4H

My kids love 4H. We have a wonderful group and super leaders. Our leaders are organized, efficient, and creative. We have great meetings with interesting activities. Some of the meetings this year were about theatre, honeybees, pottery, exhibits, and crafts. They have to do a community service project each year. This year they made diaper bags and filled them for Sav-a-life. They are also required to give a speech each year. Artsygirl entered a photo contest this year. She didn't win anything but I thought she did a great job. She also entered a dairy poster and won first place in our county. Aspiring Pilot entered and won the blocks rock competition in his age division. I am so proud of them for using their talents. The best thing is they are having a great time. I can't recommend 4H enough!!

New Spring Portraits

Me and My Honey

The FAMILY

I called my dear friend the other day and asked if she would take some photos of our family. If I died, I told her, my kids would forget what I look like because I am always behind the camera. She graciously agreed. We haven't had a new family portrait since the two littles were born. So sad. So, here are our new shots. We tried to line up by height, but since A-13 is taller than all of us, it didn't work too well. H-5 stepped out of line. B-man would not smile. But you know what? I think they are great!!! I am so proud to have had everyone dressed and semi-cooperative for 30 minutes.

soap making

In an effort to save money, we have started making our own laundry soap. I bought the kit form http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/Laundry_Detergent_Kit_with_PRE_GRATED_Fels_Naptha_p/pkg1001.htm.

It comes with borax, washing soda, and grated fels naptha soap. This is enough to make 10 batches (2 gallon). If I did my math correctly, I figure that it costs about $.04 per load making it this way. The first time I made it my family complained that it didn't smell good. They were used to TIDE or GAIN which both smell great. So for this batch, I bought an off brand detergent for $2.99 and we added it to our recipe. I figured that added about $.06 to each load for a grand total of $.10 per load.

Here are some recipes from the Soaps Gone Buy website: http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/category_s/24.htm

We used the second one. When we added the detergent we had bought, it did seem to improve the smell although the original smell wasn't bad. It smelled clean. It just didn't have that great scent of the commercial detergents.

My oldest dd really enjoyed making the mixture. She said she really needed to know this for when she grows up even though she plans to use TIDE. :)

Please don't pay attention to all the folded laundry on my counter. It is clean and folded....just not put away....yet.