Who knows where this post will go............

I'm just going to start typing.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I've been an on-task kind of woman and I love it.

Nesting is in full swing. Pray for Jason. I have a list of things that I obviously can't lift or do for him to take care of.

I don't know why it happens this way, but once you find out what your next baby is going to be it's almost like you kick into "the baby is coming" mode. I guess its because usually (for those of us who so dare find out the sexes of our babies) we find out the gender about mid-way through our pregnancy. This means we are halfway there to meeting our precious new one.

We are super thrilled about having a third girl. We haven't officially decided on a name, but we've gotten it narrowed down considerably- well actually to just two. Well, three if you throw in the name that I really love, but Jason isn't crazy about. I actually kind of like that he has an opinion about the name of this little girl. He didn't really have one with the other two. But, then again we sort of knew their names before we even found out what we were having.

So back to nesting......

I cornered two older women at church this weekend and begged them to give me insight into organizing girl clothes. One of these women had FIVE girls and the other had FOUR. I guess I feel like that could eventually be my life. I already feel like girl clothes are overtaking my life. And I don't even have sizes 6-12 months in my house right now. My precious niece Ava has those.

I have them arranged right now according to size. But, Laney Rae and KK are both so shady (did I just call my girls shady???) in their sizes that one outfit of one size may work and another not fit at all. So, this is why the clothes that we have out right now range from 24 months to 5T. Laney Rae has been known to wear even a size 3T these days......and so has Kaylyn.

So, as you can see, the dilemma presents itself.

On top of that, I think of adding baby clothes, socks, blankets, burp cloths, towels, and all of the extras. Its sort of caused me to lay in bed at night a draw a diagram of the girls' closet in my head.

It may seem easy to you from the outside looking in, but I can assure its rocket science so don't be a hater.

Any tips out there from mom's who have more than one child of the same gender?

The bonus to all of this clothes non-sense and brainstorming is that it has caused me to become extremely AWESOME at laundry. I'm loving this.

Laundry has always been an area of mine that has need lots of improvement. My house could be completely spotless, but if you decided to wander into the laundry room, you'd see the tornado scene out of The Wizard of Oz.

Along with cornering these moms, I asked them in my questioning process,"How did you keep up with all of the laundry?"

Both of them responded the words I'd dreaded hearing,"I did a load a day."

Deep down inside I've always known this was the answer. I've heard others even say it. But, I didn't really practice it until these past few weeks.

It has changed my laundry life. I just do a load of whatever is the biggest load for that day- whites, jeans, colors, towels. If I don't really have a load that's big enough to wash, I wash the linens......I love saying linens. It makes me feel fancy!

Another thing that I slacked off doing during the beginning of my pregnancy, was making my own detergent. And to be honest with you, I wasn't really digging my old recipe very much. Our clothes over time began to look dingy and the stains weren't coming off.

But, I think the problem was the baking soda in the recipe. The new recipe that I am using doesn't have baking soda in it. I got it off of a friend's blog and I love it! I've been usually it consistently for a while now and I'm happy to report that its cleaning great! I was a little afraid to recommend it without trying it out for a while.

I will say that I add 1/2 cup of OxyClean to mostly every load too. I love that stuff and would be sad if I had to part ways with it. Farm life brings lots of messy clothes! Its really not all that bad. So, I will continue to use it.

Another thing I'm loving are DRYER BALLS!
I picked some up randomly at Wal-Mart. I love them because since I don't add any fabric softener to our clothes, these tend to do the trick. They're amazing!

Just give them a try!

If you end up hating them, they can become an instant toy for you kiddos to play with.

Spray Cleaner Recipes

I've turned my kitchen into a test lab the past few days. Good thing this stuff has cheap ingredients!

I've been on a mission to create or find some spray cleaning recipes that smelled great, were incredible cleaners, and weren't complicated to make. I'm really happy with the recipes that I ended up with.

Again, there are sooooo many recipes out there online and even in the little tiny book of The Naturally Clean Home. There are some recipes as basic as vinegar and water (ick!) or some as extensive as adding 2 or even 3 essential oils along with 3 other ingredients. I was looking for something more in the middle.

I didn't want something that smelled terrible but was cheap such as the vinegar and water.

But, I also didn't want something complicated and expensive like the extensive recipes.

