Homemade

I've been trying out some homemade detergents and cleaners lately. Some have worked out nicely and others have not.
1st: Homemade Shampoo - Some days I feel better about this than others. All the blogs I've read praise the baking soda + water shampoo. They say that the first week you're hair is really oily because the hair folicles are in shock because they are used to being stripped of the natural oils. Also, after using it for a while you won't have to wash your hair everyday. People usually pair the homemade shampoo with the apple cider vinegar conditioner (apple cider vinegar + water). The vinegar is supposed to detangle the hair and seal the hair ends to protect from split ends. Here are the pros and cons I have with the shampoo. I have to wash my hair everyday or else it looks like it's been at least a week since I've washed it. My hair never really feels clean. It feels like there's dirt or powder coating my hair. It could be that I just don't wash the baking soda out completely, but I try. It leaves my hair dry and dull looking. I've also noticed that it collects a lot more lint. The good thing about it is that it costs less than $0.25 to make a big container of and my hair seems to fall out less. Now for the conditioner. I hate it. I hate the smell of apple cider vinegar. Every time I used it I would nearly throw up in the shower. Blah! It didn't make my hair smooth and silky. I would have to constantly be brushing the tangles out. So, I still use the baking soda shampoo most days, but every once in a while I will use store bought shampoo, and now I always use store bought conditioner.
2nd: Homemade Dishwasher Detergent - I have only made one batch of this (lemonade flavored Kool-Aid, washing soda, and borax), and I'm not impressed. My dishes are spotty. I even use white vinegar as a rinse agent, which works with the store bought detergent. I figure that it costs about $1-$2 less than what I normally buy at the store. So, I'm not going to make any more dish detergent.
3rd: Liquid Fabric Softener - This is one that I actually like. You mix cheap hair conditioner with white vinegar and water. That's it. It works so well and is so much cheaper than buying it at the store.
4th: Homemade Baby Wipes - I have been making these for a while. Zach and my sister don't like using them because they require a little more work to get out of the tub than the Pampers or Huggies wipes do, but I'm saving a bunch of money by making them, so too bad. I don't have a real recipe for this, I just go by how much of something I feel they need. So, sometimes they end up being too wet or not wet enough.
5th: Homemade Stain Remover - I have tried 2 different recipes for this. One was mixing dawn dish soap + vinegar + water. The other is ammonia + dawn dish soap + baking soda + water. The latter seems to work better than the former, but still not as well as I would like.
There are a few more things that I'm wanting to try out. I'm all for saving money by making my own things.

Bad Blogger

I'm such a bad blogger. I never feel like updating, because who on earth really reads this blog? So, I'm kind of updating this as a little journal entry. There are big changes coming up in our lives. Zach is going active duty. He's been assigned to Ft. Bragg, NC.

He is supposed to report at the end of June. As of right now we aren't sure if the whole family will be able to go at that time. We have some things that need to be taken care of before we can go with him. This is a huge thing for us. We're going to have to leave the friends that we've made, and find new ones. I don't want to find new ones. I just want to stay with the great ones I already have, but leaving is going to be good for my family. I know it, I can feel it. It's just so hard to say goodbye.
Annie Cooper, if you're reading this, I just want to let you know how thankful I am to have you in my life and what a wonderful friend you've been to me. I feel that you were put into my life by our Heavenly Father to help me fulfill my patriarchal blessing. I'm going to miss instant messaging you crazy work stuff that happens every day. Thank you Annie, for introducing me to the most wonderful thing in the world, "The Greatest Love". I don't know where I would be without Doko Jin. kekeke
FIGHTING!!!

Museum of Ancient Life

Yesterday was the last day for 2 buck Tuesdays at Thanksgiving Point. So, we went to the Museum of Ancient Life. We haven't been there in a long time. I think the last time we went was when Micah was Lily's age.






We had a good time.

Farm Country

Tuesday was Alyssa's first day of 3rd grade. We decided to go to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country after she got home. They girls had a good time, even though we were all melting.
Lily really liked that little goat.


Britni helping Micah over the fence to pet the lama.

Alyssa and Micah's favorite part,


riding the ponies.

