It’s a great coincidence that the PBS Super Sisters’ Great Day of Gratitude would fall on this day. The Sisters have slated the day for their momblogger friends to share their gratitude with their kids’ teachers. Since we won’t have an official teacher until preschool next year, I would like to dedicate this year’s day of gratitude to my son, Anderson, aka “The Critter” as he turns three today. I am so grateful to have been able to have him in my life and he has taught me more in this short time than twelve years of private school and two college degrees. I thank him and my Perfect Husband, aka Marty, for helping me create this genetic masterpiece. You are the loves of my life.

Happy Birthday Anderson!

It was such an idyllic afternoon I was sorry I didn’t allow myself more time to enjoy Celebrate Motherhood and Mother Earth with the TreePeople. The crowd was truly the most gorgeous group of moms and dads I’ve seen together in one place since my first fashionista party in downtown LA(a long time ago). I arrived just in time to see the ever melodically and aesthetically pleasing Scott Stapp of Creed serenade his gorgeous pregnant wife, then wound my way up the trails stopping to look at all the organic and eco-aware products for moms and moms-to-be.

I walked away with more knowledge about the earth and how to do a bit more for it by meeting some of these folks:
* Healthy Child, Healthy World – an organization devoted to making a healthy environment easier
* GroVia, (formerly Natural Baby Company), a smarter, cuter, and easier way to cloth diaper
* The Children’s Nature Institute – an organization providing direct educational services to preK through grade 3 through exposure to nature
* Tiny Revolutionary – two women’s vision of family defined and put on really cute organic baby tees
* Yes to Carrots – the latest of the Yes to… skin care collections which also fund agricultural programs.

I hope the TreePeople is the site of this event next year – I want to bring the whole family next time – the Critter would have loved the music and the hike. He was napping while I went out so he’d be in a good mood to go to Noah’s birthday party at the Playroom. He was sort of worn out from our morning walk where we noticed the great new rehab of a favorite courtyard in the neighborhood.

If you were wondering how the Help A Mother Out diaper drive went on Saturday night, I met some great mom bloggers like Sara, Andrea, and Kim, and I hear that the group collected over 3,200 diapers!

As part of the Big Edit, I had to consolidate all my art media. This was no small task, as I have a lot of it – a lot. Since I have tools and paints, pens, pencils, pastels, acrylics, oils, paintbrushes, watercolors, casein, gold leaf, spray paints, glues, tapes, casting/sculpting supplies, and mixing mediums. All of these needed to be separated by type of use, i.e., I have paintbrushes for gesso, acrylic paint, for glazing pastels, and for watercolors. I have chalk for the Critter and chalk for grinding into paint. I haven’t even mentioned the crayola and play doh Xanadu that I am collecting and doling out in the daily art projects for the Critter! Clearly something was needed to tame the beast.

No one really understood when I bought this behemoth of a hutch and said it would go in the kitchen. The painter thought I had lost my mind when I told him to paint it red, especially when he knew the kitchen was green. It took me another two months to decide on the knobs to replace the originals that I hated. But today I was vindicated. “That red thing” in the kitchen is now it’s official title: the Art Cabinet. When the Critter needed some chalk for his construction paper creation that we put together on his project easel (aka that thing hiding the fireplace until we aren’t afraid the Critter will burn himself), I knew exactly where said chalk was residing.

It’s the small victories these days that make life worth living. If I had enough time I would show you every container that houses every supply, but this will have to do for now – I have a “date” tonight!

But don’t worry; my Perfect Husband knows all about it. Tonight I am going on another momblogger internet date with other moms I don’t know – tonight I will join with these moms for a diaper drive to Help a Mother Out. I am looking forward to visiting with them as we help some mothers out!

This Sunday, May 2, I am looking forward to heading up the hill to Coldwater Canyon Park (the one on Mulholland) to participate in Pregnancy Awareness Month with the Tree People. The event promises to be a “free, red-carpet lifestyle event celebrating expectant moms and new parents”. The event is hosted by Anna Getty, Josie Maran, Ricki Lake, Catherine McCord, book signing by Trista Sutter and live performance by Scott Stapp, Grammy Award-winning singer, song writer and voice of Creed.

And there are birthday parties that I must take the Critter to at 10:00AM and at 4:00PM – want to take bets on whether or not we’ll be on time for everything? That is a lot of celebrating!

Whew! So much fun to have, so few hours in the day…themes for the week are: family, nostalgic fun, food, and flat Karissa.
* My sweet in laws are visiting from Washington state -the Critter has been having so much fun seeing the sights with them
* We celebrated my Perfect Husband’s birthday with cake and dinner at Benihana of all places – the food was great!
* I baked a German chocolate cake from scratch
* We photographed a paper doll made by my new niece everywhere we went to help out with a school project in Kalispell, Montana
* I found more reasons to love Neiman’s – Zandra Rhodes!
* My fab friend Ashaa hosted a lovely tea party at her home in Hollywood Hills for a lifelong friend visiting from her native Trinidad
* I had time to do a little shopping in the ‘hood and am obsessed with all the wonderful paper boutiques we have!

This guy is hawking bottled water and candy on Rodeo Drive. He wins the Star of the Day for having the stones to risk tangling with City Beverly Hills Police for panhandling, or worse from The City Of Beverly Hills for not having a business license!

To help you and your kids get in the spirit of Earth Day, PBS KIDS is saluting “green” with 15 eco-friendly episodes from favorites like Curious George, Super Why!, and Dinosaur Train (check your local listings for times). Online, the PBS KIDS Player is also featuring lots of Earth Day content for kids to enjoy any time.

Earth Day is also Double Points Day on Eekoworld, the recently-launched interactive website designed to introduce children to the basics of ecosystems, conservation and pollution. My Critter loves to play with Cheek-o, the eek-O world spokesman!

Love your Earth, y’all! xoxo

Meet Greenopolis

I recently noticed the logo above popping up everywhere and had to see what it is all about. Greenopolis is the new interactive website launched by Waste Management to highlight the efforts the company is making for a greener world, namely by placing recycling kiosks in retail areas that track and reward recyclers with “green behavior”. The mission statement?

“Greenopolis makes a very simple – yet powerful – promise to you, our user:

We are about doing good.
Specifically, our goal is to provide you with information and tools to:

Help you to recycle easily
Help to save our natural resources for our children’s children
Track conservation through recycling and re-use
Educate and reward conservation”

They are a in a great position to do this, too – who better to begin to educate us than the guys who have dealt with our trash for years? The hottest news for Greenopolis? Today’s Greenopolis Earth Day Eve Party 2010 , where the Pepsi Dream Machine was unveiled. Those familiar with the existing Greenopolis recycling kiosks will like to know that “with every item recycled, Pepsi makes a contribution to the EBV to help disabled veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq become self-sufficient business owners. Two purposes for good – I think we can all get behind that!

Knowing that I am a complete sucker for jewels, my audacious friend let me know that I could win more of the bling that rings my bell from Hearts On Fire. Hearts on Fire has a patented cutting process that creates their acclaimed “World’s Most Perfectly Cut Diamond”. After reading up on who they are, and knowing that their diamonds are conflict free, I do believe that MY world would be more perfect if I had some of those perfect diamonds. So I posted the photo above to tell HoF about a “Perfect Moment” in my life.

I would be very appreciative if you would vote for my entry by clicking here or on either of the photos above. Think you may want to make your world more perfect? Click here to enter your own memories and a chance to bring on the bling.

Come here to say what you want to say. I will not moderate you, I will not delete the thread because I don’t like what’s being said. I may probably won’t read it unless I just want my blood pressure to go up.

Work it out, girls.