Homemade Laundry Detergent

Last Summer I decided to venture into the world of homemade laundry soap. With two young kids we do a lot of laundry and I hated spending so much money on such little amount of laundry soap. I made my way to google and found that pretty much all homemade powder detergents consist of the same ingredients. Not only did I do it to save on cost (Even with buying the $4.99 Purex I was spending more on that than making homemade) but working towards more homemade in our lives :)

Above is what I used back last summer. It worked well but in my most recent batch I skipped the oxyclean and haven't noticed a difference in how well it cleans so I suppose it just depends on how dirty your clothes are. 

I've linked to the products on Amazon so you can see the product, but I've found it to be  quite a bit cheaper at the grocery store. 

Here is what you need:

2 bars of Fels Naptha or an alike product (These are only 98 cents each at my Walmart, so that goes to show you that it is cheaper to buy these items locally)

1 large box each of: Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, Borax Laundry Booster, Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 tub of Oxiclean

Grater

Large container to store it in

Large spoon to mix it with

Optional: Downy Unstopables In Wash Fresh Scent Booster

*I did find this combo pack on Amazon that brings down the cost if you need to purchase it on Amazon -Laundry Soap Kit - Fels Naptha, Borax & Washing Soda  

I know it looks a bit like cheese but I'd advise against eating it ;)

Mix all of it together. I hear it is easiest to do it in a 5 gallon bucket, but I just do it right in my glass container. The most time consuming part for me was grating the Fels-Naptha. Each load I put in two scoops with my scooper which I think is a total of around 3-4 tablespoons. You can of course easily adjust the amount to fit your needs. A batch of this lasts me 6-8 months depending on how much laundry we happen to go through. 

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Snowed In?!

So if you live in the continental US you know that as a whole we've been having an arctic blast. If you haven't been, consider yourself lucky! This last week we've gotten 12-13 inches of snow and had wind chills as low as -40. That's cold people! Thankfully we had a brief period of time when it had snowed but had not gotten cold yet, and we took full advantage of it. We went out while Wes was napping because we knew he wouldn't be a fan of being bundled up in the snow.

After that though temps dropped drastically and the winds picked up and we were stuck inside for 3 days. We made the best of it with games and coloring and who knew bath time could be so fun?!
Schools are still closed tomorrow and the kids haven't been back from Christmas break yet, I imagine there are some parents ready for the snow to melt ;)
Have you been snowed in? What are your tips and tricks to keeping the kids entertained when you can't get out of the house for a few days?
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New Years Resolutions

I try to keep away from the traditional resolutions of - eat better, lose weight, exercise more. Those are all things I hope to always be doing, but I typically don't make them resolutions. I tend to do 3, though I'm not sure why.
In any case, here they are: 1. Lose my phone more.        Typically I have my phone on my being constantly. There is never a chase to "lose" it. Not very often do I have to look for my phone. I want to find myself looking for my phone more in 2014 when I need to use it.
2. Be more patient with my children.          This might be a resolution every year...
3. Live by the "William Morris" quote that I posted before. 

source

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Christmas Card

Growing up we always sent out Christmas cards, and always had what seemed like an endless amount that we had received tacked up on the door frame to our living room. It was always fun seeing the card people had picked. We went the cheap environmentally friendly route this year and didn't get them printed and instead just used social media to "send" our card. I decided to make our own this year and went to work in photoshop. 
I am by no means a photoshop expert, and in fact wouldn't even say that I've very good at it at all! But thankfully I was able to come up with something that I was satisfied with and actually had it done before I even took the picture to go with it. 
From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

Did you do Christmas cards this year? Blog about it? Feel free to leave a link in the comments so I can come see!
Contact me (link at the top of the blog) and I will send you the photoshop file that you are free to use if you'd like.  ____________________________________________________________________   If you like my blog please click the image below.   There is nothing to sign up for, just click and you are done. Thanks!

Christmas Pictures

My kids' mood can change in an instant. Really, they quite possibly are 13 year olds disguised as small children. Knowing this, on the day that I wanted to take their Christmas pictures I knew I had to be quick. We set up our backdrop and got all of that ready before we even clued them in to the fact that we were going to take some pictures. I even had my camera completely ready before we got them dressed. Basically I knew we wouldn't get much time haha

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out though. Of course I wish I could have gotten more and I wish my lighting would have been better etc, but I feel like it captures them pretty well and so I'm happy. 
Here are a few of my favorites:

Did you have Christmas pictures taken? Did you take them yourself or have someone else do them?

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Teacher Christmas Gift

When my daughter first started at her preschool I started to take note of teacher gifts that would pop up in my Pinterest feed. I knew I wanted to do something fun, budget friendly and not another teacher gift that they would just toss or stick in a cabinet to collect dust. 

What's the answer to that? Food... always food. Or more specifically candy. I know they will get plenty of candy, but at least if they have an over abundance they can pass it on. It's a little tough to give your Aunt Sally who is an accountant a mug that says, "World's Best Teacher". She might catch on to the "regift" ;)
So this is what I ended up with and while I wish I would have gotten the card printed vs my 3rd grade-ish handwriting (hey, maybe she'll think I had and older sibling do it and find it endearing...) I'm pretty happy with the simple gift. The tag reads, "A teacher can't live on apples alone. She needs "hugs" too!"

I paid $1.98 at Walmart for the bags, which included the bag, a decorative piece that goes at the bottom of the bag and the ribbon. It came with 6, so I'll use the rest to give cookies in as gifts. .75 each for the cookie cutters and the "Hugs" were $2.98 also at Walmart. 
It took me all of 10 minutes. Not too bad if I do say so myself. Oh and I may have eaten a piece or two myself... ____________________________________________________________________   If you like my blog please click the image below.   There is nothing to sign up for, just click and you are done. Thanks!

Snow!!

I'm not a cold weather person. I'm fine with fall and sweatshirt weather, but when that temp drops, I'm not thrilled. With that said, I DO like snow! (well you know, if I don't have to drive in it) So when it snowed the passed weekend my girl and I had to get out into it. 
Last year she wasn't such a fan but this year she is all about it. I asked her something like 20 times if her hands were cold and she just kept saying no. They HAD to have been cold... we had gloves on but mine were cold, so I think she was too excited to be cold. We had a blast making a snowman and she woke up yesterday morning wanting to make another one :)

I had the husband take pictures of us from inside while he held Wes, so Norah was slightly confused as to where she should be looking :)

Have you gotten any snow yet  this year? Love it? Hate it? Don't care? 
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Oh the Lights

We've found that Christopher is a fan of Christmas lights! We can't blame him, we love them too!

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Kitchen

We found Christopher in Norah's room early this morning. We think he was whipping up a breakfast smoothie.  ____________________________________________________________________   If you like my blog please click the image below.   There is nothing to sign up for, just click and you are done. Thanks!

Helping Decorate

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Message from Christopher

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Countdown

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The Reason

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View From Above

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Breakfast Helper

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Ice Cream Anyone?

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Stocking Fun

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Helping With the Coffee

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Brrr!

Apparently we keep our home a little too warm for an Elf. I should have known that an Elf is probably use to cooler temps!

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Tick Tock

In the short time that Christopher has been here he has already found out that we are a timely family! He made his way up to the top of our wall clock, probably because he knew we'd see him several times  today as we are often looking at the clock :)

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