Bad Genes

I said earlier that I would post more about going to the optometrist. So, we went in just for a regular ol' check up. Micah has never had her eyes check, Alyssa hasn't since she before she started kindergarten, and I haven't in nearly 5 years. I knew that my eyes weren't so great and I wanted to get contacts, but I didn't really think the girls eyes were going to be bad at all. Wrong! Alyssa's right eye is absolutely normal. It has 20/20 vision, but the left eye is terrible. It has 20/400 vision (not really even sure what that means except WAY bad), and is farsighted. If her eye was to go 'unfixed' she would eventually lose vision completely in that eye. Good thing we caught it before she went blind! Turns out farsightedness is genetic. I am farsighted in my left eye too. On to Micah. In children it's normal to be farsighted, but only to a certain extent. For Micah's age they should be between 4-5 steps or stages (I don't remember the wording the doctor used), and Micah is at a 10 on both eyes. I'm thinking great, I have 2 blind children, probably even 3. I need to make Lily an appointment soon now. Anyways, here are some pictures of my 4-eyed cuties

Lately...

Alyssa got baptised!


What a wonderful day it was for her. She got to wear a beautiful, fluffy, white dress and have people fawn over how beautiful and proud they were of her. I am glad it was a good day for her.

The other day we went to Chik-Fil-A and I found the most genius thing!


WHAT?! Rip the top "cap" off to squeeze or pull back the tab to dip! Crazy! Why was this not invented sooner?

Last year Zach planted a rasberry and a blackberry bush. I hate those "bushes"! They aren't really even bushes, they are more like chutes with the sharpest thorns in the world. Anyways, since they are supposed to be "bushes", and no one bothered to check out on how to care for them (eh hem), they have been growing wild. I got fed up and decided to do studying on how to take care of them. Apparently they are supposed to have a support system of trellises so the chutes don't fall over, and you have to trim them every year. So, today I built a crappy little trellis with the stuff we got at Home Depot. (Side note: Why is it that certain people never listen to me? I say how something needs to be done, but the other person doesn't really listen and then they get an idea of how something should work and go with their idea instead, even though they have no idea what they are talking about. Then we get to the point of, "You were right." If I'm right then why do we have to go through this process every time?! *Ahhhhhhhh*) So, now I have to deal with a trellis that not only looks like crap because it was made with the wrong things (that was not my idea in the first place to get), and doesn't work properly. If those "bushes" don't produce a boat load of berries next year, they are out of here!
I'm kind of in a bad mood. I'm sorry.
Anyways, this is our bounty.

Not much at all, and no rasberries this year. Our tomatoes are finally starting to turn red. Micah had the first ripe one today, and she ate it like an apple. That kid LOVES tomatoes.

Alyssa, Micah, and I went to see the optomotrist yesterday for a yearly eye exam, and I will be posting more on that later. Not that anyone really reads this blog.

The Anniversary and The Incident

As of yesterday, Zach and I, have been married for 5 years. It doesn't really feel like it's been that long, but it also feels like it's been much longer. To celebrate, he took me out to lunch on Thursday, on Friday we went to see the new Transformers movie. It was really good! The best one out of the 3. I think I might plan for us to go to dinner tonight too, but we'll see. I have a $50 gift certificate to restaurants.com that I got from Bing Rewards, and right now would be a perfect time to use it since restaurants.com has $25 certificates for $2.

Anyways, yesterday was kind of crazy. First, Zachary almost had his ear taken off! He was doing a paratrooper jump into Utah Lake. I'm not positive what happened. Something about his helmet broke off, and I think he didn't tuck his chin under, and the parachute nearly sliced his ear off. He said his ear lobe was dangling and only being held on by 3 pieces of skin. Plus, either his bracket or the wire on his braces came unattatched and his orthodontist won't fix it until Monday. On top of all that, I got in my first car accident where I was the driver. I am so glad that I was the only one in the car! So, I was going from my parent's house to my house. I was just minding my own business when this silver Pontiac starts running through a stop sign. I slam on my brakes and have to swerve to miss him, and I do miss him. He finally stopped about halfway into the lane. I think, Oh My Gosh, that was the closest I've ever been to getting in a car accident. Then, I stop at the red light. I am preoccupied thinking about the almost accident when BAM, the same silver Pontiac rearends my car! I don't know exactly what I was thinking after that, but I got out of my car and started screaming at him. He signaled for me to pull off the road. So, I got back in my car and pulled off to the side of the road. Then I proceeded to get out of my car and continue to yell at the guy saying things like, "WHAT THE H**L WHERE YOU THINKING" "HOW IS IT THAT YOU NEARLY RUN INTO ME ONCE AND THEN ACTUALLY RUN INTO ME?!" His response to the last remark was I don't remember almost hitting you before. WHAT!!!!!????!!!!! I kind of calmed down after that, enough to make sure he was ok and really get a look at the damage. His hood was messed up and my car just has a foot long dent in the bumper and a bent license plate. Again, I am so glad I didn't have the kids with me. I am not hurt, but who knows if the kids were in the back seat, if they would have gotten hurt. So, even though we had kind of a bad day yesterday, I am thankful that my family is safe because it all could be so much worse.