Homemade Laundry Soap

Yes I'm nuts, yes I've made my own laundry soap!

I know a few people who have made their own laundry soap and absolutely love it. I thought I would give it a try...

Homemade Laundry Soap
1/3 bar Ivory soap
½ cup washing soda
½ cup borax powder
~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~
(I doubled the recipe and used a 5 gallon bucket)

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

Raspberry Jam

My in-laws have raspberry bushes in their garden and this year has been a great crop. The last two years they have hardly got berries, but this year with all the rain and nice warm days, they've had a HUGE crop. The boys and I picked a ton and decided to make some jam. I found the simplest and tastiest recipe, no sure-gel was needed.

Aiden and Owen helped me smash the berries and measure the sugar.



The finished product!!!


Raspberry Jam
4c. mashed raspberries
4c. granulated sugar
1T. lemon juice

Bring 4 cups mashed berries to a boil in pot
Let them boil approx. 2 minutes
Add 4 cups sugar and 1 T. lemon juice
Stir until the sugar dissolves and bring back up to a boil
Let the berry/ sugar mix boil approx. 4 minutes.
Spoon into hot sterilized jars.

Talkin' Tuesday

I have a habit of calling the boys Frick and Frack, so while leaving the house the other day I said to Owen.....

L:"C'mon Frack"

He quickly replied, with a bit of attitude too....

O: "I no Frack, I Onen!"

It's so cute to hear him say his own name. He has a hard time with the "w" and his name always comes out Onen. It's funny the names he has for everyone, he can say Aiden put calls him Dee Dee. His cousin Chloe is always called Clodey. My nephew David is always called Kyle. And the cutest one lately is his new baby cousin Luke is called Wook.

Luke

I had some fun taking pictures of Luke today...it was nice to see him with his eyes open!

Aiden's On Fire....

Aiden has really come out of his shell the last few games. He is getting a bit more aggressive and getting in there to get the ball. His team did so well tonight, they have really started working together.












He looks like he's going to kick some butt in this picture....cracks me up.

Talkin' Tuesday

Aiden loves to check the weather. I can ask what the weather is going to be like today and he'll grab my Iphone and go right to the weather app and tell me if it's going to rain or be sunny and what the tempature will be. Last week was a cold and rainy week and I had made the comment....

L: I hope that it warms up soon.

A: Don't worry mom, Grandpa said it would be in the 70's next week. They are just on vacation right now.

I wish the weather man would put it like that, makes it sound much better....

Make A Wish

Owen blowing out the candles on his monkey cake....

Birthday Boy!

Owen has been talking about his birthday all week. When he woke up Saturday morning and I went to get him from his crib it was a little bittersweet, my baby wasn't a baby anymore. He was so excited to find his present from Gary, Aiden and I on the table. He quickly opened it and was thrilled with his tool set. Of course Aiden was excited about Owen's new toys also, but Owen promptly made it clear that they were all his.

The past two years have gone by in a blur, I've been out numbered in this house of boys and wouldn't change a thing....

Chloe Comes Over To Play

Tim came over to work on the plumbing in the bathroom the other day and brought along Chloe to play with the boys. I was daring enough to pull out the play-doh for all three of the kids to play with


Chloe

Building a tower....

Sooo Big...

I just loved these pictures of Owen and had to share them.  Gary got a new camera so we've been having fun playing....

Talkin' Tuesday

Owen is my little talker, well I guess so is Aiden, but Owen has been a jabbering fool lately....here are a few of his silly sayings....

C'mon dudes....
Shake a my bootay...
Peace Yo...

My favorite lately, I play a game with the boys in the car to keep them occupied.  I say "Who can find a _____", and the boys look out the window to find the random thing I name.  It's usually a flag.  Driving home the other day the boys were quiet, we haven't even played our game that day and I hear from the back seat....

" I see a flag...haha"  

Gotta love the little guy....

Introducing......

The newest member of the Scott Family....

Luke Anthony Scott
April 30, 2010
Born @ 12:44 pm
7lbs 2 oz
20.5 inches





Luke with his proud Daddy



Meeting his big brothers

Update

Updates:

The McFarland's have had a busy few weeks...here's what's going on....

