Cute Kids' Underwear Revisited

I'm all done!!  I finally got the time made the time to finish Little Love # 5's latex-free underwear!!

For those of you who missed the first post about Little Fishies Undies by Fishsticks Designs, you can catch it here.  No, I'm not getting any kind of monetary compensation (or compensation of any kind, for that matter) for mentioning these, but I really, really love this pattern and I really, really love how these turned out.

I had one yard each of the blue, pink, and yellow, and I had half a yard of the print.  I was able to get a dozen pairs.  Had I planned ahead before cutting and figured out the best pattern layout, etc, I maybe could have gotten another pair or two out of my fabric.  But I got too eager to get started to take the time to plan like that, so an even dozen it is.

It took me two days to get them cut out, pinned, and sewn--of course, that's with about 500 interruptions from the kids.  Something about needing to eat and potty and other such trifles.  Seriously, don't they understand anything about priorities?  =)

Anyway, the skivvies are so bright and fun and cute, and she keeps trying to put them on and bringing them to me to put on her.  I took a break from cloth diapering recently to try to get caught up on my other laundry, and now she refuses to wear cloth diapers again.  So it looks like we'll be potty training sooner, rather than later.  I may actually have a few months completely diaper-free before the new baby comes--I haven't had that in more than 8 years!!  WOO HOO!!!

Any potty training tips for a toddler under two years old?

My Tot Clocks

Ok, so this isn't a craft I've made or anything, but this is a product that I couldn't live without.  No, I'm not getting any kind of monetary (or any other) compensation or anything for this, but I thought that those of you with kids--especially toddlers--might appreciate knowing about these, too.  It's called My Tot Clock and we own two of them, considering getting a third.

(Sorry for the crooked picture--it's me that's crooked, not the clock.)

These clocks are absolutely amazing!  Our older kids knew from a very young age that they're not allowed to get out of bed (except to go potty and then right back to bed) until we went and told them they could get up.  But then they'd wake up and call us to let us know they were awake--usually way before we were ready to get up.  The little ones don't understand clocks and how they work, so telling them not to get out of bed until a certain time doesn't work--they don't know if that time has already passed while they slept, and a digital clock doesn't work if they are still too little to know their numbers.

This clock changes colors.  It turns dark blue at bedtime (you program in your bed time), then it turns yellow when the kids are allowed to get out of bed in the morning.  There's also a light blue you can use for nap time (again, you set how long nap time is).

There are also red and green lights for time outs or clean up timers or play timers or whatever.  We don't do time outs in the bedrooms and we don't play in our bedrooms, so I have all the "daytime" timers set for two hours.  Then, at nap time, I let the kids choose whether they want a light blue, red, or green clock.

Anyway, it's so nice for us to know that the kids are in bed and not going to get out of bed until 8:00 in the morning.  It's so nice for the kids to be able to glance at their clocks and know whether it's time to get up or not--plus, they have a nice, pretty colored night light.  You can change the face plates for different bedroom decor, too.

These clocks also play music and bedtime stories.  They will not wash dishes or do your laundry, but other than that, they're perfect!!

If you have kids, and especially if you have toddlers, these clocks are must-haves.  They have graciously given us the discount code MTCMBL11 to get 10% off the My Tot Clock at Amazon.com.

What tips and tricks do you have to help the kids stay in bed when they should?

Star Wars Bracelet

I'm a geek, my husband's a geek, and our kids are all geeks.  My poor kids certainly aren't "normal", but neither are my husband or I.  We both majored in sciences, and my kids love science--I homeschool, and we actually do two science curriculums every year, they're so science-hungry.

My sister-in-law asked us last year where she could get us a gift card to as a gift for the family.  Her other sister asked for a gift card to Chuck E. Cheese. (Chuck E. Cheese, with all the balloons, is a death trap for my latex-allergic Little Love #5--not that I mind a great excuse to never take my kids there.)  But when I told my sister-in-law that our whole family would love a gift card to Think Geek, she said that she really worries about my kids.  (By the way, it was way fun for all of us to decide what we wanted from Think Geek.  I LOVE that store!)

Anyway, I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan.  My kids are, too!  We've only let the oldest two watch only Episode I, but they ask a ton of questions.  They can tell you all about the ecology of Dagobah, they know that wookies live on Kashyyk, and they know that Darth Vader is Luke's father and Leia is his sister.  I guess there won't be the element of surprise when they ever get to watch the later movies, but I must admit that it's awfully fun to hear them spouting off facts and playing their Star Wars games "true-to-life," so to speak.

