Laundry soap

Yes I am thinking of making my own laundry soap. Never before have I thought this would be something I would do. But after researching it and seeing you can make it for 1 cent a load, that means the Tide I just bought would have cost $1.10 instead of $22. How can you beat that? I am picky about my soap so we will see. Here is the link to the recipe I am going to try: laundry soap
I will keep you posted on how it goes. I might even take pictures.

No more diapers for me!

I don't know how many people have seen Potty Power. But that is the song they sing. We have been working and working on Sweet Pea to try to get her to go on the potty but she either refuses or just sits there and does nothing. Fortunately we have a sitter who is very willing to help potty train. The past 2 weeks if she goes potty at the sitters, she gets to put underwear on. The first week she just proceeded to have accidents. But last week she only had one and came home friday in underwear. That was when she sat on the potty for daddy and didn't go then 10 minutes later hid behind a chair and peed all over the place. Boy was he mad!
But she came home in underwear last night and went twice on the potty. Yay! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. How nice for our budget to not have to buy diapers.
Along the same lines. Son rarely sleeps through the night without going in his pullup. We have been waking him up before we go to bed in hopes it would leave him dry in the morning. It worked at first and then he must have adapted and now wakes up wet, although less wet than before. But at Grandma's over the week, he fell asleep on her couch and slept all night without having an accident and he stayed dry in his pullup the next night. So last night we braved it and since he was doing it, Princess wanted to do it as well. (not quite as scary as she often wakes up dry but when we attempted this before she had accidents every night and freaked out because she was wet so we stopped). They both woke up dry!! Yay! Now I really see the light at the end of the tunnel, no more diapers, no more pullups. I can't wait.
Of course, this was only one night but I am going to attempt it all week. It is spring break and son doesn't have to go to school so what better time to do it. Hopefully he will be night trained by his birthday next month.

Global Food Crisis Day

I was listening to Air 1 (a Christian radio station for those who don't know) this morning on my way to work and was struck by the stories that I heard. Today is Global Food Crisis Day and they are joining with radio stations around the world and Compassion International to raise money for starving people/children. It truly broke my heart to hear of women in Haiti using shortening and mixing it with dirt to literally make mud pies to feed their children just so they have something in their stomachs. And people digging in rat holes to find grains of rice that the rats have collected or men who are the supporters of their families to have to tell their children they have no food to give them. They say every 7 seconds a child dies from hunger, not cancer, not AIDS but hunger. Something that we can all do something about. Here is the link to Compassions' website. I am not sure how long they are taking money for this but I imagine it will go longer than just today.http://www.compassion.com/global-food-crisis/?referer=98494&utm_campaign=gfcradio-air1-98494

As a mother this just brought me to tears hearing of these children. I just went to the store and spent $80 for groceries - for one week. According to Compassion, this would feed like 8 children for an entire month.
I cannot imagine having to tell my children I had no food for their tummies or to literally feed them dirt. It makes me see my life in a different way. I am truly blessed and need to remember not to take things for granted.

Weight

As most women I know, I struggle with weight. I am not one who can eat whatever I want and not gain a pound. I am not really overweight either. My struggle right now is my post C-section body. It just didn't bounce back the way it did after my first 2 kids with natural deliveries.
I actually lost most of the baby weight while nursing my youngest. But then I stalled. After I quit nursing last spring, I started exercising. Fairly regularly. I would walk and try to run some (which I hate!), I was using free weights and doing ball exercises. I could not lose a single pound more. One problem I think was that I was still eating as if I were nursing. I could literally eat as much as my husband who is 6 feet tall. That was not the best for me. But I kept exercising all summer and into the fall. I finally stopped when things got crazy busy with soccer and the holidays. Guess what happened? I lost 3 pounds. Crazy I know. So 2 things happened I think. I finally started eating less. That was good. But I can only guess that I also lost some muscle. I have no other explanation.
Now, I am trying to exercise again. But I am not walking. It wasn't doing me any good. I tell people all the time to walk, that it is great exercise. But I think for me, I need something a little more and my body probably also adapted to the walking.
I have started doing Jillian Michael's workouts from the Biggest Loser. She is tough. It is really hard and is pushing me to my limits for sure. I love having On Demand. I am getting to try all of these exercise videos for free. And it has gotten my husband exercising again. We both have no excuse when we can do it inside for 30 minutes and get a really good workout.
This week it looks like I might have lost another pound. I don't really count it as a loss however, until it stays off for a couple of weeks. My weight tends to bounce around a little. But it is encouraging to see a change. What I want more than the lose pounds though, is to lose this post C-section stomach.
So I am off to exercise.

