our lives – from compostable cups to unmanageable schedules, from picking non-toxic carpet to vaccinations, from choices on children bearing to child rearing.  How do we live truly sustainable lives – heart, body, mind and soul, and give that gift to our children.  We will bring you information from the experts and find the simplest way to convey the facts and get you to the best resources.

Next year I will be joining your ranks as I try for my first baby.  I’m sure I will alternate between the demanding nester and the doe-eyed conspirator!

Looking forward…

~Deborah Greene

Deborah Guyer Greene is the founder of epOxyGreen, a Los Angeles-based design center offering sustainable building and design products for residential and commercial projects.  Her goal is to bring art, social awareness, and commerce together to create what she calls conscious commerce.

Visit our sponsors:

• Orbit Baby
  – a modern baby transportation system
• Boodalee
  – modern kids bedding
• Boon – hip
  baby products and toddler gear
• Card Store
  – stylish holiday photo cards and more
• Inspired
  Crib Bedding – contemporary baby crib bedding
• Spunky
  Sprout – toys + organics + gifts + modern designs
• Wallter
  – coat racks, mobiles, wall decor, and textiles
• Zutano –
  clothes as unique as your baby

Inspired by vintage travel poster art, one-year old Henry is one lucky baby to wake up every day in one of the more uniquely decorated nursery’s we seen in a long time.

See more photos of Henry’s nursery and vintage travel art mural at Ohdeedoh.

Visit our sponsors: Orbit Baby | Boodalee | Boon | Wallter | Zutano

Holiday parties are made special with a beautifully-designed printed invitation, and Paper Culture offers some of the most unique modern design party invitations that we’ve seen.  In addition to beautiful designs, Paper Culture offers a free Mail & Message service (just pay the cost of postage) that addresses and sends your invitations to save you precious time during your hectic holiday schedule.

Paper Culture’s eco-friendly printing processes and paper are also available for holiday photo cards,  baby birth announcements and baby shower invitations.