I had a large bin full of all sorts of Star Wars toys, games, etc--all unopened--that I finally decided to divvy up between my kids, nieces, and nephews.  They were all thrilled, and it was kind of nice to not have to store all of that stuff any more.  One thing I still had not given away or opened was an R2-D2 Lego pen.

 I finally opened it today just to find it has a rubber grip--not so good in a house where we try to eliminate all things rubber.

So that went in the garbage, but I still had all of these fun Legos Star Wars beads and an R2-D2.  (You know your pen is a good and fun one when it comes with instructions!)

I'm really big on repurposing things.  I don't like to throw perfectly good and fun stuff away!  So I decided that these beads would make a great bracelet.  Some elastic thread (latex-free, of course), some glass beads, and a drop of hot glue later, and I have this fun bracelet!

My 8-year-old is begging me to let her have it.  No way, Dearie.  This one's mine!  Complete with a bead that even says Star Wars.

Little R2 didn't make the cut for the bracelet.  My kids have been begging for another Legos R2 to play with (I'm suspecting they saw this pen in my bedroom and were just itching to get their little hands on it), so he became theirs to love and enjoy.

And just for fun, here's a drawing my six-year-old son did of Qui-Gon Jinn fighting a battle droid.

Gotta love it!

Amazed by Life #2

It never ceases to amaze me how much dirty laundry a family of seven can make.

It never ceases to amaze me how one little tablespoon of Charlie's Soap can wash an entire extra large load of clothes and leave them nice and clean.

It never ceases to amaze me how you can have a laundry basket sitting there and somehow more dirty clothes end up on the floor around it instead of actually in it.

It never ceases to amaze me how in the olden days they would use a washboard to wash clothes in a large pot with boiling water, with larger families than mine, and they still kept up with it better than I do.

It never ceases to amaze me how you can have so many socks that mysteriously end up with no pair.

What in life amazes you?

Best Deodorant Ever!

Ok, some people totally freak out when I tell them that I make my family's deodorant.  But really, what's the big deal?  This stuff works waaaaaaay better than anything you can buy in the store, it's inexpensive, takes about 2 minutes to make, and has none of the nasty and scary ingredients in the store-bought stuff (like aluminum).  This stuff isn't technically an antiperspirant, because it doesn't prevent you from sweating (It's not so good to purposefully clog your pores anyway), but it helps absorb the sweat, so you still stay dry.  My hubby uses it, and still feels and smells great when he's been out working in 100*+ weather all day.

So, ready to make your own?  All you need are 4 basic ingredients:  baking soda, arrowroot powder, coconut oil, and the essential oil(s) of your choice.

***Ok, so in the picture below, I have tapioca starch instead of arrowroot powder.  I accidentally ran out of arrowroot powder, but I found the tapioca starch tucked back in the cabinet, and it works in a pinch.  I don't recommend using a starch, as they can feed yeast.  And nobody wants a yeast infection under their arms.  Also, if you are allergic to latex, DON'T use tapioca.  Tapioca comes from the casava tree, which is in the rubber tree family.  Rubber tree=latex=not good to smear on your body.***

You also need a container to put the deodorant in.  I don't recommend using an empty deodorant container for this recipe.  Coconut oil melts at low temperatures, so this deodorant is often very soft--especially in the summer.  If you keep your house freezing cold all the time, you may be able to get away with it.  I put mine in a tin.

Here's the recipe:

1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
4 TBSP coconut oil
essential oil (just use however much you want, until it smells how you want it to)

Simply measure out the ingredients into your container and stir.

All done!!

It just doesn't get any simpler than that.  My hubby prefers "manly" scents like patchouli, cedar, etc.  My daughter's favorite is lavender.  Like many other things in life, I get bored with the same thing all the time, so I use whatever excites me at the moment and switch it up the next time.  Let me also say that I do NOT recommend tea tree oil for deodorant, unless you use a very little bit and overpower the smell with a different essential oil.  Tea tree oil is bit stinky anyway, and once you apply it under your arms it seems to immediately smell like body odor.  It's just the smell of the oil itself, but you may want to use a different oil for this.

Unfortunately for me, however, baking soda makes me itch.  I'm not sure why.  But even if I just use plain baking soda, I get itchy.  So I use the following recipe for my own deodorant.  It works great, but it doesn't keep you nice and dry like the above recipe.  But if you have problems like I do with the one above, try this one.  I found it at Crunchy Betty:

1 1/2 TBSP grated beeswax
4 TBSP coconut oil
1 TBSP shea butter
4 tsp bentonite clay
essential oil

You melt the beeswax and coconut oil together (she does it on the stove, I do it in the microwave in short, 10-second bursts).  Add the shea butter until melted, then add the clay and essential oils.  (If you're allergic to latex, do NOT use shea.  The tree shea comes from is closely related to the rubber tree, so you may have problems with shea as well.)

