homemade laundry detergent

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to try the current trend of making your own laundry detergent.  These are the sources that I've used to investigate this.  Will let you know which method I chose and how it went.  I'm probably going to order my supplies from amazon.  Current gas costs from the humble abode in the country to all of the stores I would have to visit (with my wriggling toddler on hip) to obtain all of these ingredients would probably eat my savings profits up.  Goodbye Gain!...Hello borax!?!  We'll see.

http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2010/08/homemade-laundry-liquid-revisited.html
http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2010/05/on-the-laundry-line.html
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html

Lord knows there's some mountains of laundry around here!

More Appliqued Shirts

My mom whipped these up in like an hour with the garanimals cheap-o shirts from walmart.  Will I ever be able to just'whip something up'?  Hard to be motivated when I have her spending every waking moment making such cute things as these on the uber-expensive machine!

The gingerbread haunted house was  requested...it would make his stock bakery scooby cake "just perfect, mommy".  Oh, my Halloween boy.  Purple was a delish fondant made for me by a super-talented coworker and black was wiltons gel-icing. Yes, I went extreme last year with the first cake (8 hours allnighter extreme).  Swore I wouldn't do it to myself with the double party hoopla this year.  Identical due dates...but no cupid between the two of them.  Ahh..maybe next time (what?!?what did I say!).

So the party bags were valentine candies in grab bags from dollar tree...I tied their character themes in by using these thank you signs. 

A little shy, but so obviously delighted all of the fuss is about him.

The very topheavy cake that, most importantly, contained all of the elements that were so very important to make that boy feel extra special!

Beloved Emily, how often do I hear your name.

This fiesta was at a little local pizzeria and deli down the street with an arcade/gameroom/kiddy rides that was not quiet as overwhelming as "The Cheese".  We really had a blast...and all of my guilt over not having the homemade cake...the cheap favors...home party...was overridden by the smiles on their faces (and the fact that Daddy had the flu all week before!).  Sometimes we don't realize how much God steers us until we look backward at the direction of the path he led us on!

Staying!!!

After a long hiatus, decided to update and give this blog another go.  Like many others out there, we had home selling fiascos...buyers backing out last minute and such...have made peace with it and truly believe that we were meant to stay on these wonderful six acres and raise our little family.  I plan to keep track of our "renovating to make room" plans and post them here.  Weeks like these past few with sick mommas, daddys, and boys make me so thankful that we're not showing, packing, moving, and planning.  Bunk beds, toddler beds, and a coat-shoe-bag entry plan to come.

Blogger Procrastination and Renovation

• I've not made a habit of updating this blog as ofen as I would've liked.  I think that I'm holding back the mundane aspects of our days, thinking that I'll wait for something exciting to happen and blog about.  I'm considering adding some daily inspirations on here as a minimum to blog about.  We'll see how that goes.  With all of the renovating going on, I've been focusing a lot on our daily routines/living and saving simply.  I'm a huge Dave Ramsey fan and have lately been subscribing to e-mealz and love it !  We do the low-fat Wal-Mart plan.  It truly cost~$75 for 7 nice, well-balanced meals.  After the first week, we had to cut down to buying only 5 of the meals per week due to having too much food!  *Insert reminder here that our kids are 6, 4, and 13 months and do not consume the amount that they will be in their teens, at which point we may need to double this menu!  There is at least one item per meal that I can get my picky eater to try.  My next venture
  

New Makeup for Mommy

Today, I spent my bithday $ on new Jane Iredale makeup; seen  here.  I got the liquid minerals, powder spf, and circle/delete concealer.  I got these at a local spa, but would also love the sample palettes with eyeshadow/blush/lipstick on the website.  It's been a long while since I got new, quality makeup.  But honestly, with the frequency that I have to replace drugstore makeup, I'm not sure that I'm saving that much money by going cheap.  My mom used this for a while after a spa visit and I tried it on and loved how airy it felt.  So I'll let you know how I like it over the long run.  Pre-boys, I was a makeup/skincare junky.  Some women are clothes/jewelry junkies, but not me.  I guess wearing scrubs a couple of days a week takes the fun out of the wardrobe world for me.  The boys, young as they are, do not understand these girly purchases of mine.  Why in the world would I not buy myself the latest megatoy?  They looked at me as if I had just written a formal letter to Santa requesting only socks and underwear for Christmas.  The hubby partially understands these ' for me and only me' purchases.  They are good for the parenting soul.

Prepping for Sale

We're working tirelessly to meet our deadline of for-sale sign in yard by Easter.  As you can see by the pictures, we are in full prep-mode.  We have officially begun to cross into the territory where this is no longer feeling like our home anymore.  Taking the pictures of the boys down in the hallway was an extremely emotional process for me. Taking steps like that make me feel like I'm flailing in the wind.  I take extreme comfort in being 'settled' in a home.  Knowing that we are probably at least 1.5 years away from finally 'settling' makes me extremely uncomfortable.  I'm finding comfort, though, in simplifying our life by downsizing our 'stuff', which makes cleaning and 'showing' a house easier.  I'm also looking forward to when all the work is over and we can spend the next few months focusing on baseball and weekend adventures and planning and dreaming of our new home and staying away from this desolate one as much as possible to keep from constant cleanup.  I think that the warming of the spring days would also be extremely helpful with my spirits.  It's not a slight downer that it's spring break in the south and we're outside with coats and hats on.  Moving with kiddos means that things like double ear infections and sleepless nights and discipline and making -time-for-1on1-time and grocery budgets continues even when you're tired  and feel like using the tv as a babysitter. And the tooth-fairy doesn't take a day off, either.

New-Old House

Been a little distracted by dreams of this house, lately. We need a new home that will hold a family of 5+??? We love our area and school district...but, we've always loved this 1913 foursquare that my husband's grandmother owned. What to do? Say, honey, why don't we just hire an architect, make a few changes for the modern family (aka more than 1 bathroom), and create a beautiful new replica of this sentimental home to raise our boys in? I can assure you that the to-do list for this project is massive!!! Step 1: Do I have any takers on a beautiful 3 bd/2bath with glorious greatroom on 6 acres of beautiful pastureland seen here??

I must admit that we southerners feel a need to take multiple views of our homes and yards whenever it snows and these pics are rather misleading regarding our normal climate.  We are working diligently at 'staging' our home for quick sale (dreaming, I know) this spring.  And then there's the matter of balancing those boys in the midst of all this change...it should be an adventure.  Will post updates and moments of insanity as they occur!