Counting Down...

As of today, we have 35 days left until baby #3 arrives! I'm personally very excited to meet this new little one and can't wait to see his face. We're getting the house in order and cleaning out/getting rid of lots of things that aren't necessary any more. But we're also trying to make time to focus on our two older kiddos.

This weekend will be a fun one for Isabel as we have a fun outing planned for her on Saturday. Some major milestones are coming up for her. She has her first "real" loose tooth, and will be losing it any day now. We had one loose tooth incident before but it was because she bumped her chin on something and it killed the root ( I think). That tooth never made it under her pillow because we think she swallowed it while eating dinner one night. So back to this coming weekend. We have been talking about getting her ears pierced for a while now, but Dylan and I had agreed before she was born she had to be at least 5 years old and she had to willingly ask for it herself. Well, the time has come! She asked her dad a couple nights ago if she could have permission to have her ears pierced, so we'll be doing that this Saturday. For Christmas we gave her a gift certificate to Build-a-Bear for her to use before baby #3 make his debut as a means of giving us (Dylan and I) some special one on one time with her. We'll also probably do lunch/dinner out at her favorite restaurant. In addition to that, I thought it would be fun to have a girls night out with her and her Grandma Sally to go see the new 3D Beauty and the Beast movie at the theater! But that will probably wait until another weekend.

Shawn will have a few fun outings too, as well as some much needed Dad time. He's been hanging around us girls too much! We haven't really thought of anything a 3 year old would like quite yet, but I'm sure we'll come up with something! He's into Spiderman, zombies (go figure...) and most any other boy-type things boys love. We may just start out with ice cream/fro-yo at the local shop and go from there. Wonderscope, Crayola Cafe, and Leaping lizards are all possibilities.

Dylan and I are hoping to get one last date night in sometime before the big event. I'm really hoping to go see The Vow when it comes out in theaters. Maybe even at the Fork and Screen! A girl can hope :D

A New Start

I just love the start of a new year. The feeling of having a fresh page to start over again is really motivating for me. I need to make sure I don't try to take on too much at once :D
While I typically don't make any new years resolutions, I do have a few things in mind that I'd like to improve upon for this year. One being more intentional about updating and documenting our family's journey, not just in the adoption, but in life in general. We've been so blessed in 2011 and are excited for God's guidance in 2012!
Blessings for this new year to you and your family!

Fall Flashback: Pumpkin Carving!

I know this is really late for the season, but I thought I'd get it up here anyway.
Dylan and the kids carved pumpkins a few nights before Halloween (see how late I am??) I unfortunately wasn't home to help out/take pictures, so Dylan handed the camera to the kids and let them have at it! They didn't do to bad, for being 3 and 5. Apparently Isabel wanted nothing to do with taking out the pumpkin guts, but Shawn had a blast!

Dylan carved a cute Kitty face into the pumpkin. It turned out really good, and the best part is it was based off a drawing Isabel did herself!
Here's the final results!

And now all lit up!

Fall Flashback: Pumpkin Patching!

In an effort to catch up on the past month and a half, here's a few things we've done!

A couple weeks before Halloween, Isabel's preschool class took a trip to the KC Pumpkin Patch. We've never been to this pumpkin patch before, so it was new for my kiddos.

They had a bunch of fun activities for the kiddos like a dinosaur dig...

...a kid sized train...

 ...a pirate ship...

...a wooden tractor...

...a hay bale maze and a horse bouncy game.

And of course, there were pumpkins! The kids got to pick out some small pumpkins for themselves. They also picked out a tiny pumpkin for baby brother!

The kids had such a fun time!

A Special Present

A few weeks back, a package came to our door.

Though I didn't know exactly what was inside, I had a feeling it's recipient would just LOVE IT.

Little did I know how that would be a vast understatement.

You see, Isabel's godparents, whom we refer to as Nina and Nino, don't live close to us.

In fact, they don't even live on the same continent.

So when Isabel's birthday rolled around, they made their goddaughter feel over the moon when they sent her a birthday gift. All the way from Korea...

She still doesn't quite grasp the concept of how distant that is, and who can blame her? She's only 5. She tries to put it in terms that she knows. Like asking if one of her grandma's lives as far away as her Nina and Nino.

