cleaning recipes

I don't know about you but I hate buying cleaners. If I can make my own I much prefer it. I do have this dishwasher soap that I have been buying from Costco, when I went last week I could not find it. I was going to try a new one but decided to try my own instead. I tried it and really like it. Give it a try:

2c borax
2c baking soda
4 little pkgs of unsweetened lemon kool-aid.
Mix together

Veggie wash
1T lemon juice
2T baking soda
1C water
Put in a spray bottle

Deodorizer
1/2 to 1C liquid laundry softener
1C vinegar
2 to 3 C water
mix in spray bottle

15yrs

Wow, Jason and I just celebrated 15yr of marriage this year. I can not believe it has been that long. I have to say that was the most wonderful day. I wanted to get married at the beginning of a new day so I decided that 7:00 am was a perfect time. We got married on the beach looking out at the water because I didn't want to be looking at walls. I was in a clearance dress that I found at the Express and Jason was in his shorts, both bare footed. (Sorry I have no pictures to show, that was when I was doing 35m film, you know ancient times). Oh and if I could show you the pictures of my reception. It was potluck. I do have a video of the reception. It was filmed by my brother, who was 14 or so along with his friend and my even younger brother so you can use your imagination on that one. My wedding was a total of $120.00. I had just turned 19, Jason was 21, we had been engaged less than 2 months. Thinking about the whole time still brings a smile to my face and my heart. If I had to do it over again, what would I change; to remember more about that day. How grateful I am that Heavenly Father has blessed me with such a wonderful, loving husband. When it comes to this family he is always thinking about the boys and I first. He is a man above men. I just pray that my boys will grow up to be the man their father is, what a blessed life my future daughter-in-laws will have.

To cool not to shair

Here is a picture of Mt. Rainier. We were not to far from there during our off-roading weekend. The boys sleeping, this was after our first run.

My cuties.

What a cool picture.

My three main men

Jeffrey's creative side

Jeffrey is in charge of craft time, which he has once a week. This week his craft was making masks. His looks so cool. Jonah's is actually a neat looking one, too, it is just hard to see, he is a one eyed tiger. Jeffrey's pirate with a beard and blood on his mustache ( he was fighting) and check out that cool eyebrow.

This is my pretty one, sorry no blood or wild animals. The boys put there special powers on the back of their mask. Little kids are so creative and easy to entertain, most of the time.

This is superman/robin hood/Jedi

Crafts

Here are a few things I have done lately. A little bit of fun.
Here, I hope, is the end to canning for this year, it is great being able to can and having an abundance with to be able to do it but it is sure nice when it is done. These are my flavored applesauces; raspberry and peach.
I love those little craft cards you get for free at JoAnns. This craft cost me less than $5.oo to do.

I keep scrap paper and we have a stack of it. I keep it under our school shelf. It was always getting spread out on the floor but I didn't want to buy a container to keep it in. So I took a box and covered it, am I a genious or what, did I spelle genius right?

Offroading

So what do you get when your spotter, well didn't spot?

You can't call the sport of off-roading to boring, unless of course, you have a huge group of people and you spend a long time in line waiting to get up that so have to do obstacle. Here is a poor kid who was going around to help a friend of ours get out of a mud hole. He didn't see this huge hole on his spotter's side, so down he went. All of those around were just wide eyed wondering what in the world he was doing. HE DIDN'T SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (this kid was 18, just got this vehicle from his dad and to top it off, he left a note for his parents telling them he was going off-roading and would be back on Sunday.)

It took them an hour to flip it back over. We started our with 4 in our group and at the end of this there had to be 10 vehicles checking this out. (CAN'T MISS THE SHOW)

My birthday

Last month I celebrated my 34th birthday. My boys were sweet, they both drew me a picture and wrapped up one of their cars. Jason surprised me with a bike I have been wanting. A really comfy cruiser. He picked this one out himself. Not a bad job at all. It is so nice to ride, a little heavier than my other one that I can pick up with one finger but a lot more confortable on the butt.
So Jason has been fitting us all with bows, still hasn't decided on his, this is my new compound. I am a ringer for shooting, just check out the board behind our haystack, the one that holds the target and luckily we found the one that I completely missed the board and shot into the woods, you should have seen that thing fly.

Ok I found this great idea on a blog that I check every so often. She said that she has baskets in her pantry containing everything for a quick meal. That way when she is short on time or something unexpected came up than she just had to pull out a basket and there is everything she needs. All I came up with is pasta and spaghetti sauce. Anyone have any other ideas?

We had a church activity last weekend. It was a lot of fun and a whole lot of running. Jeffrey and I started the day with a 5k, it was great. We did really good. Jeffrey ran the whole way and I only sounded like I was going to die for 1/2 of it. (I have not kept up with running since we moved here, working on changing that).Here is Jeffrey in his age group for the sprints

Each ward had a color, ours was hot pink, Jeffrey was not happy with that. So to get him to wear it we let him put pink stinks on it.

Here is Jonah in his age group sprint. We also had relays, we did the family relay. Jonah started the first leg and we told him to just follow the lines to me but he thought that was to long so he decided to run right across the grass to me. It was so funny. Unfortunately no one got a picture. One sister told us that she was trying to get a picture of her son that was in the first leg and when she was going to take the picture she saw Jonah running across the field that she was laughing so hard she didn't get a picture of anyone.

Tuesday Sketch. We have finally gotten back to Tuesday Sketch, even though it is more like Thursday when we finally get to it. This time it was on something black and white. Here is Jeffrey's, it is a Pokemon, of course.

Here is Jonah's, he copied his from Jeffrey (he does everything Jeffrey does)

Here is mine, my canning pot.

So what does a rented property with 2 fig trees, 2 peach trees and 1 apple tree brings you?

This is how I am spending my extra time lately. I am also apart of a fruit co-op. So I am getting a little more than I can keep up with right now but what a blessing. We will have enough fruit to keep us until next year.

Learning at home

There are so many things that I love about being able to have the boys home to learn. Here is our new thing. We have these beautiful birds (Steller's Jay) around our house. Jeffrey has started putting out peanuts for them in the morning. If he is late getting them out they will let you know. Here is one of them coming to get them. Here Jeffrey is lining them up on the rail.

This is him outside doing his independent work. He loved sitting out there because the birds were coming right above his head to get to the nuts.

old things new

TAKING OLD THINGS AND MAKING THEM NEW

I have been amazed at some blogs that I follow where people have taken old things and made them new, updated them, added their own creative ideas. I have been wanting a bill organizer and when I went to shop around for one and the only two I found where over $20 which was more than I was interested in paying. While at the Goodwill I found this one for less than $6.


With some spray paint, ribbon and scrapbook labels I made it more to my liking.
Another idea that I saw that I really liked was taking an old box spring and taking the spring part out of it and putting it on a fence and then planting morning glories so they will travel up the springs. I have the springs now I just need a house with a fence.

TAKING OLD THINGS AND MAKING THEM NEW