When you use essential oils with your cleaning products, you are getting their natural powers (sounds like a superhero) and also their natural smells. I feel like that is what separates some of these recipes from what is out there.Using essential oils is not a must. It is a preference. I've tried making cleaners without them, and I wasn't near as thrilled with the smells or the results.

Here is a chart of some of the essential oils that I've mentioned and their uses (taken from The Naturally Clean Home- I ain't that smart:). These are just a few on a really long list.

Peppermint- antibacterial
Eucalyptus- antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antibiotic
Lavender- antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antibiotic
Lemon- antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antibiotic
Mint- antibacterial
Orange- antibacterial
Patchouli- antibiotic, antifungal
Lime- antibiotic, antifungal
Tea Tree- antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antibiotic

The fun part about all of this is you get to make up your own and come up with cleaners that suit you the best. With a little bit of knowledge on what ingredients and oils are used for, the possibilities are endless.

The book and the internet have A TON of recipes in it for many different things. But, I feel like these 3 are the ones that I will use most often. Keep in mind when you are creating your sprays that less is more in using essential oils. If you add too much of the essential oils, you will have a greasy mess on your hands.

Herbal Appliance Degreaser (taken from The Naturally Clean Home)-

This recipe is excellent. We use our stove for practically all 3 meals and use olive oil a lot too. So, needless to say, our stove gets lots of grease build-up on it. I never even thought about using Murphy's to clean my stove. But, I was amazing at how well it work compared to 409 (which I used all of the time).

2 cups warm water
1/4 cup Murphy's
10 drops of citrus oil or lavender oil

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle. Mix well. To clean, spray surface and scrub with a sponge. Wipe off with a towel or cloth.

*depending upon how big your spray bottle is, you could double this recipe.

Herbal Disinfectant

Did you know that Borax is a natural disinfectant that has been around for almost 4,000 years? I sure didn't. I wanted a cleaner that was a great disinfectant as well in order to have an alternative to using bleach. So this is what I came up with using the research and information in the book.

2 cups HOT WATER (so Borax will dissolve correctly)
1/4 cup Borax
3 tablespoons of white vinegar
5 drops of lemon oil
5 drops of lavender

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle. Spray and wipe clean with a cloth.

All-Purpose Spray

This is my go-to spray. I use this all of the time! It smells wonderful and cleans incredibly. I even used this to spray down the inside of my car. You can use liquid castile soap to clean just about anything.

2 cups warm water
2 tablespoon of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Magic Soap
2 tablespoons of white vinegar
4 drops of patchouli oil
4 drops of orange oil

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle.

I ONLY own a grand total of 5 essential oils as of right now. I have lavender, sweet orange oil, peppermint, lemon, and patchouli. So that is the reason for the repeat of the oils. But, you can see that you don't need to spend a whole lot of money on the oils to get great cleaners. Overtime, I would love to have a variety of essential oils, but these are the ones that I have on hand.

I have a gift for you that just might motivate you to come up with something on your own...........

LABELS!

These were created in photoshop and I saved them as a .jpg so you should be able to download them and print them off your own computer. They are 2 inches x 4 inches so you can put these on shipping labels or just print them off on cardstock, cut them out, and put some shipping tape over them to protect them from water. I think they have waterproof labels somewhere out there, but not here in our little town of Brenham!

****If you find any cute spray bottles while you are out and about, let me know. I'm not too thrilled with my bottles, but it was all that Wal-Mart had that were halfway decent. I would love for the surface around the bottle to be smooth and not bumpy to help keep water out even more when putting on the labels.

Detergent Review

If you would have told me that I would be making my own detergent 2 years ago, I would have laughed in your face.

Recently, I got my hands on a great book about toxins in the home. The book is called, The Naturally Clean Home. I'm sure there are others out there that are similar, but I happen to stumble across this one first.

The book focuses in primarily on the cleaners we use everyday when it comes to maintaining our homes. I had no idea some of the stuff was that bad! Some of the stats and information in the book will shock you. But, don't take my word for it. Check it out yourself.

I have found this book to be an excellent tool especially for a newbie like me. I didn't even own an essential oil last week so I was basically starting from scratch. The author does an incredible job explaining things and has tons of recipes to offer. I like that a lot of her recipes are scented and she helps you create the smells that you are trying to achieve. A lot of the recipes online don't have essential oils added to them. I can't wait to try out more. I did make my floor cleaner a few days ago also, but more on "Swiffer goes wild" in another post.

