The Kids

Here are the pics of the kids from our photo session. I love them. I can stare at pictures of my kids all day long. Again, remember these are very low resolution, because I didn't want to spend all day loading the pics onto Blogger. Enjoy!

Family Pictures

This year, we had our Family pictures taken at the Capitol. It was really fun! My friend Natalie Rickards took the pictures. She's a fabulous photographer. These pictures are a very low resolution of what she gave us. I just wanted to be able to load them quickly onto the blog and Facebook. I have very large files to print from. Enjoy! Look for our family picture in our holiday card this year. BTW, I'm making all of the cards!! I'm excited :)

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Yep! That's right, I made my own laundry detergent today! It was super easy and so fun too. I was inspired by this blog. It took me a couple of days to locate all of the ingredients. But, once I did, it was just a matter of grating the bar soap and mixing it up! I put it in this cute jar and tied a ribbon on it. It looks so pretty and happy in my laundry room. I even got a little silver scooper to use with it.

Here's the recipe I used:

3 bars Pink Zote Soap

4 pound box of Borax

4 pound box of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda

4 pound box of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 small bucket of Oxyclean (30 oz)

The Borax, Baking Soda and Oxyclean are available almost anywhere. I found them at Walmart. The Pink Zote and the Washing Soda were a different story. It seems that they aren't stocked on my side of town. I hit the stores that were recommended online to be known to carry these items, but no luck. I had to go to the part of town where they speak more Spanish than English and, then I had to go to the right Dollar store and I finally found my final ingredients.

I used my Kitchen Aid grater to grate the bars of soap. I thought it was really pretty! And then I had to use a garbage bag to mix it all together. It makes a BUNCH of detergent. I washed my first load with it today and every thing turned out very clean. I took the advice on this blog and used white vinegar as my fabric softener and it is awesome. It also said that the cost break down for this detergent is about $0.08 per load. That's WONDERFUL! Let me know if you decide to make some too!

What's up with us?

We've been busy! I've been really busy crafting... but most of the things I'm making are going to be gifts for the holidays, so I can't post them here. However, I just did a project today that I'm really excited about, and I'll post it next. Until then... Here are some pictures that show what's been going on around here lately.

Lily LOVES to cut up paper. She cuts EVERYTHING! For Halloween, Grandma EE (Scott's grandmother) sent each kid a Halloween card and a dollar. As you can see, Lily cut her dollar up. I asked her why, she said, "Well, Mom, I was trying to put it in my piggy bank, but it was too big." Sure enough, the other bits of the dollar were inside her piggy bank. Of course, I explained that she couldn't use the dollar because she cut it up, and I think she gets it now. Or, at least she promised not to cut up money again.

This is the standard scene at our house every morning. All of the kids love to pile on dad!

I loved Wyatt's expression in this picture.

This is the party invitation that I made for Madeline's birthday party. She is going to have a cookie baking party. I think we are all excited for it.

This was taken this morning in my closet. It was Lily's idea. Silly kids!

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/handmade-dress-patterns-guest-giveaway.html

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/handmade-dress-patterns-guest-giveaway.html

Another giveaway I had to enter. I love this blog!

Halloween

Here are some Halloween shots of my cutie pies!

Wyatt was my spider (I was Little Miss Muffet). This picture was on Friday, before the trick-or-treat party at Lily and Madeline's preschool.

Here we all are at the school (minus Scott, who dressed as my Tuffet). The girls were both Thumbelina.

Preschool lineup

Mid-way through the trick-or-treat (in a shopping center), Borders Books had a story time for us. The kids enjoyed the break.

Ian and Grace came up for Halloween. We went to a park to play on Saturday mid-day. The kids found that their hair was CRAZY when they went down the slide laying on their backs. So silly!

Halloween night... Ready to go! I had glow necklaces for all the kids. I wasn't going to dress up Saturday night, but the kids really wanted me to. We all had a ball. Ian was a Death Eater from Harry Potter (he's read all of the books!), Grace was a punky witch. Gwenny and Mitchell joined us too and they went as Tinkerbell and Peter Pan.

Another dress, and a sleeping princess...

Some more pictures from last week. I find it hilarious that Madeline won't take a nap, but usually manages to sleep a little in the afternoon. Here she is sleeping on the arm of our couch. My sweet little princess.

This is another dress that I put together. Lily has a ton of clothes, thanks to some wonderful hand me downs. Really, there are more clothes than she can wear. So, I took a dress that was too fancy for every day wear and I cut off the bottom of it and attached it to this t-shirt. Now, we have a t-shirt dress that is perfect to wear over leotards for school! Super cute, super fast and easy! Lily loves it!