"Vintage" Homemade Cabbage Patch Kids

I call them vintage because these were made for me by my momma for Christmas 1983 or 1984 and I probably would have been about 7 years old. That year for Christmas my mom made all of the girls in her family these cabbage patch kids. I got two. The one with brown hair was her first one and we called her E.T. (Elizabeth Theresa) because she looked like E.T. She wears a cast on her right arm because the dog chewed off a couple of her fingers. Afterwards, she turned their heads around and their faces weren't so wrinkled looking. These dolls went everywhere with me and I still love them today. And as far as I know, all of my mom's nieces still have their doll that my mom made for them.

This last weekend, my daughter and I visited Grandma and she sent these home with her and she loves them as much as I do. She proudly told her dad that "Grandma made these for mummy when she was a baby. See, mummy even wore this pink dress that Grandma made." Mom also said she thinks she still has the pattern and will find it because Em now wants a Boy Baby.

I only hope I can do as good of a job on them as my mom did! Although I do need for figure out how to wash their faces.  :)

Homemade cleaning products and tackling the laundry room mess

Like in my last post when I said that sometimes I feel like I'm falling behind and can't keep up and blamed it on my almost 2 year old, it also has to do with my pregnancy and that it's just fall. I think our bodies tend to slow down in the fall, almost like bears going into hibernation. Well, whatever it is, the housework has seemed to be slacking in the past couple of weeks. However, this morning I looked upon everything with a new resolve...okay, maybe just realized that gumption wasn't going to happen and I needed to create my own!

As part of our family's strive to be green and cheap frugal and spend wisely, one of the easiest ways I've found to do that is with making my own cleaning products. And it makes me feel better not having to chase the kids out of whatever room I'm cleaning because I don't want them to inhale the cleaner. That just doesn't make sense in my mind..."Sorry kids, mommy's cleaning to make a healthy environment for you but don't breathe the cleaner cuz it's dangerous."  Huh!?!

Anyways, some of my favorite homemade cleaning recipes are here. I know that many of them are listed in 2 million other places around the web but hey, the wonder of the internet!

Homemade SoftScrub
    2 cups baking soda
    1/2 cup liquid dish soap (Dawn works the best because it really tackles grease)
    Optionally you can add 5 drops of essential oil is you prefer

    This makes a nice creamy paste and 2 cups gives me enough to clean the tub and shower, bathroom sink and countertop, along with the stovetop, microwave, and countertops in the kitchen.

Tip 1: If it's been awhile since the microwave has been cleaned, place a microwave safe bowl full of water in microwave and cook on high for 5 minutes. The steam will loosen any crude in there, making it easier to clean.

Tip 2: For hard water stains in the tub, I found this solution works best using one of those green scratchy pads, however, if you're worried about scratching your porcelin, I'd use elbow grease.

All-Purpose Cleaner
2 cups vinegar
2 cups water
20-30 drops of essential oil (Tea tree oil is anti-bacterial)

I use this for everything. I keep it in a spray bottle behind the kitchen sink and use it for cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, hardwood floors, etc.

Wood Cleaner/Polish
Another cleaner I use on our wood floors is plain old water with a little dishsoap. I come from the Granny cleaning system where floors are cleaned on hands and knees. I sweep the floors first and then scrub them good with an old towel. If I'm really lazy, I soak down a bath towel and "scrub" the floors by walking around with the towel (kids love doing this!) Throughout the week, I use an old swiffer mop with a reuseable cleaning pad I made from old towels.

Every so often, I'll polish wood furniture and the hardwood floors with using the following recipe.
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup vinegar
20-30 drops lemon essential oil

My other disorganzed chaos is the laundry room. Because our house is old, our basement is rock wall with a dirt floor so it can't be used for storage, etc. We do have a nice sized attic but there are just thing that are easier kept in the laundry room for easy access. However, this often means the laundry room becomes the holding area for everything including my treadmill, the vacuum, carpet scrubber, and intermediate storage for outgrown clothing and the charity box. One of the things that helps me is having a storage bin next to the dryer for outgrown clothes. That way when I know something is outgrown, it gets put into the storage box as soon as it comes out of the dryer. When the bin is full, it gets labeled and put upstairs in the attic.

I also keep a charity box in the laundry room and anything I don't want to keep goes into the charity box and when we do our grocery shopping (usually every other week), the box gets loaded up into the truck and dropped off. Sometimes the box isn't full but I've found that if it stays in the house too long, someone goes into the box and finds something they've decided they can't live without.

I figured it out...

There are several blogs I read and forums I watch about mothering, staying at home with small children, raising children, yadda yadda on top of the sewing and craft blogs and farming/sustainable living blogs I love to read. When I read these blogs or forums, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and wonder, "now really why can't I get that much done throughout the day."

