Mini bunk beds for mini girls

 Lydia has been sleeping in a pack n play in our closet since she was about 6 months old. At first, this was a great arrangement because she still needed to wake up in the middle of the night to eat. But now she is able to sleep through the night, and since she's almost two and getting taller, the time has come for us to figure out how to get her out of our closet.

 We looked and looked around on craigslist for bunk beds, but they were all out of our price range. So Matt decided that he'd be able to make toddler-sized bunks for under $100, and since we already had the mattresses and blankets, it'd be a lot cheaper.

 He decided to make these beds out of wood, like our table. Instead of using screws or nails, he used a biscuit joiner and pegs.

 Charlotte has been so anxious for them to be done.

 Lydia has really liked them too, although we'll see how well she does when we try to transition her.

 It took a lot of sanding and patience to do these bunks, but they are beautiful and very sturdy! Charlotte absolutely adores them. Lydia loves them until it's time for bed, and then she wants to head back to her pack n play. No worries about that though; she'll transition when she's ready. (In this photo she's mad that I'm not letting her play with the camera)

I love these.

The joys of my life

Leprechaun Trap!!

 Nan had to make a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day at school. She came home bursting with ideas and we tried to run with it! She wanted to use the silo for our Little People Barn set. Emily thought of covering the silo in aluminum foil to make it shiny, because leprechauns love shiny things and then Nathalie wanted to spray paint it gold, because leprechauns love gold.

Nathalie also decided to make a little sign welcoming in the leprechauns and then she wanted to print out four-leaf clovers and put them on the silo so that leprechauns would know that this was a "lucky" place to be. She also knew that in order to get up to the top, she would need a ladder and decided to make one out of pipe cleaners. Initially she wanted to spray paint the pipe cleaners gold as well, but then I explained that you can buy rainbow colored pipe cleaners, and she was sold on that idea!

Emily and I helped her figure out that we should use a tissue and tape it to the top, so when the leprechaun steps onto it, it breaks and he falls to the bottom. And then we asked Nathalie what we could use that was really light to put on the tissue-- and she said, "Let's spray paint pistachio shells gold! And Charlotte, you can eat the pistachios because I need the shells." hahaha, it was so funny!

All in all, she had a GREAT leprechaun trap....but unfortunately we didn't catch any leprechauns. Maybe next year!

Dried Collard Greens

 About 6 weeks ago, a woman at church gave us some "cabbage" plants. Wintertime in the South is a perfect time to grow cabbage, so we planted them right away. Well, we kept waiting and waiting for them to grow heads, but they never did. So we thought that maybe they were a type of stalk cabbage-- that is, until the same woman brought us some collard greens from her garden. And when I looked at her collard greens, I realized that the plants in our garden weren't cabbage! Well, Matt and I have absolutely no idea what to do with collard greens and we're not big fans of cooking them with ham and lard.....so we decided to dehydrate them.

 We had SO many. I kid you not-- we probably had three times the amount that you see in this picture. This sink was overflowing, and that was just one batch. All because we kept letting the greens grow, thinking it was cabbage!

 We cut out the stems on all of them, especially the biggest ones because the stems are really "fiber-y" and chewy. Then we cut up the leaves and layered them on the dehydrater.

 Our dehydrator is awesome, and with them layered thinly, could complete a batch in an hour. We had enough greens however, that we ended up doing 10-12 batches.

But the best thing about dehydrating is that it seriously cuts down on storage space. ALL those collard greens dehydrated down into one spice container from Sam's Club. We still have more collards to do, since they grew a lot this week once we got rid of the outer leaves, but in the meantime, we're sprinkling them into our soups and taco meat, our scrambled eggs and casseroles. It's a good thing we figured it out too, because even though we cut off tons of leaves, more have grown in their place. It's a great to way not waste the collards without actually having to taste them!

Puppy sitting

 Some neighbors went out of town and asked us to watch their dogs while they were gone. They had watched Odin over Christmas, so I said yes. Although when I said yes, they only had one dog....

