Home made laundry soap!

So I've had a whole bunch of people ask me for this recipe and since I'm stuck inside all day (38wks pregnant and 109 degrees don't mix so well) and getting a little stir crazy I thought I'd do you all one better and I took some pictures when I made it the other day.

Alrighty, lets get started. Eeek! I'm so excited to show you this cause it WAY easy and WAY WAY cheap.

Okay, so all you need is three ingredients, which are all found on the detergent aisle. Sometimes the Fels Naptha can be hard to find in which case you can just use a bar of Ivory I think


Fels Naptha (what a fun word to say!)
Washing Soda
Borax
You can add essential oils of whatever you like but I really like that super clean, laundry soap smelling goodness so I don't.

1) Grate up bar of fels naptha and add to saucepan with four cups of water. Melt soap down till it completely dissolved on low heat. (You kitchen will smell soapy and super clean!)




2) Okay get your five gallon bucket out, fill it up half way with hot water and pour melted fels naptha into it, along with 1 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. Having an electrical cord dangerously hanging into your sink is optional, I choose to do so because I live life dangerously ;)

3) Mix it up real good, then once it is dissolved then fill it the rest of the way up, like to the 4 gallon mark and put a lid on it and just let it hang out over night.

4) Okay the next day you will open up the bucket to a fun surprise! Okay, it's not really that fun but kinda cool. The top 6 or so inches turn into a gel-like consistency. Now your job is to break it up, if you are me you get your hands in there and break it up and revel at how "icky" it feels, if you are Andy you attach a grout mixer to a power drill and stir it that way. No wrong way. Just get it all mixed up.

5) Then I funnel it into smaller containers for easier use. Before you use it shake the container each time because it does tend to clump up a little. 1/2 cup for top loaders, 1/4 cup for front loaders.

Goodbye buying laundry soap! Hello saving money, being green, no scary chemicals! Woo to the hoo!

tempting fate

In our birthing class the nurse jokingly said if you really want your baby to come then buy a nonrefundable ticket to a show, or plan something big and watch that be the day your baby comes. We took her advice a little too seriously...

I am 38 weeks pregnant and here is the current state of my house.





tonight the baseboards get painted, tomorrow the wood gets delivered, and supposedly by friday they should be installed. then we enjoy our possibly last child free weekend by cleaning this house like crazy. fun times ahead ;)

i had a doctors appointment today (everything still looking good!) and asked the doctor what i could do to delay this baby coming for at least a week. first she laughed because she said very rarely does anyone want to deal with being pregnant any longer than they have to (especially with our super fun 109 degrees highs lately) as well as "your baby will come whenever she wants to come there isn't anything you are going to do to slow that down". dang. so here is my first of many many many pleas- my sweetest ruby please stay put for a few more days!

Ruby's Nursery!

It's done! Just missing a cute baby girl...





This is the best picture I could get of our "gallery wall" that has all homemade art that is Beatles themed. When Andy talked me out of Paul McCartney themed nursery this was our compromise ;)


Favorite part of the room! I made the "Good Day Sunshine" art with some old broken down palates we found. Let's talk about this chair. Oh the back and forth I went through for months about what kind of chair I wanted. I wanted a really nice recliner rocker but ended up cheaping out and buying this crusty old arm chair from a consignment store. I thought it would work and I made peace with the tears and cigarette burns in it (seriously, bad choice) and then my amazing Grandma Joyce bought this most perfect chair for us and as beautiful (and insanely comfortable as it is) I love it the most because it makes me think of her. Thanks Grandma- I love you.



Another special part is the perfect bookshelf Andy made fer her and we made special notes on the back of it to her.


Made this with some extra spray paint, scrapbooking paper, and one of my most favorite things- decoupage!


The little diva has a fuller closet than me already!


So yeah, babies take a lot of stuff come to find out


Yea for teeny tiny cute baby girl clothes!


So there it is, a lot of love went into it. One of my favorite things to do right now is just sitting in there thinking about life with her.

a conversation with my obgyn

OBGYN: So are you having any contractions?

Me: Nope! Not a single one, not even an Braxton Hicks.

OBGYN: Okay, well how have you been feeling?

Me: Good, the only weird thing I'm feeling is several times a day I just can't catch my breath. It comes out of nowhere.

OBGYN: Does it feel like you've been running and your stomach kind of tenses up and you can't catch your breath?

Me: YES! Exactly!

OBGYN: Yeah, that's a Braxton hicks contraction.

Me: Holy crap. I'm totally having contractions.

And the best friend of the year award goes to....

Here is one of the many conundrums I have faced in my third trimester- I am list making maniac, I have to to-buy list (with no less than 5 categories going at a time), an always growing to-do list (that is simply title "It's crunch time baby!" at the top) and then I just simply look at these list cause I'm tired. Dang tired. And it's 105 degrees outside and I'm already swelteringly hot laying on the couch with two fans on high directed at me eating a bowl of ice cream balancing on my belly. So yeah, not many crossed off items on the old to do list.

Enter Sara McBride.