I figured it out....

They don't have this boy distracting them by thinking the best way to play the piano is with your butt...

This little boy woke me up this morning when I heard loud banging from the piano only to come downstairs to find this little boy sitting on the piano, taking money out of his daddy's key/wallet/junk dish to put into his piggy bank....

I spend half of my day chasing this little boy off of the back of the couch, out of window sills, off counters and tables, standing on the toilet or sink or catch him dragging his step stool all over the house because he thinks as long as he can reach it, it's fair game.

Time management for mother's with little daredevils is not blocking your time so that you can get an hour to do a certain task. It's finding tasks that you can complete or partially complete in 5 minutes. I know this because this typically the amount of time I have before I have to answer the phone, the door, get juice, let the dog in or out, chase a child, kiss a booboo, break up a fight, find a toy, pick play dough out of someone's ears, nose, or mouth, find a snack, wipe up juice or food that mysteriously appeared down the back of the couch, mashed into the carpet, or smeared on the dog or cat.

But really...I love this little dude and wouldn't trade him for the world...

Going for a walk...

Considering it is October 11 and absolutely gorgeous (it has to be at least 80 degrees out), we went on another little hike and this time I actually remembered to bring the camera!

Em racing to catch up with Daddy.

Daddy's beehives.

Emily's picture of Mommy (my hair usually doesn't look

like this but I haven't showered yet today!)

Con hamming it up for the camera.

Found treasures.

Almost harvest time.

Daddy and Con.

Such beautiful colors found everywhere.

The old apple tree.

Sweet Pea.

The toad the kids wanted to bring home.

One of the 3 stooges.

Look what we found the other day!

Fall Findings

I love fall. I love all of the things that come with fall - the cool crisp air, the smells, the cool nights and flowers and trees and pumpkins. I love when the big sunflowers start bowing their heads from heaviness. I love the brightness of the pumpkins and gourds and how the trees slowly start changing from vibrant green to deep, rich colors. Some of my favorite pictures from the other day from around the farm.

The last picture is one of my favorites. We picked some red flowers the other day and Em wanted to pick the swiss chard also. We stuck some of the swiss chard in with the flowers and it turned out really pretty. I forget that kids see things through entirely different eyes and see beauty where we forget to see it.

Now I'm off to create some halloween fun with this cute fabric.

Through the eyes of a child...

Emily lately loves taking pictures with the camera. I tried letting her use the old digital camera but without the memory card, she can only take about 10 pictures. So I've let her use our digital camera. When I was downloading pictures this morning (after finally getting new batteries for the camera!) these are some of the pictures that I found. I love looking through the camera and finding the pictures that she's taken. Well, except for when I find a random shot of my butt.

I love the imagination and creativity of my kids!

Nesting a bit early...

I've never understood the term nesting. I nest throughout my pregnancy as well as when I'm not pregnant. I'm constantly tinkering, fixing, primping, touching up this or that. However, we have had an ongoing debate in our household about the bathroom. See, we've always planned on tearing down this house and building a bigger one. Right now we only have two bedrooms and the house in general in small and old. So, it's always hard to spend money on this house when we don't plan on keeping it.

However...being a woman, I think it's in my nature to make things pretty. Most of all the bathroom, because I C A N N O T stand an old bathroom. It makes it feel dingy and dirty. A couple months ago, we redid the tub surround but in doing so, it left an exposed wall. Last Thursday morning, I'm not quite sure what got into me, but the bathroom got torn apart. The window finally got framed in and drywalled, the bare wall got framed in and drywalled. Old wallpaper was torn down, new was put up. All the trim was painted a beautiful bright white. I put up new contact paper in the closet to cover the contact paper from 1954 (did they make contact paper in 1954??).

In reality, the bathroom make-over cost me very little money. We had 2x4s in the shed which I used for framing the window and wall and well as a piece of sheetrock. I used 1x4s for the new baseboard trim and we already had the new faucet. I had bought two boxes of peel and stick floor tiles at a garage sale for $5 and the white paint was from another project. I painted the vanity a dark blue and that paint was also from another project. However, it was too bright for what I wanted but the hardware store added some black to darker it for free when I bought a new paint brush. I would have spent $5 on the entire bathroom make-over but yesterday I decided that I was not in the mood to sand the walls so they were all even from where I pulled off the old wallpaper so I made a trip to Menard's and bought new wallpaper for $40.

I still have the put down the new floor and put up 2 more pieces of trim but I am truly in love with my new bathroom which cost me $60 (Wallpaper $40, contact paper $10, paintbrush $5, floor tiles $5).

I learned so many things with this project. How to use a drill and a jigsaw as well as how to measure properly and cut sheetrock. But the thing I learned most is that you can make something beautiful for so little by just using your imagination.