Cleaning Carpets without chemicals...

In my effort to declutter and simplifying the house, my car is always one item that is forever in need of decluttering and simplifying. I will admit that my car typically looks like a pigsty. I would do before and after pictures but I am too embarressed to be reminded of what it looks like. Earlier this week something started stinking...bad. Yesterday morning I pulled the car up to the house and started decluttering. I picked out all of the trash - yes, even the trash under the seats - took all of the shoes, toys, jackets, blankets, sippy cups and bottles into the house. I found what was stinking. One of the kids had dropped their sippy cups and the milk rotten and expanded in the cup causing it to come out and go all over the carpet.

So I vacuumed and then got out the carpet scrubber. The carpet is my very best friend since I hate having carpet. Luckily, we only have it in 2 rooms but it is in the 2 most unfortunate rooms - the living room and the kids bedroom. As much as I love the carpet scrubber, I hate the chemicals that are used to clean the carpet so instead I use vinegar. While it may stink while it is wet, it leaves the carpets feeling soft and smelling fresh. And most importantly, I don't have to worry about the kids being in the house while I'm cleaning carpets or while it is drying.

Oh yeah...and mom now has new rules for her car!!

Exercise is hard work...

Before I found out I was pregnant, I had finally found the strength inside me that I needed to put in the dedication and time to losing weight. Before I had Em, I ran 5-6 times a week 4-5 miles each time. I could pretty much eat anything I wanted...and being a lover of food, I did. However, being told for years I would never have children, I never took the time to learn about pregnancy and what I could do and what I couldn't do. So when I got pregnant and people told me I couldn't run, I stopped running...my calories didn't change and 60 pounds later was at a place I did not want to be again. See, I was a chubby kid and teenager and struggled with weight my entire life and running gave me the self-confidence I needed to be happy with myself physically.

When I was pregnant with our second baby, I was already overweight and just continued the bad habits of no exercise and not eating entirely healthy.

With this baby, I had started walking before I knew I was pregnant and am resolved to keep it up throughout my pregnancy. I'm avoiding foods high in carbohydrates (potatoes, white rice, sweets) and have cut out almost all junk food with the occasional treat because really...what good is dieting if you don't treat yourself once in awhile!

Walking is one of the best forms of exercise a person can do and the benefits of exercise in pregnancy are wonderful for me, the baby, and my pregnancy as well as my recovery after the baby is born.

The other plus is that the kids love to go for walks. If it's a day that Shane isn't home to keep the kids while I walk, Em wants to walk with me and Connor likes to be in the stroller. Those walks are more leisurely but still good. When it's just me or just Connor and me, I walk at a healthy pace. Today apparently, Connor thought exercise was hard work...

There is not a lot of crafting going on in our household. We've been spending a lot of time outside playing in the play yard, taking walks through the field collecting leaves, rocks and flowers, and in the garden watching how our garden grows (and taking samplings of the fresh fruit and vegetables that it is beginning to provide us with).

The other thing I've been busy doing is decluttering and simplifying the house. We know at some point (hopefully beginning in the spring), we will be building a new house on our property, but until then, we need to make more room in our little 2 bedroom house for the new baby. So I've been spending a lot of time cleaning and organizing and lots and lots of trips to Goodwill.

Life Sure Moves Fast...

I often think about writing an update and then life starts moving forward again. It's amazing how fast everything happens. The garden has been plants and is already showing us love from the produce it is providing us with.
Emily finished her first year of school and in a month and a half will start up again.
I finally had some time to sew and stock the etsy shop with some Ready To Ship trainers. Now if I could just get other stuff besides trainers stocked!!  :)

Some fun pictures of the things the kids have been doing this summer...

The kids have loved all the rain lately...as Em puts it..."Time to play in the Goo!"

The other exciting...and shocking... news in our family is that baby number 3 will be joining us in January 2011.  Shocking since we weren't really planning on having more but sometimes God knows differently than we do. We do feel truly blessed.