 But a few weeks before they left, they got a "little" puppy-- little meaning young (around 8 weeks?) but not small. This puppy will grow to be 125-150 lbs, and at 12-16 weeks is already 20 lbs.

 The puppy was a BIG hit with the girls. At first they were confused because he slept all the time, but they soon realized that puppies need a lot of sleep, and so they started cuddling him when he slept.

 Charlotte especially loved him.

 Unfortunately, this puppy wasn't house trained. So that really made my life crazy....and eventually I started cutting holes in diapers and putting them on the puppy because he would defecate all over the house. Which of course meant that I was changing a baby's diapers AND a puppy's diapers and wiping both of their bums....seriously.

 See how "little" he is?

 Awww cute...

 Poor puppy was manhandled the entire weekend.

 Along with the puppy was the original dog we had agreed to watch-- a beautiful brindle boxer. She weighs in at 80-85 lbs. Bigger than Odin.

One afternoon I was reading while Lydia napped and Odin came and sat on me. Then the boxer came and sat next to Odin. This meant I had over 150 lbs of dog on me. Yikes!

All in all I learned two things-- I NEVER want three dogs. And I never want a little puppy. Give me an old puppy or young adult that is already mostly trained. And three dogs is too much!

Quilts

 This is Nan. She is 11 months old. Isn't she ADORABLE? I love her chubbiness.

 

In these pictures Nan is playing with fleece fabric I was trying to cut into squares for a big rag quilt. This was in 2010. I had enough squares to make a king size rag quilt, or two twins.

I finally finished the quilts in January of 2015. I had carted them around on moves and kept all 440 squares in a big tote. When we got here, the girls were just using their toddler sized quilts I'd made them but this year they outgrew them! They needed new winter quilts because even though the days are warm, nights get around 30 degrees. So I pulled out my big tote and started sewing, and sewing, and sewing. I finished the quilts around Thanksgiving but didn't have time to cut the edges because of Christmas and traveling. So after we got home, Matt and I cut the fringes. I cut a whole quilt and half of the other one in one day. My hands were hurting a lot, but I got them done and now my girls are warm. Now I need to make one for Charlotte!

Two weeks before Christmas I was still racking my brain on what I should get for Lydia's Santa gift.  Since we know that Lydia is just an extremely sensitive girl and so I decided to make her a "calm-down" blanket. Lydia loves animals and soft things and when she gets upset, she wants to "hide". I frequently cover her with a blanket or jacket or sweater to help her block out whatever is stressing her out. So I ordered lots of animal fabric and sewed together a bunch of rows, put some very light batting in the middle and added some minky to the back. I finished it Christmas Eve at 10pm.

I was trying to get a picture of the blanket, but this is what happens whenever I lay out the blanket. Someone gets on it.

 

This picture should help you get an idea of the blanket's lay out. It was extremely simple and easy to cut, pin and sew. The fabrics have cows, dogs, pigs, geese, ducks, alligators, elephants, lions, monkeys, bears, hippos, sheep, cats, toucans, and owls. She knows most of those sounds.

The blanket is a huge hit! She adores it. She sleeps with it every day, she cries when it's in the laundry, she pulls it off her crib when she's upset and wraps up in it. I bring it in the car if I think something might stress her, and she always, always, always wants to cuddle with it.

When we're cuddling, she will point to animals and start saying their names and making their noises. 3 months later and this blanket is her lovey. I'm so glad she likes it, and that it helps her feel secure.

My favorite part of the quilt is the owl minky on the back!

Cleaning Without Toxic Chemicals

Along with changing our eating habits over the last few years, we have also changed our cleaning habits. No, I'm still a clean freak. But now I don't use toxic chemicals anymore. Here is what we do instead:

Laundry Detergent
I have already talked about this one somewhat, but we make our own powdered laundry detergent. I have tried various kinds of homemade laundry detergent, and this works best for us. We mix 1 C baking soda, 1 C washing soda, 1 C borax, and 1 bar of grated fels-naptha (or you can use original ivory bar soap). Where to find fels-naptha? In the laundry aisle at a major grocery store. It's cheaper to buy in bulk online though. We usually buy it in bulk around $1 a bar.

