i love my mom

my mom just left. she went back to arkansas today and i almost cried. she was here for a week and a half and that wasn't long enough.

she's great. while she was here we made all kinds of things(i'll show you later), and she cooked dinner almost every night, she watched eleanor so evan and i could go on a date, and my kitchen was always clean.

i love my mom.

my mom and i have always been close. and the older i get the closer we get. we talk everyday. 

every.single.day.

but having a baby changed our relationship. 

before eleanor was born i wasn't exactly the sweetest daughter around, basically…

i was a brat.

i loved her. and told her, but got upset with her a lot... 

and i was a brat.

i always thought whatever reason i had to get mad at her was valid. but it wasn't... 

and i was a brat.

now that i have a daughter, and i love her more than i ever knew i could love, i know how much my mom loves me.

and i was wrong. so wrong for being a brat.

i've told her all of this. apologized for everything i ever did. told her how wrong i was and how my heart would/will break when/if eleanor acts that way to me.

but i just wanted everyone else to know how wonderful she is and how much i love her and how amazing it is to finally know how much she loves me. no matter how many times i was/will be a brat!

something that works

since i've posted so many things i've tried that don't work i thought i'd share something i make that does!!

baby wipes
i've been making these since e was born.
they. are. amazing.
and so much cheaper than buying wipes
-maybe not cheaper than all wipes(i haven't done much pricing) but if i buy wipes i buy pampers sensitive because thats what they gave us at the hospital and i don't want to risk eleanor reacting to anything else(… i know, first time mom). and i get them at target, so this ends up being cheaper than that!
i also love that i know every single ingredient and i love that i make them. i think anything homemade is better!

you need
paper towels  (i use viva paper towels, they're my favorite and super soft!)
baby shampoo
baby oil, or coconut oil (i like baby better)
tea tree oil
and other essential oil for smell if you want

thats all.
oh and a container to put them in, i bought mine at target, it fits 1/2 of a roll.

when i first started making these i cut the roll of paper towels in half. but i had problems with mold, because it took us forever to go through the entire half roll.
so now i cut the roll in thirds and it works much better!!

in your container mix
1 to 2 tbl baby oil
2 tbl baby shampoo
3 drops tea tree oil

(tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic, helps with mildew, and is strong so be sure and count the drops!)

1.5 to 2 cups water

and a few drops essential oils if you want

stir together and add paper towel roll.
turn over and let sit 30 min.
pull out the cardboard in the center of the roll when it is completely wet and it will just come right out.



when i cut the roll in thirds i didn't have any trouble with mildew but i also don't put the lid on the all the way so they can get a little air.
i love them so much.
this time i used lavender oil and they smell so good!

good bye chemicals……maybe

i have wood floors in my house. real 1940 original wood floors. our entire first floor is wood, bathroom excluded.
i love them.
but not cleaning them.
because they are wood wood and not laminate i have to be careful what i use on them.
until today i had used bona. and loved it.
but in trying to rid my house of chemicals i'm going the natural route.
and in trying to save money i used things i already had on hand.
water
vinegar
vegetable oil
water and vinegar to clean(just a little bit of vinegar in water) and vinegar and vegetable oil(half and half) to polish.
it worked really well! i might just do it again sometime!


cons. need to play with the amounts of oil and vinegar. not as easy to use as bona, leaves the floor kind of oily (duh) shinny but oily.

pros. cheap, clean, natural, shiny, soft hands



hold up.
so this is what i wrote yesterday after cleaning my floors….. now, the day after, i change my mind.
i do not like this and will not do it again.
this is why.
my floors are oily, greasy.  not nice. i cant go barefoot.
and my house smells. like vegetable oil.
which i didn't realize had a smell until i put it all over my floors!
i have gone over my floors with dry rag 3 times since yesterday afternoon trying to get this crap off.
i don't know what i thought would happen putting oil on my floors. but i guess oily floors didn't cross my mind. or i thought it would soak in and just be shiny.
guess this is how you learn things.
at least this fail wasn't because of pinterest!

after doing more research i also have mixed feelings about putting oil like that on my wood floors. although i read don't use vinegar or oil then the next article i read said do so who really knows.
all i do know is i've got to find another chemical free way to make my floors shine.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

look what I made!

i made this a couple of weeks ago and just love it.

this is the easiest project ever. even for those of you who can't don't craft. 

i took the glass out of an old frame i had in the basement.
hot glued some twine to the back, just eyeballing where i though it should go.
(if you don't have twine you could use yarn or any kind of string.)
then cut hearts out of scrap book paper. -i used a stencil i made with an old card so all of  the hearts would be the same.
after all of the hearts were cut i taped them onto the twine and done.
hung it above our fireplace and its just darling.

