Saturday, October 26, 2013

Lane's 9th Birthday

 We had Lane's 9th Birthday party last weekend.  Seahawks/Football theme, hence the eyeblacks under his eyes!
 One of the activities was a contest to see who could build the tallest tower out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks in 5 minutes.  This was the one thing that kept them the quietest during the party, I highly recommend it!
 Lane and his good buddy/neighbor boy, Sage.
 I get into the cake/food more than anyone else, Lane probably could've cared less.  I guess that's just my thang...  Football cake, football pizza, football deviled eggs.


 Lane's actual birthday wasn't until during the week, so he opened up some presents from us.  Can you tell he's a Seahawks fan??!!  One big one (which I didn't get a picture of) was the Disney Infinity video game from Mop (Grandma).  It is pretty cool!
Happy Birthday Lane!  I can't believe I have a 9 year old!  Lane has grown into such a kindhearted, cool kid, who is liked by all!  Love him!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Homemade Laundry Soap

Since February I have been making my own laundry soap.  I found a recipe on Pinterest that looks a little better than others.  I didn't want have a huge bucket of laundry soap, so this is concentrated, all you use is a tablespoon.  I wanted to wait a while to post about to see how well I liked it.  I normally used the Arm and Hammer detergent, I'm not to picky about how it smells etc.  I would say this works the same as the other stuff.  Mostly I like it because it's just way cheaper.
This is all you need.  And the washing soda and borax lasts a while.  I have made 3 batches of this stuff and I still have quite a bit of the soda and borax left.
Grate the fels-naptha in the food processor.
Melt the soap into 4 cups hot water.  This takes a while like 15 minutes.  Once it's melted you add 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of washing soda that has been mixed together.  Stir this all together until there is no graininess left at the bottom of the pan.
Divide the mixture up between two quart size jars.  Fill these jars with water to the rounded part of the jar.
Place lids on tightly and place jars upside down to sit for 4-5 hours
This step is the most fun!  After 4-5 hours the solids and liquids will be separated.  Take your blender jar off of the blade.  Screw the blade base onto the mason jar.  Pop it on your blender and whip.  
Wha laa!  Whipped laundry detergent.  It looks a bit like mayonnaise but gets a little more firm once it's sits for a while.  I also cut out a couple cute labels on my Cricut because I was so excited about it.   I use about a Tbsp of it in each load.  I would say the two jars last me 3 months or so.  You can add essential oil to make it smell nice, but I haven't tried it yet.  

Here is the link to the tutorial I used:  Whipped Laundry Detergent link