This recipe is a lot more oily-feeling, so I use a small spatula to scoop it out and apply it.

If you don't have a local place to purchase your beeswax, clay, shea butter, and essential oils at a decent price, one of my favorite online stores is Majestic Mountain Sage--good prices, great quality!

So go, make some deodorant, smell good, be healthy, and enjoy!

Home Redo--Living Room/Kitchen

We bought our house nearly 7 years ago.  Thankfully, my husband and I were both able to see the potential in the house.  We were looking for good "bones" to work with for the right price, knowing that we'd never find the ready-to-go-perfectly-ideal house for us.  So while there are things that will never be ideal for me in our house (for example, I can't stand our split entry), we knew that we could change most things to fit our tastes.

So, scattered throughout various other projects and random bits of thought on this blog, I figured I would share various redos from our house.  It's an ongoing project, but we have most of the upstairs finished and part of the downstairs finished.  I have lots of before and after pictures and lots of craziness from the original owners (only one family owned the house prior to us--they actually had it built).

I'm going to start today with the kitchen/living room.  This is how the living room looked when we first bought the house:

You may be asking yourself, "Why are those walls so shiny and reflective?"  The answer is that the walls weren't covered by ordinary wallpaper--at least not on the surface.  Oh, no.  That would be way too normal for the people who owned this house.  Instead, they went to the store and bought contact paper.  You know, that peel-and-stick stuff that you always line your drawers with in a new apartment because it seems to somehow create an impenetrable barrier between the previous tenants' germs and your silverware.  Yes, that was all over the walls throughout the living room, entry, and down the hallway.

We also had this lovely blue carpet that was absolutely infested with fleas.  As soon as you walked into the house, you immediately had at least 5 of them on your pants.  But remember in the book The Hiding Place when Corrie Ten Boom shows that they could thank God for the fleas because it kept the guards out of their bunks while they were holding Bible studies?  I also thanked God for the fleas.  This house was the right size for the right price, but it somehow sat empty for 6 months before we bought it, and it was on the market for even longer than that.  I believe that God may have used the fleas to keep other people from buying it so that we could.  Not sure which helped more--the fleas or the contact paper.

Or these wooden spindles:

Don't they just scream out SEVENTIES!?!?!?!?  And that leads us into the kitchen.  It was part wall paper (the real stuff this time), part paint.  

And yes, those are geese on the cabinets.  No offense if you love all things geese.  I have nothing against the real animals.  But I do have something against fake awful-looking ones residing on my cabinets.

So, here's what we did.  Once we took posession of the house, we had less than a month until our apartment lease ran out.  The first thing I did was to grab that contact paper and start ripping it down.  Amazingly, it peels off of walls really easily!  The next thing we did was bomb the fleas.  My hubby's wonderful aunt and cousins came out to help and his cousin Emily scrubbed those horrid geese off of my cabinets.  

Over time came other changes.  We ripped out the wall between the living room and kitchen, making them into one bigger room.  We also pulled out the carpet and redid the floors with a hardwood laminate.  We painted everything a pretty and mellow khaki-green color, removed the counter along the south wall (you'll see it again later, in a different location in the house) and built in pantries.

Here are the living room and kitchen now--no more contact paper glare!  However, it appears that we still need sunglasses in the house.

Here are inside the pantries.  My hubby and his dad put a counter into the one on the right, with outlets.  That way we're able to keep small appliances in there instead of out on the counters.  Brilliant idea, isn't it?

This is the end of part 1 of our house redo.  We got rid of some interesting things the original owners did.  What interesting details and quirks have you found in your house as a result of the prior owners?

Amazed by Life #1

It never ceases to amaze me how I can have a recipe box full of recipes and the entire internet at my fingertips, yet I can't come up with a single recipe that all 7 people in my house want to eat and are able to eat at the same time.

 It never ceases to amaze me how much food tiny little people can consume.  

It never ceases to amaze me how my Blendtec can work so hard every day and look just as pretty as when I first bought it.

It never ceases to amaze me how my Blendtec can chop all those hard veggies and fruits into something smooth and yummy without a sharp blade.

It never ceases to amaze me how my three-year-old can gulp down an 8-oz glass of green smoothie without stopping to take a single breath.

It never ceases to amaze me how many dishes 7 people can dirty in one day.

What in life amazes you?