The best part about this recipe is that I only use 2 tablespoons per load of laundry! Now, I have a very small washer, so you may need to use more if yours is bigger. But a double batch of homemade laundry soap lasts me about 2 months.

About smells: in the summer things get smelly around here. The heat, the mold, sweat-- it all combines to make clothes more likely to still smell when they come out of the wash. If you like your clothes smelling like something, try adding an essential oil to each load. But if you don't want your clothes to smell like anything, especially mold or sweat, then add 1/2 C of vinegar to each load! It works great for our towels (which seriously mildew after 1 day, thanks to GA humidity) or my workout clothes which get pretty sweaty in the summer.

Laundry Stains
Martha Stewart really knows her stuff when it comes to this. I use her stain removal guide (http://www.marthastewart.com/article/removing-stains-the-basics)  which I actually printed out and taped to my washing machine for quick reference. Most of the things she uses are things like hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, vinegar, vaseline. There are a few stronger chemicals, but I don't mind using them on a stain because it is only a few drops.

Wood polish
With our wood table that Matt made (still using it and it's great!), we frequently have to polish the top of it. Since we wipe it off with water after every meal, it gets dried out pretty fast. Then it can warp and crack. Instead of using a potent chemical to keep it moist, we just use mineral oil. It can be found in the health and beauty section of grocery stores. It's actually used frequently as a laxative, but we use it to oil our tabletop! And it works great.

Bathroom Cleaner
For everyday cleaning in the bathroom, I simply use baby wipes. They're easy and have soap in them. For cleaning the outside of the toilet I use Clorox wipes. Yes, technically they're a chemical but a few wipes cleans the outside of the toilet well and gets rid of germs. For inside the toilet, or scrubbing down a countertop or bathtub, I only use baking soda. Yep, just baking soda! I typically sprinkle baking soda over the bathtub (or countertop) and then spray a little water on it to make a paste. I let it sit for about 5 minutes before I started scrubbing. It takes a little more elbow grease, but it is really nice to not feel like I'm suffocating or have my eyes burn and throat itch. I'm happy to scrub a little harder if it means I can avoid the chemicals which irritate my skin and eyes.

Dusting
I rely on baby wipes again for this. They work especially well on wiping down the window sills because in GA, mold grows on the interior of the windows and I have to wipe them down monthly.

Oven Cleaner
I'm still working on this one, but oven cleaner is SO toxic. If you breathe it in, you spend the next 30 minutes coughing hard. So a few years ago I tried just a baking soda paste. It worked well to get the crud off, but it left streaks. So now I use the baking soda paste, but I rinse with vinegar water instead of just plain water. It doesn't work as well as oven cleaner and requires a lot more scrubbing, but is significantly better than asphyxiating yourself.

Windows, Mirrors, and Glass
This is a new one for me. I have been wanting to try my own glass cleaner for a long time and finally threw one together. I got the recipe from http://www.crunchybetty.com/battle-of-the-homemade-glass-cleaners. I didn't try all three recipes, but went straight for her "winner" recipe. Here's the recipe:

• 1/4 c. rubbing alcohol
• 1/4 c. white vinegar
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2 c. warm water

Combine everything in a spray bottle, and shake well. Shake well before using, too, as the cornstarch might settle at the bottom (and subsequently plug the spray mechanism if it’s not mixed in well).

It might seem counterintuitive to add cornstarch, but the recipe works really well. If you have extra hard water, it might leave a small film of cornstarch, but I found that if I shake the spray bottle really well and do a couple squirts in the sink before I clean, the cornstarch seems to dissolve well and doesn't leave a film. It doesn't smell the greatest....but if the vinegar smell really bothers you, add a fragrance or essential oil to it. That should help.

So-- does anyone have any homemade cleaners they swear by? I'd love to hear what you use!