Love

God gives us so much. 

Each day we get is a gift from Him, even waking up. I don’t generally have this attitude each morning but I should. 

And today I do.

As I sit here with my daughter sleeping on my chest I am beyond aware of Gods gifts.     

Having my husband kiss me good-bye and check on our daughter before he leaves is a gift.

Having Evan as my husband is a gift.

Him going to work is a gift.

Waking up next to a sweet boxer almost every morning is a gift.

Every way I try and save this family money is a gift.

Staying home to take care of Eleanor is a gift.

Being the source of food and nourishment for my baby is a gift.

Getting to raise her up in Christ is a gift.

I am so overjoyed and full of gratitude I could cry. 

God gives us so much and so often we don’t even realize. When I’m tired, and have to wake up at 6. When the house is a mess and I don't want to clean. When I'm exhausted and don't want to cook dinner.  When Evan wants to play video games. These things don't seem like gifts. But they are. When I want to go somewhere alone but cant, because E is fussy or hungry, that doesn't seem like a gift, but it is. And maybe it's a gift for her. Maybe me staying home to love and comfort and feed her is Gods gift to her. Maybe when we can't seem to find any comfort is what God is using us for it's because He is giving to someone else through us.

The reason this is on my heart now is because I never knew I could love someone the way I love my daughter. I never knew love like this even existed. I love my husband more than anything in this world, more than myself. But the love God gives you for a child is so different that the love He gives you for a husband. Love after you have a child is so beyond anything I could have imagined. Even my love for Evan now is so much more than it was before she was born. That we made this life together and that she is part of each of us and that she is ours, make me love him more than I ever have. 

The only thing I can think to even come close to understanding a mothers love for her child is the Fathers love for us. 

I believed God loved me, loved us, loved his children but after having E, I can only begin to try to understand the way he loves me, us. 

The magnitude of it. 

The abundance of His love. 

We love our little ones more everyday. Every second. But God already loves us more than we will ever love our children. He will never love us more that he does right now.

Wow.

And there is nothing we will ever to do make him love us any less. I just know how much I love my baby and can’t imagine anyone loving anything more that this, but I know that God loves me more, so much more. I’ve always heard you will never understand Gods love for you until you have a child and that is true. 

I understand now. 

Or am as close to understanding is as I ever will be. 

What a gift to have a God that not only gives us things everyday but loves us the way he does.

Pinterest Liars.

I am too trusting.

Anything I see on pinterest I believe is true, or why would someone have pinned it right? WRONG. I could have an entire blog about things I’ve tried from pinterest and their failures. Recently I am on a DIY and natural kick. So I have tried a bunch of different projects to get our home more natural, no chemical cleaners and soaps and things like that. Well maybe I should do more research or just actual research and not just pin something.

Dang it.

So far in the last week my 2 failures have only affected me so that’s good I guess, but when I get ready while my newborn is sleeping I don’t really have time for these things to go wrong.

Bust #1.

DIY deep conditioner, made with Mayo yogurt and an egg white. Crap. Not only did it leave my hair NOT conditioned, it was greasy. So I had to wash and dry it all over again. That may not seem like a big deal to some but to this momma it is!! I rarely dry my hair as it is but was so excited about this new natural deep conditioner I wanted to see how pretty and shiny and soft my new tresses would be so I blew it dry. Then realized it looked dirty. So I RE washed it with normal shampoo and conditioner and blew it dry again because I kind of had my heart set on straight hair for a day. Lets just say my straight clean (washed twice) hair was my big task of the day :(

Bust #2 was just this morning and in the same category. Maybe I should just stay away from DIY hair care. I made my own shampoo yesterday, with coconut milk, dr. bronners soap, olive oil, (only a tiny bit so I thought it would be ok) and essential oil (for smell) I was so excited I threw out our old shampoo.

Oops.

I found this recipe on pinterest, but I went to the blog and she loved it and said it worked so well so, what could go wrong, right?

Well my hair is greasy.

Frick.

And now I have a baby who is about to wake up and hair that despite just being washed looks like I haven’t had a shower in a week. This time I’m not re washing it. Well just my bangs. The rest can go in a ponytail and I will deal with it tomorrow.

The sad thing is I knew, while I was still in the shower, that this wasn’t going to turn out. I could tell my hair was going to be a greasy mess. But this girl jumped the gun and threw the shampoo that actually works away so I didn’t have any other shampoo to fix the problem in the shower.
at least my dirty clean hair smells good.

I feel like this shampoo could work so maybe I just need to mess with the recipe myself and not believe everything everyone else says, or pins.

Pinterest is full of liars.

Full of them.