No sweetheart, Grandma lives on the other side of the state. Nina and Nino live on the other side of the ocean. Way out past where Grandma lives. LOL!

So upon opening the box she found some wonderful little gifts inside!

A beautiful fan with it's own silk case, a porcelain bracelet with beautifully painted flowers on it, and best of all

an exquisite tea set complete with a porcelain tray and four tiny tea cups, all painted with brightly colored flowers! Perfect for any princess tea party!

 

This little girl went to town with her tea set!

A couple of days later we just HAD to set it up and have ourselves a proper tea party!

 Isabel had so much fun playing with the tea set. She even tried tea for the first time, but didn't like it as much as she hoped she would.

Here she is with her "proper" face and "proper" fan waving method! LOL She cracks me up!

These tea parties have become a regular occurrence after dinner at least once a week. 

Thank you SO much, Nina and Nino for sending over these beautiful gifts! They are perfect for her, she loves them and they always make her feel  like the princess she is! We love you!

Dylan, Liz, Isabel, Shawn and Baby

A DIY Project

The following post has nothing to do with anything...

...which is why it fits perfectly on the blog :)

I'm going to confess something that's a little shocking even to me...

I haven't bought laundry detergent in almost a year an a half.

Around that time I decided to take the plunge and make up my own batch of laundry detergent based on a recipe I found on the Duggar's (yes, the 19+ child family) website. I kept a bottle of store bought detergent on hand just in case we didn't like how the homemade recipe cleaned our clothes, or found it just plain didn't work.

But here's the kicker....it DID work, quite well, I might add.

So I decided to do a blog post on it. Hold on to your seats!

I'm doing the liquid version which I think is a little more involved than the powder version. As in, you end up making 5 gallons of it. See why I didn't buy laundry detergent for so long?

Here's the link to the recipe I used

The Ingredients:

Tap water, Super washing soda, Borax and a bar of Ivory soap

and a 5 gallon bucket

Step 1: Grate Ivory bar and add to sauce pan on medium-low heat, stirring until it's all melted.

Step 2: Fill bucket half full with water, add melted soap, borax and super washing soda, and stir until all powder is dissolved.

Step 3: Fill up with hot water, stir and let sit overnight.

Step 4: Get your big hunkin' man of a husband to carry it down to the basement for you 'cause this sucker will be HEAVY!

To Use: I kept one of my old detergent bottles with the measuring cap. I put 24 oz of soap mix and 24 oz of plain water in my (50 oz) detergent bottle and shake to mix. The actual number of ounces you put in your detergent bottle will vary according to how big your bottle is. The 50-50 ratio is what's important.  P.S. You don't have to be obsessive about it like I am. Just eyeball it if you want.
Shake before every use as it will gel after a while. For a regular, top loading machine, use about 5/8 cup. For me, this is just about a full cap on my detergent bottle. Super easy and an awesome cost saver.

Tips* Buy a ladle at the thrift store for this! It'll help with getting the soap into your bottle. I use a large measuring cup/bowl type thing like this one. Or like I said before you could just use a funnel and eyeball a halfway point on your detergent bottle.

That's about it! Leave a comment if you've got any questions!
Love,
your resident homemade laundry soap maker

P.S. I'm linking up to Skip To My Lou's Made By You Monday! Enjoy!

I have no clue

where October went...If anyone finds it please let me know!

Seriously...

The past almost month and a half has just blown by.

And it feels like I've just been standing in the middle of it all.


None of it was bad, but just VERY VERY busy.

We've pumpkin patched (twice), made costumes and trick or treated, started our home study, gotten a dog (he's adorable!) along with all the other "minor" everyday things that fail to make enough news to be talked about on this blog.

Hmm...that doesn't sound like much when I write it all out...

Personally, outside the home, I've been busy with volunteer work and taking classes, both Bible studies and a class on organization/time management. I'm done with the classes, but I'm definitely still working on the principles I learned.

My laziness gets in the way of that one sometimes.

I've actually got a couple posts I'm working on, but just can't seem to find a good time to post them. Hoping that will happen within the next couple days.