If you give the girl a garbage bag....

This is Maggie looking "mean".

Maggie begged for a few garbage bags the other day. Then, she took her safety scissors and cut the sides and a holes for a head and her arms. It became an instant costume. She grabbed a neon green silly straw and became a magician!

just a swingin'

(i can't get these pictures to go the right away....ugh.....)




Evan and Aiden are moving and can't take their swingset with them. We offered to take it off their hands. Maggie loves it. She runs out to swing on it as soon as she wakes up in the morning
Steven putting together a new swingset. .


It is beautiful outside for the past week. I didn't doctor these photos at all. This is the real light around 7:30 p.m.

Now, back to eating my bagel at my patio table (thanks, mom) and watching her swing some more.

thrifty mama

I made my own laundry detergent today. My mom called to tell me about her experience making detergent this weekend.It sounded pretty easy and on a whim, I decided to try it out.

Unfortunately, I was going by KMart when I decided to do this. I have the worst luck there. I could only find 2 of the ingredients. I couldn't find washing soda there. I did a google search when I came home to see if I could substitute something for the soda.


I read a blog that said that washing soda was basically just doubly strong baking soda. So I doubled the baking soda.

4.5 oz of zote soap (it's pink) and comes in 14 oz so I cut it with a big knife to about 1/3 of the bar (grated)
1 C Borax
1 C Baking Soda

I grated the zote soap and then mixed in the soda and Borax. It's not a lot of soap so I put it in a coffee container. I washed it out first and I hope my laundry doesn't smell like coffee. Oh wait, that might be a good smell.

You should use 1TBS per load.

My first load of towels is in the washing machine right now. I will keep you updated on the results.

I put the directions on the top of the coffee container and the recipe with the remainder of my detergent ingredients.

According to most sites, it's about 42 cents per load if you use tide.
It's about 14 cents with this recipe and you feel so thrifty!

my favorite you tuber

This is a video from Ben Watts. We saw him recently when we were in PA. He was the creator of my favorite you tube video of all time.

Here's a new video.

Visiting with Donna

Last week, I met with Donna. She lives 30 minutes from where we were for our conference.

Donna is a friend from a pastor's wives' message board that I joined right after I got married. It has been such a great group of supportive, Christian women who understand life in ministry.

I have met Julia and Gina and I couldn't wait to meet Donna. I went to her house and then we went to a flower park nearby. It was beautiful. This is the view from the top looking back of the garden.

Here's some gorgeous lilies. They weren't as fragrant as most lilies are, but they were really pretty.

Donna's daughter, Joy, came with us. She is such a beautiful girl and I am so glad that I got to meet her. This is Joy and Donna posing in front of the ballroom at the flower gardens.

clean up time

I asked Maggie to
sweep the floor last week. She didn't really want to do this. Can you tell?

I took a picture because I am a mean mommy who thought that this image was too good to pass up!

A thousand questions

This was the opening video for the Brethren National Conference last night. It was amazing.

I loved it even more because "this is my father's world" is one of my dad's favorite hymns.

How does your garden grow?

 

 

 

 

Sandy came over in April and helped me plant our first vegetable garden. We had so much fun and guess what? The VEGETABLES GREW!!