She rocked my world this weekend. Most of you know she is one of my oldest friends and has been driving me crazy since 6th grade. I say that because Sara and I couldn't be more opposite. I'm a sitter, she is a do-er. I'm a "eh- looks good enough" kind of girl, she's a "let's double check that with a ruler" kind of girl. Wow, as I read this, maybe our only difference is just that I'm lazy, but let's say I'm not as intrinsically rewarded by project completion as Sara is because that sounds a heck of a lot better than me being lazy and it's my blog so I can put whatever kind of spin I want on my bad habits right?

I digress, so Sara drove down from OKC Friday and we did a little shopping, a little frozen yogurt eating- because I am convinced Ruby cannot go more than a day w/o some sort of frozen dairy product, so in the spirit of being a good mother I have been sacrificing and eating ice cream at least once (cough cough twice) a day.


So we spent nearly all day Saturday shopping. It was seriously more shopping than I've done the last few years put together. But we got it all. Let me repeat that cause it feels so good to say. We got it all. Seriously, Ruby could come tomorrow (Please God don't let her come tomorrow) and it would be okay!

If you ever want to test a friendship and really see what kind of person you are dealing with, I suggest being the most crazy indecisive person ever and spending an hour on the diaper bag aisle. Seriously, I was even starting to make myself crazy. Diaper bags are so hard to figure out! I mean this is basically going to be your purse for like 2 years, that kind of commitment to an accessory is scary. But after MUCH debate she helped me decide (I got the one on the right) and didn't waver in her commitment to helping me find a diaper bag. That's love people.


Everything got bought, washed, organized and put up. Then we completed the nursery. Again, indulge me and let me say these beautiful sentences twice. The nursery is completed. Man, that makes my crazy brain a little less crazy knowing that. I will post pictures of the nursery soon, but I feel like it deserves it's own post. Sara McBride + completed nursery pics in one blog= too much awesomeness. Your computer might explode. Let's not risk it.

Folding and organizing clothes by size...



One of my favorite things we did was make a bunch of art for a wall of frames that are all Beatles themed. As you can tell I really put a lot of effort into them ;) Seriously, that whole I'm not lazy theory is coming into question with this picture. Sara was working hard photo-shopping all sorts of things for Ruby's room, and well, I'm clearly not. Come on people give me a little bit of a break, can I pull out the 8 month pregnant card to excuse this?


Andy+ Sara= funny combination because they are both very thorough and precise in how they think something should be done and it doesn't always match up. I'm so glad they are such good friends too.



So it was an amazing weekend and just what this 36 week pregnant mama needed. Not just the taking care of business part of it. But to spend 72 hours with my best friend talking all things baby, using the phrase "so stinkin cute" no less than 300 times, and feeling so very loved that she cares so much about Ruby and I.


Okay, I can't stand it, gotta show off the nursery a little, here is a sneak peek.


Love you Sara! Thank you x 100!

Our little guinea pig

Molly will be very happy when Ruby comes so we can stop testing everything out on her..





That is not a happy face

Port Aransas 2011

Our last hoorah before we attempt to be responsible parents was a uber fun trip to the beach with some friends. We spend 4 days in Port Aransas, it was awesome. We are so blessed to have such an amazing group of friends, live 4 hours from the beach, and be able to do fun stuff like this. Now I was going to post some really funny pictures of my ginormous self on the beach not because they are cute but because they make me laugh at how very pregnant I look. I now think the reason you aren't suppose to travel at a certain point in your pregnancy isn't for safety but because no one wants to see a 32 week pregnant lady in a bathing suit. It ain't pretty.

So here's the crew:
Rachel and Paul

Becky and James

Peter and Brandie

Ryan and Elana

And us


Hanging out! And yes, I know, my hat is awesome ;) Not really, but after a scare of what I thought were contractions the day before and the doctor telling me to stay out of the heat and well hydrated I wasn't taking any chances.


Ate some delicious sea food of course!


Woo Hoo- look at those hotties on the beach!


Can't remember the name of this game, just know it got pretty intense!


One morning we got up early to walk the beach and then sat and watch sea turtles and dolphins in the water.


The dogs loved the beach!


Peter totally won the He-Man award, while out in the ocean he got a shark hook through his leg! Like it went in him and back out- he got "caught"! It was so scary! As crazy as it was, the crazier part is that the boys just took him to hardware store to get pliers and they clipped the ends off the hook and pulled it right out of him! The moral of that story is that Paul and Ryan and an apparently really rough looking fisherman in the parking lot of a tiny hardware store can really save you some money and time by performing medical procedures ;)



A trip to Port Aransas without a picture in the shark's mouth well, it just isn't a trip at all. Doing our vacation duty of a group shot in the shark's mouth


Sunburned, exhausted, and happy- last group shot just hanging out at the house


Our last night there the boys treated us by shopping for and making one super awesome meal while we laid on the couch and watch Legally Blonde- doesn't get much better than that!



So, yeah it was great and just the perfect last trip of the summer. No more traveling for us for a while. Weird to think our next trip will be with a teeny tiny in the back seat!