Soap!

 
  For a few years now, I've been wanting to make my own soap but been busy with the whole baby thing.  I finally found some time to make it, and to my surprise, it is quiet easy.  Yes, there is a chemical involved that will eat your skin (why I haven't done it with little ones around), and yes, there is math involved.  But, the end result is so exciting. 
  I've made 2 batches the past 2 nights.  One batch was soap bars, and the other was shampoo bars.  I plan on making a third batch next week, laundry soap to make detergent out of of.  (I would make it tonight, but we're having a party tomorrow.  I need to do some hosting work)  I'm making so much right now because it has to cure for a month before it can be used, and we move in three months.  I want to make sure I have plenty of everything and cured before we move.  I also want to use up all the lye (the nasty chemical) before we move.  I would have made a 4th batch of castile soap (100% olive oil), but that will have to wait.
 
  Here's the breakdown of cost for the soap (4 oz bars):
    Bath soap--$1.79 a bar
    Shampoo bar--$2.17 a bar
    Laundry soap--21 cents  a bar  (this will drop my detergent cost to about a penny a load)

  If you were to buy these online or in some frilly store (I used good stuff to make these):
    Bath soap--$4-7 a bar
   Shampoo bar--$4-10 a bar
   Laundry soap--97 cents to $1.50

 So, there you go.  I've been up super late the past few nights making soap, looking online for recipes, and doing calculations.  I've even worn my lab coat and safety goggles.  I guess soap will fill my lab need until I can go back to work. ;)

Happy 4th of July! (Late)

 
  We had a good 4th.  We stayed home all day and did fireworks in our backyard before it was even dark.  We were in bed way before the city's fireworks, so to Brandon and me, it was a very good day.

Busy Summer

  Payton has been here, and now that he going back in 6 days, I'm finally feeling adjusted to having 3 kids.  It's been great having him here.  I've been able to do some fun things with him that the girls are too young to really care about.  Allison enjoyed them but not as much as Payton.

    We made slime.

 Made Allison a "car" for her birthday.

 Peanut butter  playdough

 Bouncy balls (big mess and failure)

 Ivory soap clouds

That we turned into personalize soap.

  Oh, and fireworks in a jar that I didn't get a good picture of.  I keep forgetting to get the correct food coloring for them to work well.  I'm not sure if we'll do anymore experiments before he leaves, but they have definitely been the highlight of this summer.  Almost everyday he has asked to do one, but I've limited them 1-2 a week.

Busy Bags!

I had been wanting to try some of these for awhile.  Moneysavingmom.com is a great blog (I don't follow many blogs outside of friends and family) for ideas to save money, things to do with kids, and great easy freezer-friendly meals.  On there, she has always talked about her busy bags.  I finally sat down and looked at them one day and realized that I had the material to do some of them.  She even has a plan to do a busy bag swap.  It's where you get as many friends involved as you can, and you each make a busy bag as many friends there are.  I posted something on FB about it but only had 4 people respond.  I don't know if that's worth the trouble of buying supplies.  I might ask again later for interest since it's summer right now.  We spend most of our time outside these days. 

 Anyway, my 1st busy bag idea was the pom-pom pusher since I had the supplies on hand.  Basically, cut a hole in the top of a container and let the child push pom-poms through the hole.  Allison played with it for 45 minutes the 1st time!  Since then, she won't play with it that long but long enough to keep her busy so that I can get some things done.

  My 2nd one was completely free to make.  A friend gave us some eggs, so free egg carton.  The Easter eggs came from a free egg hunt, and I got the markers to color the carton free at Walgreens with a coupon. 

   Again super easy to make.  I didn't have enough eggs to fill up the whole carton, so I cut it in half (I guess I paid for the scissors 10 yrs ago).  You then color the bottom of the egg holder with different colors.  The child then puts the egg in the corrsponding color.  This entertained Allison for 10 minutes the 1st time.  She also played with it the other day when I was trying to get dinner ready. 
  I'll have to buy supplies to make the other busy bag ideas but so far so good in keeping Allison busy.  There is a cute clothesline idea that I'll probably do soon because Allison likes to help with the clothesline outside but gets frustrated that she can't reach the 6-foot high line. :)

Cereal Bars! Kinda

  My girls love cereal bars.  Many mornings the 1st thing out of Allison's mouth is, "E bar."  Sometimes I give in and other days I don't.  Have you ever looked at the ingredients?  They are aweful, so I definitely wanted to try a healthier version.  I found a recipe online for cereal bar cookies.  I thought this would be good b/c they would be smaller and hopefully not as messy.  Wrong, but they are so good.  They are about the size of muffin.

Some did leak everywhere.

But most of them stayed intact.

  These are definitely healthier b/c A. I can read the ingredients and B. They are made out of oatmeal and whole wheat flour.  Next time I'm going to add some flax meal to them.  There is brown sugar and butter also, but at least my body knows how to digest that stuff properly.  It's basically a muffin made out of struesel topping and has jelly in the middle.  I think I will keep  making these b/c they are easy, but definitely not as neat and car friendly as I was hoping.  Oh well, good thing I'm trying to get in the habit of vacuuming the van once a week.

Comparing Apples to Apples

I thought I would show the difference in size between my two girls with a t-shirt that they both wore.  Allison wore it once when she was 7 months old, and now Mary-Kate wore it for the 1st time today at 13 months.  It was very tight on Allison and now loose on Mary-Kate.  The shirt is size 12 mo. 

 Can't even go past the belly. :)

I had to post 2 pictures of Allison b/c she was so cute.  This isn't even her peak chubbiness.

  They are both 19/20 lbs in the pictures, but Mary-Kate is a few inches longer than Allison was when she wore the shirt.  Oh, the title is due to the apple shirt in case anyone couldn't read the shirt.

Busy in the Kitchen

I'm on another "homemade" kick in the kitchen. In a way, it's out of pure laziness oddly enough. I hate shopping of any kind. Unfortunately that includes grocery shopping, and I like to cook and Brandon likes to eats. Therefore I have to go quite often. I make a monthly food menu (its different every month bc again we like food), so I make huge shopping trips 2 or 3 times a month and then supplement trips during the week. Anyway, I kept forgetting to get Goldfish crackers and animal crackers, staples in toddler world. Therefore I made my own out if the desperate cries for crackers and cookies.
Both were super easy to make. The crackers only required 4 ingredients and animal crackers required 8. Both done in the food processor. The cheese crackers are good, but I'm not a cheese fan. Allison and Brandon love them even though they are not as crisp. The animal crackers are pretty darn good and close to the store bought ones.
A few other things I've made are larabars, kefir, and banana pops. The larabars are great a cheap alternative to the store bought one and refined sugar free. Dates are used as a sweetener. I used unsweetened chocolate in mine, and you cannot tell the difference.
Kefir is easy but time consuming but the health benefits are worth it. And I banana pops bc I had many ripe bananas to deal with. I used Wilton candy melts, and the chocolate hardened immediately.
Here is also a picture of the wedding cake for the few people who view this and not on FB. See, I've been busy.