My sons love Bob the Builder. Before I had kids, I did not know anything about Bob the Builder other than what the name reveals. Now, I know almost every episode. If you are not familiar with Bob the Builder, it can easily be described in a few sentences.

Bob and Wendy work together and fix anything in Bobsville. They have a team of living machines who all have names, genders and personalities. It is as if the machines are children and Bob and Wendy are adults. They teach the machines right from wrong.

Of course my kids love to watch Bob the Builder for the construction work and to see the diggers and all the machines. But Bob the Builder also comes with an important message to our children. It teaches our children a better way to live, how to take care of our planet. BTB talks about pretty much everything that I want my children to learn about the environment:

• First of all, they always mention the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
• They care about the trees, and for example in one episode where they were building a new road, they built the road around the tree instead of cutting it down.
• Children learn how to waist less. When one old tree needed to be cut down, they found some use for every single part of the tree. Farmer Pickle uses everything from the sunflowers he grows: oil, seeds and even as a dye.
• The people in Sunflower Valley use different energy sources like solar power and wind power.
• Everything is organic
• They care about the animals in the forest and help them when they need it: Bob puts out water for them in the hot summer, they build safe crossings for different animals over streets.

Bob the Builder is a cartoon, but they make “green living” look so easy. Maybe Bob the Builder should be made for adults as well!

After watching ABC’s 20/20 last Friday, I am more hopeful about the elephant’s future. I hope that maybe after seeing how elephants are abused and taken away from where they belong (with their families in the wild), and “trained” with torturous methods to be forced to make the most unnatural acts like walking on their front legs, riding a bicycle etc. that America will stop seeing elephants as some object that is here to entertain us. I hope people will stop being amused by circuses. To me, circuses disgust me. It seems so humiliating for the animals and I can’t believe that it is legal to keep wild, social and intelligent animals like the elephants in captivity.

I hope that America saw how much the elephants suffer and how much they deserve a better life. I hope parents will stop bringing their children to circuses and zoos to entertain their children. The only reason elephants are being murdered or sold to circuses and zoos is for the money.

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I am planning on home schooling all my children. My oldest child is only just over three, so I still have some time to plan the details and work on a curriculum. But I have the basics in my head already. First of all: learning should always be fun! You don’t have to sit down at a desk and study from a book in order to learn.

For all stay at home mothers who watched and helped their children grow and learn in their early years: look at how much children can learn in a non-school environment. And look how much fun they have learning. And see how much children LOVE learning. You don’t have to ask them, it’s hard to keep up with them as it is and give them enough to learn. They just want more and more. Children are born with a curiosity for life and they love learning. Children have that fire burning, that sparkle that is the most important thing to have. They have an interest and want to learn.

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This is an easy and delicious “no bake” recipe. Your kids will have fun helping you to make these tasty chocolate balls. (I think these are great to make for a kids party. They are yummy to eat, easy to make and stores well in refrigerator so you can make them ahead of time.)

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Now with food prices constantly going up, people might make some sacrifices at the grocery store. I don’t believe in cutting down on healthy foods because of an increase in price. It will be the last sacrifice I will make if I have to. Cutting down on expensive fruits and vegetables might save you some money at the moment. But long term you will always loose! After all, no money in the world can ever buy your life back!!!

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I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about a little elephant in a circus. It is called “Saving Jojo.”

Here are some of the pages from the book. (Note: the text here is only a description, not how the story goes in the book).

Two brothers find this crying elephant in a cage and hears his story about how he was taken away from his home and family, sold to the circus and now sitting locked in a cage. The brothers immediately decide to rescue the elephant (Jojo).

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Saving Jojo is my self published children’s book I both wrote and illustrated. As a mother of three, I want to share my values on life with my children. I could not find many good books that showed compassion towards animals. Yes, there are tons of books for children about animals. I have seen countless books about happy animals at the zoo and in circuses. It is time for a change.

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Yes, I am another parent who is concerned about the MMR vaccine. I have not decided if I should agree to give my children the shot or not. My oldest son is over 3 and he did get the shot on his 2-year-old check up. I was not happy about it, almost gave it to him against my will, not knowing what is right or wrong. It seems like all the parents who feel unsafe with the MMR vaccine struggle with the same issues;

• will I risk my child’s health if I reject the vaccine?
• I wish my doctor was more understanding of my fears and concerns and was willing to discuss the issues with me?
• I wish my doctor took me seriously
• why are all the doctors so defensive and hard to talk to?
• feeling pressured to make a decision about an area we are not educated in
• feeling torn because we want to trust our doctors
• feeling scared that unfamiliar ingredients with names we can barely pronounce are being injected into our child’s body
• if something would happen to our child if we give our child the vaccine we could never forgive ourselves

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Last night on ABC News’ 20/20 they showed a mother spraying her two-year-old daughter with a high pressure washer at the car wash. There is no excuse that can give the mother any right to do such a thing. (And whatever excuses she is talking about, no body will believe). The whole world reacted with disgust -thankfully! But it is time to end ALL THE SPANKING OF CHILDREN in America!!!

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I wonder what the future will be like when today’s babies are grown up. It has become too common in today’s busy world to train babies how to be. What is wrong with letting a baby simply just be a baby?

Today, that is not enough. Now babies need to train to sleep -alone in their crib- then wake up and eat on a schedule. Poor baby being born into a world where you can’t eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are tired. It is as if mothers are becoming very insecure to trust their own mothering instincts.

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