Lisa

Tighty Whitey Trainers...

Connor is already 15 months old and seriously outgrowing his diapers. I did make him a handfull of diapers for night but his daytime collection is getting pretty sad looking (and pretty tight). I had made Emily a pair of fleece covers to wear with her regular underwear and decided maybe it's time to switch Connor into a more 'big boy' style of diapers....something that he could maybe wear from now until he potty trains.

I made him this cover...

But knew he needed more than just a fleece cover. Well, it is pretty cute but he's not even remotely interested in potty training. I didn't want to make fitted diapers because that felt like I was going backwards. I wandered into the bathroom - what a place for inspiration - I noticed the 2 foot pile of prefolds from when the kids where little little.  Hmmmm, someday I should really do something with those...what...something...hmmm. Take a prefold out to the dining room table, lay it out flat, and stare at it. Tap my finger to my lip and stare some more. A-HA!!! I love those moments where all of a sudden you start digging through fabric bins looking for things you know you have SOMEWHERE! 30 minutes later, this is what I came up with...

I should have used blue thread...then it really would have looked like a pair of tighty whiteys!!

Little Em's Necklace

Em loves to "help" me while I sew, usually it's holding onto the elastic anytime I'm trying to sew it into a seam. The other day I really had to get some orders out and Con was sleeping and she wanted to help. So I remembered some bags of buttons I'd picked up one day at Walmart and got out a blunt needle and some yarn and Em sat right up next to me at the sewing machine and made this...

 

...a sweet little button necklace in spring colors.

She loves it so much that it's been part of her daily wardrobe. The dress she's wearing was one of her Valentine's Day dresses. This one I made so she could wear it with jeans, used ribons around the neckline and made a keyhole opening in the back. I get so mad working with knits but she loves it so I'm happy! :)

Being lazy...

I've been lazy. Shane is out of town and I always feel blah when he's gone. At least this is a short trip and he'll be home early next week. I also have tons of pictures on my camera that I'm just too lazy to download and put up. Maybe tomorrow.  :)

To show how lazy I've been...yesterday I read the manual for my sewing machine (which I've never done). I'm not a directions kind of girl, more of a swing it and let's see what happens kind of girl. A lot of the information was really neat and I even ended up ordering a new foot that does invisible zippers. But I did have to laugh because in all of the pictures, it shows a woman sewing in high heels! I can't even sew wearing socks so I couldn't imagine how it would turn out if I had high heels on.

And since I see so many people say on blogs that every post should have a picture, I'll put one up from last summer (I haven't even downloaded pictures off of my camera for a couple of weeks). This is Emily and her uncle Mike having a race down the driveway (yes, Uncle Mike is 26 years old on a toddler bike).  :)

 

Lisa

The flu can bring out the best in motherood...

Reading through blogs the other day, I read this blog from V and Company. I laughed so hard I had to leave the computer halfway through to compose myself. I loved it that she was sharing a normal part of every family's life (those stories we normally don't want others to know about how normally weird we all all!).

Emily had the flu this week and didn't settle down the other night until 4 o'clock in the morning giving me about 2 hours of sleep (and I'm a girl who needs her sleep!). When the alarm went off at 6 a.m., I came downstairs to use the bathroom, washed my face and dragged my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the drawer. Being that it was still dark and I was still half asleep, I left the lights off to not blind myself into being fully awake and only had the light from the kitchen shining in. Once I started brushing my teeth, it only took me about 15 seconds to fully wake up and realize that I was brushing my teeth with DESITIN.

It's probably a good thing that the kids were still sleeping because after some of the words that came out of my mouth, I probably should have washed it out with soap. And like all good, compassionate, empathic partners, Shane laughed his butt off at my spitting and choking and told me at least I wouldn't have to worry about anything sticking to my teeth that morning. I now have a new toothbrush also....