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!

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

Wall Decor Etc.

I took these pictures a long time ago and I am finally posting them....story of my life.  The stairway was a huge blank wall just waiting to be filled.  So I got to work on Pinterest and found a really cute wall display!  I loved the colors it used turquoise, black and khaki.  So I kind of went with this for inspiration and came up with this:

The wall is white, but I didn't want to tackle painting that two story wall, nope, no thank you.  I made a coffee filter wreath and other than that I used all frames and stuff that I had on hand.

 This canvas is at the bottom of the stairs.  It's just a canvas and I painted it with chevrons.  I used a square and painters tape.  I then glued a picture frame straight to the canvas.  I love the way it turned out.

 This is the playroom.  We have a 4th bedroom/office and a bathroom right next to the front door.  So we turned that bedroom into a playroom which I love!

 This is the downstairs bathroom.  It originally had carpet in it... yuck.  So when we lifted the carpet up this linoleum was under it.  Not the prettiest, but more functional than carpet!  So there is another peak into our home.  I will get around to posting pictures of the bedrooms... once they are clean enough!  Although I started attending MOPS here in town and the theme this year is "A Beautiful Mess." I guess I could post pictures of our beautiful mess, or not.

Veggies and Flowers

I had so much fun this year planting my garden and flowers and having success!  For whatever reason I had a hard time growing stuff in San Diego.  I have come to figure out that I am a northern type of gardener!  I wanted to take some pictures of all my flowers and garden and I am so glad I did it when I did because now we've had a lot of rain and they aren't looking so hot!

 We added this flower bed when we moved in.  I had fun just planting some easy growing flowers in there.

 This is one of my favorite parts of the yard, these English garden steps carved into the hillside.  They lead down into the woods.

 I picked lots of salmonberries in our yard.  They are yummy!  I have a bunch frozen and am hoping to make jam.

 This was the first time I grew carrots, the family is enjoying them!

 Green onions

 Zucchini!

 Little broccoli florets

 And another favorite part of my house is the front porch.  And can't forget a picture of Lane on the first day of school!

Football!

 

 Lane has wanted to play football for a couple years now, this year he was able to!  He's been at it for a few weeks now, but this was his first game.  He is the youngest on the team, he is in 3rd grade but he's playing with 4th, 5th and 6th graders.  His size fits in with all the other though.

 Lane is number 3, running into the action.

 I can tell he really likes his team and his team and coaches like him too.

The final score, 25-6.  Lane's team did awesome!  

Sadly, Lane had to have surgery this week.  We flew over to Anchorage on Wednesday and on Thursday he had a small hernia repaired.  We had had this planned since June but it was right in the middle of football season.  The season here is really short so by the time he can play again there will only be a week left.  But he's learned a lot and I think we've figured out that football is his sport!  His surgery went really smoothly and he's recovering great!

Case's 4th Birthday

 Case's birthday was July 31st.  I didn't get around to posting about it because we left for Washington just a few days later.  I can hardly believe he would be four.  I know a lot of people who have kids Case's age.  When ever I see a four year old, I think of Case.  We miss him everyday, but lately it seems I feel that ache a little more.  There are times when I feel the loss stronger than others, and in recent months that's how I've felt.  We went out that night to Monashka Bay, Reese and Lane fished and then we let four balloons go.

 It was a windy night so those balloons floated away quickly.  This is something we do each year, flying hugs and kisses.

I made lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting.  Every year we sing happy birthday and let the kids blow out the candles for their brother.  It's good to remember him in a happy way.  After the cupcakes, Lane started a picture video that I had made of many of the pictures I had of him.  He started it without any of us knowing what he was doing, what a cutie.  Lane has a lot of memories of Case and he likes talking about him and looking at pictures.  I hope he will continue that for Estelle too.  Happy 4th Birthday Case William!

Cousins

One reason that I love going to Washington a couple times a year is watching my kids make memories with their cousins.  I have great memories of playing with my cousins growing up and so will my kids! We got to go to aunt Cortnae's house to see all the animals!  The kids always love that.  Ducks, turkeys, chickens, rabbits, cows, etc.  

All the cousins on Reese's side.  They are funny together!  All those girls love Lane and Raylan!

Brielle, Estelle and Hazel with their littlest cousin Oren!

I got a couple of cute pictures of Lane and Estelle when we took a walk one day.

We went out to my aunt and uncles in Sandy Point and played with lots of extended family too!

Lane and Kai, good buddies :)