Homemade Multi-purpose cleaner

1/4 cup dish soap

1/4 cup white vinegar

2 tsp. Borax

3 1/2 cups hot water

Lemon or citrus essential oil (5-6 drops)

I found this recipe at Fabulessly Frugal

I had everything except the essential oil, that I (Bryce) bought at our local health food store. I have done the water and vinegar before, but I really don't like the smell of vinegar that much. You can smell a slight vinegar smell but the lovely soap and essential oil balance it and smells more like lemons, yum!

I bought my spray bottle at the dollar store and it doesn't fit the full 3 1/2 cups of water, so I filled it as much as I could.

Some bumps in the road

Warning to all, venting to follow. . . won't be offended if you close window now!

Okay, I know that most of you know that I was recently released as the YW's President in our ward, yes, it has been about a month and a half. It happened right before I left for Washington.

This is the first time where a release hurt, bad. I felt like I was fired. The hardest part, besides missing the girls is not going to girls camp. They leave tomorrow and I have to stay here :(
Yes, yes, get over it! Move on, I keep telling myself! I am trying!

I have a new calling in Primary (2nd Counselor) and it is fun to be with Brady. It is an easy calling comparatively, but it still is hard. Crazy, because when I was called into YW's I was so scared and here I am missing them so much! I just need to embrace that Heavenly Father has a plan for me, that I may or may not understand at this moment.

Some other things in life is we recently got a minivan, which has been so nice. This was a much needed change in our life and also needed if there would be a possibility of another baby in the future (I am not announcing anything!).

We were supposed to get on new insurance from the company, because it is costs an arm a leg and everything else you have in order to have it. I was so excited for the new insurance to kick in at the beginning of June, but as soon as I felt comfortable, they decided not to change and there goes that arm and leg again! So, no insurance for me, which means no baby, at least not for awhile.

This was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back and I have been in a horrible rut ever since. I hate the fact that someone else is in control of my life! I don't do well with anyone except myself in control!

As all of these dominoes are falling I feel like I need to get myself back to normal. I need to be happy in my life and find peace!

I have started, once again, to start running. It has only been 2 days, but I feel so much better knowing that I am taking control of my life in my own way.
Thank you for listening. Sometimes I just need to write things down and start the healing process.

Exciting upgrade

This isn't exactly what our van looks like, but pretty close. We have a newer car parked in our carport this evening. A friend of ours buys and sells wholesale cars and he found this car last weekend. It was a pretty good deal and we are in need of a bigger car.

I have been driving a truck very similar to this:


Imagine the backseat with door to door carseats! No room to breathe, yet alone move! It is insane to think that I could even fit 3 carseats in the back.

Now, I have more room and better gas mileage! What a way to upgrade and no car payments, yeah!

Bountiful Baskets

We finally have a co-op coming into the valley, well one that I actually know of, let's put it that way. It is: http://bountifulbaskets.org Each basket is $15 and for the first basket you pay a one fee of $3. There is also $1.50 handling fee.
I ordered one basket and I also added on a 25 lb. bag of carrots for $10, which we are chopping up and putting in our freezer. A couple of months ago we found a freezer at a garage sale for $50, very exciting!

They had extra add-on's and I believe they change them so they aren't the same. They offered for an extra $10 5 loaves of bread and them some kind of cake and of course the carrots too.

For my basket of $19.50 (first time basket) I got:
8 peaches, 8 apples, 7 bananas, 4 avocados, a coconut, head of cabbage, head of romaine lettuce, small bag of baby carrots, 2 cucumbers, small container of blackberries, container of strawberries, and 6 tomatoes.

All of the produce is in great condition and not overly ripe, so I will have time to use it all! I can get this every 2 weeks, so I am thinking of ordering 2 baskets every 2 weeks and volunteering sometime, then you get more! Great way to get good produce. To get organic, there is an extra fee.

I know that this is available in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada and Eastern Washington (sorry family).

Too Cute!

I recently went on a trip to Washington state to see the birth of my sister's baby boy, Jaike. While we were up there we went to Salt Creek, a place just west of Port Angeles. We would always go camping and explore the tide pools. It is a great place and was a gorgeous day, amazingly!
I haven't gotten all of my pictures off my camera yet, but I do have this one of Carter enjoying the rocky beaches, enjoy!

Ribbon board

First off, Happy Birthday to my mom! She doesn't look at my blog, but I will wish her a happy day anyway!

After finding this awesome, Sister's Stuff, I saw this fun ribbon board to hang bows for Leilani. I have been wanting to make it for about a month and finally got around to it today.

It was so easy. Bryce cut a board to the size I wanted. The girls on the blog used hot glue to attach everything to the board. Instead of hot glue, I used a staple gun. I think this will hold up better then glue, we shall see.

Attach batting to the board, then cover with fabric, make sure that you pull tight so it is nice and smooth on the front. Cut out whatever kind of ribbon you would like, attach to the top and bottom and attach ribbon for hanging on the top, cover with paper to finish and voila!

I found ribbon for a dollar a spool at Michael's, which wasn't bad since there is still some ribbon left. I have found packages of ribbon at Target for a dollar that have quite a few spools, but each spool doesn't have a lot of ribbon on them, so I don't know how well they would work for the board.

Very inexpensive project. My thinner ribbon I have had lying around the house, so that was even nicer and Bryce already had the board, what a deal!

Here is the finished project:

Now, I need to fill it up and make some more bows!

Let the hunt begin!

Since I blogged about Leilani's birthday, I noticed quite a few pictures from the past month or so.

Previous to Easter, we had 3 egg hunts! Crazy! 2 of them were locally and we had 1 here at home. It was a lot of fun to see the kids, especially Carter. He loved carrying them around.
Warning: There are a lot of pictures!