I've heard that making your own detergent can save you lots of money. Although I think it will save you some if you are used to buying the expensive high-dollar stuff (I wasn't), my reason for making the detergent stemmed more from the idea of knowing what exactly is in this white powder that I use daily in my home.

Honestly, I dreaded the whole thing. DREADED! I was completely out of detergent and was not letting myself go out and just buy some more without trying this out first. I was committed to the idea of making my own.

I knew that I wasn't willing to settle on a few things. The first being the all-important smell. I am a huge 'sniffer'. I love good smelling detergent or anything for that matter. You name it, I probably sniff it. My husband laughs at me all of the time because I usually sniff my fork before I bite into my food.......almost every time I take a bite! Weird.......I know. You get the drift. Smell is important to me and I wanted my stuff to smell good.

The other thing that I wasn't willing to settle on was the clean factor. I wanted my clothes to come out of the wash stain free and bright white. Thus, the importance of detergent to begin with. But, you and I both know that not all detergent is created equal and some clean better than others.

The last thing I wasn't willing to do is spend a whole day making detergent. I was prepared for it to take more time than just picking it up off the shelf and sticking it in my basket, but I wasn't willing for it to take hours or even an hour for that matter. I doubled the recipe below and it took me all but 20 minutes. I really don't think it would take longer than 30 to make a ton! I started off small because I didn't want to make a batch of detergent big enough for 1ooo loads of clothes and totally hate it. Kaylyn had fun helping me make it too which is also the beauty of using non-toxic cleaners. Your kiddos can clean with you!


I must say that after my first day of laundry I was sold on making my own detergent. It exceeded my expectations. I wanted to try it out first for a week before passing the information along to you guys and gals.

The first thing I loved about making my own, was creating the smell that I wanted. I did this by experimenting with some essential oils. I love woodsy citrus smells so I scented mine with sweet orange oil (which also helps remove stains and brighten laundry) and patchouli (for all of you hippies out there). The smell is totally different than store bought detergent so don't be expecting that. I wanted to live in my laundry room that day it smelled pleasant and naturally good. I really can't describe it other than 'fresh'.

I didn't pre-treat a load of my girls' clothes on purpose because I wanted to put the detergent to the test. The clothes came out perfectly and stain-free. I felt like my whites were even brighter than if I were to have used OxyClean on them. And trust me when I say that I was a firm believer in 1/4 of a scoop of OxyClean in every load.

My giant mason jar came in handy to store the detergent in my laundry room. I got this jar as a gift from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Durward and finally found the perfect thing to put in it. I LOVE cute jars and containers. It really makes doing laundry even funner to me. How silly is that, right?

I really think you will like it and enjoy the cool smells you come up with. Not to mention the satisfaction you will feel in knowing that you made some stuff that is not only good for the environment (the water waste coming out of your washing machine has to go somewhere, right?), but also good for your family too.

Here is the recipe I used. I sort of combined a few to fit my needs. There are tons of recipes online if you looked it up. Okay, so enough of me talking. Go make you some detergent and give it a try.

*If you have experience with this as well and have some more tips to offer to us newbies, feel free. I'd love to hear what you have to say!*

Powder Laundry Detergent (Lynsey-Style)

This will do approximately 12-20 loads depending upon how soiled clothes are.

2 cups washing soda (found on the detergent isle at grocery store)
2 cups of scented baking soda (by scented, this means mix 5-8 drops of essential oil of your choice with the baking soda first and stir really good)
1 bar of grated Ivory soap (use your food processor- will look like feta cheese)
1 cup of Borax (use this if you have hard water especially)
Container/Jar

Mix all together really well and store in a container. Use 1/2 cup for an average size load.

Lavender-scented Fabric Softener (from The Naturally Clean House)

I used lavender for my fabric softener, but again you can choose your own smell.

1 gallon of vinegar
20 drops of lavender

Add lavender right into the container and shake. You've got instant fabric softener. Add this to the rinse cycle in your washing machine.

Lynsey Tip: I will be using the Downey ball that dispenses it while the washing machine is washing to clothes so I don't have to remember to add it in.

Dryer Sheets

Here is a quick tip for dryer sheets for you. Take a scrap piece of fabric (I used baby washcloths) and add 3-5 drops of essential oils on the fabric and throw it in the dryer with your clothes. Be careful not to use too much or it might put oil spots on your clothes.