Today is the last day to join freepeats for free! There is no site yet for our city, but I signed up anyway just to have a membership for the future.

Free books? When you’re done you can donate these to your library or send them out for someone else to love through PaperBackSwap.

Have a Caribou Coffee near you? Register a Caribou Card and get $4 loaded onto it. I have a weakness for their berry & white chocolate scones. Yum!

Another book I’m adding to the library list, featured at Mama Speaks: Table for Eight — Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World. Going from a family of 3 to a family of 6 in the course of one ultrasound was a shock we’re still recovering from. I know we could use some tips from been there, done that families. (Should I put my library list up here? Maybe with the links at the top of the page? Let me know what you think in the comments.)

Not Martha guest posts at shelterrific about how to choose a sewing machine. Timely, since I’ve owed myself a new one for nearly a year.

Eco Childs Play discusses gluttony in children:

The common thread with families who conserve is that they’re part of a community and their children have a sense of obligation. Children are born narcissists and can evolve into selfish beings or amazing, giving and inspired members of our society.

How do we grow them up green?

At 3.5, we’re just at the age where our older son understands that anything at the store could, at least in theory, come home with us. Time to start imparting these important values!

Ohdeeoh shows us how to convert a train table into a construction zone. My husband, when I IMed the link to him, was quick to point out that the materials are not especially green. I love the concept, though, for our little-used train table, so I’m going to think about alternate materials this weekend and see what we can come up with.

Mama Speaks has a review up of Eco-Friendly Families. I’ll be adding that to my library book queue (a Google Doc where I keep my library’s URL, my card number, and a list of all the books I want to check out so that I can easily request a book online or double check the name of an author when I’m actually at the library).

We’ve talked about checking the Taylortown Coupon Preview to see if the Sunday paper is worth buying for your household. If you do pick up a paper, what do you do with the coupons you know you won’t use? If you have the time and inclination, you can swap or join a coupon train at Organic Grocery Deals or Hot Coupon World. If you just want to pass them on to a good cause, consider this reminder from Hooray for Free-bates! and Chief Family Officer, intended for expired coupons but that would work just as well for unwanted products:

Instead of throwing the coupons away, please consider sending them on to The Happy Housewife. She will forward them to military families overseas, who can use the coupons at the commissary or base exchange for six months after the expiration date.

The Crafty Crow gave another suggestion for repurposing cereal boxes, this time for drawer dividers. I’m especially looking forward to trying this with the larger-than-normal boxes you get at Costco. Another fun project you don’t need a lot of crafting supplies or a sewing machine for is the outlined placement at Ohdeeoh. I love the modern look of these, and imagine they’d be as helpful in table-setting as boundary-keeping when my triplets are older.

And finally, Eco Child’s Play writes up Gaia Herbs Lactate Support, a product near and dear to my heart. For me, it wasn’t a silver bullet, but it definitely helped. If you’re struggling with your milk supply, I wouldn’t hesitate to give this product a try.