My Hero

I bought a dress for my princess. I debated on what size to get and stupidly picked the smaller size. I always buy a bigger size especially if it is for an upcoming season that is still a few months way. But I looove the dress! It looks so good on her, it is brown and pink and she really looks beautiful in it. But nonetheless, it was going to be too small by summer. So, I thought I would just take it back and exchange. Went to the Target in Salem, they didn't have a 5T. Okay, so sent my husband to the one in Sherwood where I originally bought it and I know they had a 5T just a few days ago. But no, he couldn't even find the rack at first that held the dresses. He wandered all over the girls section with 2 cranky girls (one was also poopy) and finally found where they were only to discover they did not have a 5T. He called me, he knew I loved the dress and I suggested he ask a sales person to track one down. Well, they apparently had one somewhere at the Sherwood store but he was not going to look through every nook and crany to find it, they had 1 in Wilsonville and 2 at Washington Square (these places are in complete opposite direction from each other). He decided to try Wilsonville and if they didn't have it to backtrack to the other store (I would have gone in the direction of the 2 dresses, but that is me). Fortunately, they had it in Wilsonville. Yay! I will post pictures later and you will see what I mean. Okay, so "hero" might be too strong of a work, but the fact that he was willing to drive all over the place to find this dress for his daughter (and for me since I loved it so much) just makes me love him more. 4 years ago I bet he would never have imagined doing that.

Difference between men and women

We had a meeting with the women of our church last weekend. The pastor's wife and assistant's pastor's wife shared part of their testimonies. It was really amazing to hear and I just had to share part of one from our pastor's wife. It just solidifies my gratefulness in being a part of this amazing church body. Hopefully she won't mind my sharing it here.
She became a Christian at age 19 and engaged sometime after, I am not exactly sure when. But our pastor comes from a very strong and Godly Christian family and she was feeling shame for her past, like she would not be able to measure up. (Of course I am summarizing quickly here). They were at someone's house who had a pool and it was fall so they were sort of bundled up. The pool hadn't been drained or covered and had leaves in it that were rotting and soggy and gross. She was poking him and teasing him, and being silly. He told her if she poked him again, he would pick her up and throw her in the pool. So of course she did it again (wouldn't you have?) He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and marched to the pool. When he got to the edge, he put her down and jumped in himself. As he came out all dripping wet, cold and covered in who knows what, he said this is what Christ did for you.
Of course she tells it better but what an amazing picture of God's love. And an amazing picture of a man who is so confident in that love and such an amazing teacher that he would take that opportunity to show someone how much God truly loves us. I have always prayed that God's light would shine through me, but do I do it in actions like that? I wonder if I have had moments in my life where God has presented that opportunity to me and I failed to convey His message. I am certain I have never shown Christ's love in such a literal way.
Anway, if you are wondering what my title to this post means, it is what my husband said to me when I started crying just retelling this story. "If I have ever seen the difference between men and women this is it" (or something to that effect). He thought it was a good story, while it brought me to tears. And still does.
I am grateful to be a part of this man's church. I can see I have a lot to learn from him.

Contentment

This is something I am working on. It is so easy to get caught up in the "wants". I find this especially hard when I am trying to cut back on my spending. It just makes me want to buy more. I do this with food as well. If I even think about trying to "diet", I instantly crave everything I shouldn't be having.
I don't indulge myself a lot with things. We are definitely on a budget and with the plan of 2 kids being in private school next year, we really need to watch what we spend. When I do spend money, I almost always buy things on sale and try to get the most for my money. But it is hard. When I am around other people who are a little more casual about their money, or don't have to worry about it so much, or who can buy expensive things etc...it gives me the wants.
Then I have to look around and realize how much we have, we are never wanting for food or clothing or a warm place to sleep. So what if we can't go out to eat in a restaurant all the time or go to movies. We are truly blessed and this is something I plan on focusing on this year.