Happy Birthday Eden Susannah!

 Yesterday marked my youngest daughter's second birthday. It was a quiet event, as we have decided that the girls will have parties in alternating years. Miya had her not-to-be-forgotten pink party this year, complete with a week-and-a-half detox from all the sugars and additives, so to celebrate Eden's birthday we had a family dinner with homemade pizza and a gorgeous cake from the Additive Free Kids' Parties cookbook.

Celebrating my beautiful daughters' birthdays always leaves me feeling reflective (and, yes, sometimes a little sad) about the passing of time, the speed at which they grow up and the phases of parenting each one of them that we will not get back. This year, though, these celebrations have had additional meaning for me. Miya's birthday and the resulting behaviours from the mountains of junk food we had on offer were the catalyst for our commitment to eat and live more naturally and healthily. Eden's birthday has been the first our family has celebrated since embarking on this more conscious way of life.

I was horrified this morning when we sorted out the recycling tubs to take to the town recycling bins. After a birthday (even one without a party!) our bins were overflowing with paper, cardboard packaging and cans and bottles from everyone's drinks at dinner. Truth be told, our recycling bin is fairly full at the best of times. It's something I have been thinking about since reading Little Eco Footprints' blog post on this subject. We have managed to reduce our landfill waste quite significantly (in fact, our little half size shire bin is usually only a third full come rubbish day every week - it used to be overflowing) but I hadn't given much thought to trying to reduce our recyclable waste. Recycling requires the use of processes that draw on the Earth's resources... maybe not as much as producing new products, but more than if we were able to reuse the product ourselves, or better yet, not buy them in the first place.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. It's time for me to consider how I can implement the first two steps of this great 'healthy earth' process into our household. It may be time for me to quit my addiction to Coke Zero for once and for all. (For this reason, and many others!)