Monday, February 27, 2012

WSWS

What She Wore Sunday...Two weeks ago anyway : /


My sweet little Valentine!

Lately:

* I don't know if I ever mentioned that my bro-in-law and his family moved to town, they live just down the road.  It is so fun to have them around, we have 3 boys and a girl, they have 3 girls and a boy. Kylie and Brody are 2 weeks apart Hudson and Jacob are 1 year apart (almost exactly) and Joslyn and Ashley are 4 months apart. The kids have fun together, A LOT of fun.  I love Natalie, she just might be the sweetest person on the face of the earth.  It's fun to have someone to share our Chinese take-out with. ;)



* I saw a recipe for homemade laundry detergent on a blog a couple of weeks ago.  I was interested because of the cost savings, these kids of mine make A LOT of laundry.  So I went to Wal-Mart and picked up all of the ingredients, called up Natalie and we got to work. 

The most "time consuming" (which wasn't all that time consuming 15 min tops!) part of this project was grating the pink Zote soap.  Then it was; dump a box of this and a box of that, mix, mix mix, done!

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:
1 (4 lb 12 oz) box of Borax
1 (3 lb 7 oz) box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 (3 lb) container OxyClean
2 (14.1 oz) bars of Zote soap (pink or white)
2 (2 lb) boxes Arm & Hammer baking soda


Total cost about $20! Even better split it with a friend and it only costs $10.  $10 for all of that, the best thing it will last about 4x longer than your other detergent because you only need 1 1/2 -2 TBSP for 1 load!!


A few things:

I used a fine cheese grater to grate my soap, it dissolves better that way.

The OxyClean drives up the cost a bit, but is well worth it.

I bought the Downey UNstopables, it's an in wash scent booster, because I like (good) smelly laundry.  This is also a little bit pricey but 1-2 tsp does the trick.

Safe for sensitive skin

Safe for HE washing machines...I found the detergent didn't rinse out of the detergent tray very good, so now I just put it straight into the drum, it seems to work great.

I am a liquid detergent girl but this was worth a shot... there is a recipe out there for a homemade liquid detergent...maybe that will be the next experiment...I'll let you know. ;)

* The boys finished basketball on Saturday...it was fun. I actually like watching basketball. We are not skipping a beat though, now it's on to wrestling.  GAH! Wrestling...I know. Not my favorite sport but we are all about letting them try everything until they find their "thing". So the next 2 1/2 months are going to be crappy.  Practice Mon-Thurs between the two of them, and matches every Saturday...believe me we won't be to every one.

* Insanity is kicking my butt!!!

* In less than a week my oldest will be 10...10 Gah! Double digits! A Webelo! What! He just started scouting! He still has enough fingers to show his age though...fewsh!

* ONE of my kids decided my makeup brushes needed a "haircut" GAH!

* My poor sweet Grandma is in the hospital, sad, sad time. Tears every time I go see her.  : (

* Off to entertain my kids...no school today.



Friday, February 3, 2012

Lately


Here's what has been going on lately:

* I had got to do the bulletin board in the primary room.
This one for the year:


And this one to change (only slightly) every month:


I was SO stressed about it, I don't know why- I'm just wierd like that :) I guess I felt major pressure to make it cute.  It's not perfect but I am happy with it overall.

* Hudson started going to preschool the beginning of Jan, he is warming up to it slowly.  He wants me to stay there the entire time but I sneak out when he gets busy. ;)  His favorite part is doing his homework, he loves to pull his out when Braiden and Brody are working on theirs.

*Braiden and Brody have been busy with basketball they love it. I enjoy their games, only 30 min long and basketball is a quick moving sport. :) Wed night Braiden made the game saving shot in the last 30 sec it was AWESOME!! I was screaming and almost bawling.

* Joslyn loves to clomp around the house wearing her Belle dress-up shoes, pushing her shopping cart with her baby in tow. I love love love it --SO cute! It is always very interesting to look through her shopping cart to see what random items she has gathered up. My favorite thing she does though is when she feeds her dolly a (play) bottle and says, "gink yo milk" awww! Good little mama.

She is ready to be potty trained!  She goes 1 & 2 , I just need to get out, buy the panties and make it official.  This is insane to me, she JUST turned TWO.

* I just finished up The Distant Hours by Kate Morton.  Ever read a book of hers? Always a mystery, she keeps you guessing until the end.  Her books usually span a time period of  80-90-100 years and she jumps from one time period to another throughout the book, but in the end  it all comes together in a nice little package. The Distant Hours was a very entertaining read but I think I liked The Forgotten Garden just a bit better.

* Nate got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas, I am loving it! My favorite thing is to play Words with Friends. Do you play?
I am stuck in my old ways though I still like reading on my old Kindle but I love the Fire for everything else! :)

* I want to join pinterest so badly. I'm just annoyed that you have to have a facebook or twitter account to join, I don't want to join facebook, is this so dumb of me??

* I guess I am doing that crazy relay race again this year. Only 126 days until the race.  Now that may seem like a long time... but when I have to think about getting back to running 6 miles that, my friends is not nearly long enough! I found this awesome quote yesterday:

"You're off to great places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting,

So...get on your way!"

Dr. Seuss