Owen: The little stinker is about a week away from his second birthday. He is such the opposite of Aiden at this age. He's a curious little monkey that gets into things and insists on doing things on his own. Last week I took him for a hair cut and he sure does look like a big kid now. He has no fear when it comes to climbing the tallest slide at the playground and going down all by himself. He LOVES to be outside and swing or play in the dirt. His favorite thing in the world would have to be a ball, and throwing anything he can get his hands on. When Aiden was his age I would ask him, "Whose baby are you?" Aiden would promptly reply "Mommy's". I've started asking Owen the same question, his reply has been...."I a big boy"....

Aiden: He has been enjoying soccer, he has practice every Monday and games on Saturdays. Somehow he ended up on an all girl team but that hasn't bothered him a bit. We've been working on being a bit more aggressive and trying to get the ball, it's such the opposite of Aiden's timid personality so it's been a bit tough. Aiden is a whiz with my IPhone and has more apps on it than I do. He can even search through the app store and find which ones are free so he can download them. Gary's Grandma gave him $5 for Easter recently and he asked me to put in the bank so he could buy more apps.

Gary: He's had a rough few weeks and been down for the count with colitis. He has more tests today, so hopefully we get him well and back to his old self. He's even managed to rub in the fact he's lost 25 lbs in the last few weeks. Not the way he'd want to do it but he still rubs it in.

Lindsey: All I can say is aggghhhhh. I'm ready for the craziness of the last few weeks to slow down a bit. This single parenting I've been doing since Gary has been sick stinks...so far these last few weeks I've dealt with two clogged toilets (thanks Aiden), and cutting the lawn only to have the front wheel fall off and then run it over...

Talkin' Tuesday

Aiden walking around the house with his nose up in the air, sniffing....

A:  What's that wonderful smell?
L:  Lysol

Glad to know that he finds the smell nice, I'm going to be using a lot since Gary has been home sick for two days.

Aiden's First Soccer Game

Aiden had his first soccer game this morning.  He did an awesome job even in the 35 degree weather.  Both teams even scored a few goals.   Hopefully next weekend it's a little warmer...

Oh, he is number 20 in the white jersey by the way.

Easter Eggs

I found the greatest thing to color Easter eggs this year at Walmart. It was an egg spinner, and to top it off it was only 5 bucks!! You put the egg in, put a few drops of colored dye on the egg, snap the top on and push the button to spin the egg. It was fantastic, no spilled dye, no splashing, even Owen could do it.

Happy 7th Birthday David!

Tomorrow is David's 7th birthday, boy how times flies I remember being so excited to be an aunt!

Jessica and Tony had a little bowling party today for David and a few of his friends. The boys had a great time, it was Aiden and Owen's first time bowling. Owen was so excited, anything that involves a ball gets him excited.

Some Re-Modeling Pics

Just thought I would share some pictures of the remodeling project so far. Tom was over this weekend to help Gary out and they got a lot of the demolition done. We decided to raise the ceiling in the bathroom up to 8 feet, these crazy cottage ceilings are so low. Gary and Tom framed in and insulated for the added height and then busted out the old plaster ceiling.
 
 
 
There is only one wall left to knock down and that one is drywall so hopfully it won't be as messy as the plaster. Once that wall comes down I'll have a huge bathroom and we can start the tiling.

Snowman Family

The boys and I headed outside to play in the snow on Sunday, Aiden thought it would be fun to build a whole snowman family. The boys helped me roll the first snowball for our first snowman and then gave up and went to play on the swingset. So.....guess who was left to build the rest of the family?....me! After rolling all those snowballs I also kind of gave up and didn't add much decoration to the snowmen other than arms. After playing outside for awhile we went in to warm up and I got out my camera to take a picture and one of the snowmen. Of course by the time we got in one had fallen over already. Tom was here helping Gary re-do the bathroom and surprised me by going out and standing up the snowman...he even added some touches to the fallen snow"woman". Can you guess which one it was?
 
 

Sewing, sewing, sewing

I've been working on a little sewing project to use as favors for the "Sprinkle" we are throwing for Jessica. Mom came over last weekend and helped finish them up....


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