Why I love coupons

Coupons are money and tonight Covergirl gave me $24 to spend on makeup, so off to Target I went. All this for $5.64, 94 cents each. Thanks CG!

Painting Pumpkins

Painting pumpkins, not carving, has been my family tradition for years. My mother has done tole painting for as long as I can remember, so she has plenty of acrylic paints on hand for us to use for any kind of design. I tried carving before and I find it a bit messy, smelly, and too much work. So I'm bringing the tradition to my family. We had a lot of fun tonight for FHE and next year AJ will be able to join in on the fun.

9 Months Old

A.J. turned 9 months old today, he can now sit up by himself, go up one step onto the landing of our stairs, use the same steps to help himself stand, stand for a considerable amount of time holding onto a table or couch. I take that back, he JUST pulled himself up to his play table, so one more milestone has been achieved at this very moment! Oh and two miniscule nubs on his bottom gums, right in the middle.

Homemade Laundry Soap

As most of you know, I use coupons for almost everything, but I realized that what is even thriftier than using coupons on sales is making your own. Two months ago at a Relief Society activity we had three presentations, one on budgeting for meals, couponing (by yours truly), and "The Power of Dawn"(dish soap). In the last presentation, the R.S. secretary got up and introduced Homemade Laundry Soap. We were all amazed, now half of the R.S. makes their own soap. I haven't yet until today because right before that presentation I stocked up on detergent using my coupons of course, so I waited and saved my bottles to store my homemade soap in. I bought all three ingredients at Walmart. Here's the recipe and some pictures.

1/3 bar Fels Naptha

1/2 cup Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer)

1/2 cup Borax Powder (20 Mule Team)

1.Grate the soap

 2.Put in sauce pan (it looks like grated cheddar cheese)

3. Add 6 cups of water then heat it up until the soap melts.

4. Add Washing Soda & Borax, stir until dissolved.

5.Remove from heat, then Pour 4 cups of hot water in the bucket/stock pot

6. Add soap mixture and stir

7. Add 1 gal + 6 cups or water (22 cups) and stir

Let soap sit 24 hours, it will get a gel-like consistency

Use 1/2 cup per load.

I'm dividing my batch and putting them in my empty laundry bottles, the cap will measure 1/2 cup automatically. This batch will yield 64 loads. All three ingredients cost me 7.75, huge savings considering one bar of Fels Naptha will yield 192 loads. This is the same laundry detergent that crazy mom who has 19 kids uses, makes sense. Anyway, I'm excited about it and thought I would share. P.S. this detergent is for any kind of washer, high efficiency or front washers as well.

They're off to see the Wizard

This year we wanted to send our family Halloween cards, so we took these pictures today after church. We had a lot of fun. Lauren doesn't know what the Wizard of Oz is, so we're trying to find someone to borrow it from so she knows who Dorothy is. Once she saw her Ruby Slippers, she immediately wanted to put them on, when I did the next day she started jumping up and down, she loves them. A.J. is not a huge fan of his costume, mostly because it's meant for cooler weather, which we have been having but at 3:30 in the afternoon today it was a little warm so he didn't last for too long. So it's a good thing we got some good shots quickly.

More ponies for Penny

Every Wednesday in The Village at Claremont they close one of their streets and hold a fair. They have a band playing and different vendors. We went a couple weeks ago and of course Lauren saw a girl riding a pony so she insisted the whole time to "ride the horsey" or "ride Chili", she calls every horse that even her stuffed pink unicorn is Chili. Chili is actually a miniature horse that my mother in law has at her house in New Harmony. So we went over to the ponies and they had a petting zoo right next to it as well. So we did both.

And he's off!

A.J. has started crawling, albeit a "wounded soldier" crawl, at least he's getting somewhere by himself. He's so strong and solid it's hilarious, I just laugh when I watch him, he's got all these little quirks and tricks he does now. He'll shake his head as a part of communicating now, so he'll shake his head back and forth then I'll do it then he'll do it back, it's so funny. He also has monkey feet which you'll see in the video, he'll put anything between those feet and just hold it. I've posted a lot of video today because it's all on Todd's phone, so while I have his phone hooked up to the computer I'm gonna do everything at once so I don't keep stealing it from him. Back to A.J., he just turned 8 months old and growing up fast wearing 12 month clothes already. He's just a big kid and a teddy bear, he loves contact and cuddling. Now that he can crawl he'll make his way over to either me or Todd and pull at our pant legs, which I'm guessing is his sign for pick me up because when we don't he starts fussing, ha. He also has a very piercing scream, which is not out of anger or distress, just cuz...which is what makes it annoyingly funny. He eats like a machine and compared to Lauren who eats like a bird, just astounds me. Anyway, here's a couple videos starring A.J. for once ;)