Thursday, June 24, 2010

Squirt Gun Selections

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Grandpa started it!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Helloo From the Erie Zoo!

We just had to grab a family photo with the zebras!
(Sooo diggin' this shot, but the way.  Thanks, Ducky!)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

How to Tell You've Had a Good Day at the Lake

1.  Get on some warm clothes after an afternoon full of fishing and swimming.
2.  Snuggle in on Daddy's lap for a story before dinner.
3.  Listen to the story while waiting for dinner.
4.  Fall asleep while Daddy reads.
5.  Don't wake up when dinner's ready, even though you complained about being soooo hungry, while you were still awake.
6.  Go to bed at 6pm and sleep all night long.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Ten

  Ants are in the kitchen,
 The fascia's falling down,
The garage it is a mess,
But a home, for eight years, we've been blessed to own.
 
Three kids, they aren't perfect,
Our parenting's not by the text,
Toys we have too many,
But love and laughter in our home are the perfect mix.

Ten years seem so full,
But have gone by in a blink,
We've grown and changed by leaps and bounds,
And, most importantly, in the Lord we are linked.

Cheesy poems aside, I'm so thankful to have been married to you, sweet Duncan, for ten years!  I look forward to "tens" more and all that they'll bring our way!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Homemade Summer: Laundry Soap

There are many, many recipes to be found online for homemade laundry soap.  Many of them are for liquid soaps, in which I wasn't interested, even though, almost exclusively, I've used liquid detergents for my adult life.  The quantities were just so huge and I wanted to be sure we liked it before I made a huge batch.  So, I chose one of the powdered recipes that was comprised of four cups of this stuff:

That would be Borax (found at Target), Fels-Naptha soap (found at Ace Hardware), and washing soda.  (No, not baking soda, but rather washing soda.  I know.  I had never heard of it either before this endeavor.  Found at my local grocery.)  The recipe, from tipnut.com, is as follows:
2 cups Fels-Naptha, finely grated
1 cup Borax
1 cup washing soda
 Mix together, store in an airtight container.  Use two Tablespoons per load of laundry.


And by the way, two cups of the soap is roughly the same as two-thirds of a bar of the soap.  The hardest part of getting started with this was actually finding the materials.  Amelie helped me grate the soap for the first batch, using my old-almost-on-its-way-out, Pampered Chef grater.  It was simple.  I didn't really like the way the Fels-Naptha smelled when I first got it.  Thought it to be a bit overpowering.  However, grated up, into small bits and mixed with the others, it has a fabulous scent.  I do believe that my laundry has never smelled better!     

So far, I don't notice any differences in how our clothes are washing.  When I made it the second time, I doubled it.  And as far as the cost?  While I'm not one to figure out how cheap it actually is,
considering the materials cost less than $10 all together and are able to make many, many batches, it has to be cheaper than conventional laundry detergent.

So over here, in the midst of Homemade Summer, we're all about the homemade laundry soap.  
The homemade dishwasher detergent?  
Well, that's gonna need some tweaking.  
But, more about that another time.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

OCMD

A few weeks ago, Last month, we took our second annual pre-season trip to Ocean City, MD.  This year we went for less time, since we chose not to take Amelie out of school.  It was quicker, but just as fun as last year!
Amelie loved the beach--especially jumping in the waves.  She couldn't get enough!


Violet's favorite part was the sand and shells.  Most def.


Linus too loved digging and tossing sand around.  After all, the beach is just a giant sandbox!


While I'm not a huge fan of this photo of myself (as is the case most of the time), it epitomizes how joyful I felt to be at the beach, with my family, on a Friday night.

The kids love these stools and ate most of their meals while sitting on them.


After breakfast, we ventured to the beach, tried to fly our kite (not windy enough) and touched the water for the first time. 

Linus was not a fan of the waves, stayed away from them most of the time, but tried to be brave and ventured closer a few times.

Amelie got buried and while I'm not meaning to be in the lotus position, I'm trying not to mess up the burying process.

After a necessary trip to The Fractured Prune, we ventured down to the Boardwalk.

Our first time at Trimpers, was moderately successful.  Only two ride operators had to return our tickets because someone changed their mind about wanting to go on a ride.  Only.


So, we have some tentative kids.  Wonder where they got that trait?






We're so thankful for good friends that share their blessing-of-a-beach-condo with us!