Around our house

Since Avett was born, we've all been spending a lot more time at home. But especially the kids and me. We'll go a few days without actually driving anywhere in the car.   I am having a hard time keeping up with all the demands of taking care of three children + all the housework that needs to get done on a daily basis. And leaving the house with three is a bit more complicated than with only two.  So really it's just more convenient and comfortable for all of us to stay home more often than not. Here are a few of the things we do to occupy our time.

Make pizzas in our dinosaur diaper. 

Play outside and even swim if it's warm enough. 

Snap a picture of a brother and a kiss. 

Spend lots and lots of time in this room. 

The craft room/learning room/art room.

But here I was snuggling my Avett. 

Make rainbow vegetable trays. 

Admire new Avett. 

Play in the rice sensory bin.

Grow way too fast. 

Make Valentine ladybugs. 

Play with Case. 

Drink hot chocolate out of tea cups. 

Do "yoga" and "gymnastics" outside. 

 Search the fridge for something good. 

Find lemons to make for lemonade.

 Work as a team to squeeze them.

Enjoy the hard work. 

Look cute and stylish after a bath. 

Make play dough.

Then play with it. 

Give in to mommy's kiss request. 

Look adorable during a nap. 

Share many, many meals together. 

Cuddle with Avett some more. 

Help Daddy make pancakes on Saturday morning. 

Help bathe little brother. 

And sometimes we sit in front of the t.v. eating Chobani yogurt with chia seeds because, why not? :) 

Mailbox Makeover

We've disliked our mailbox area since moving into our house over a year ago.  And let me just say, time flies and I cannot believe we've already been living here for over a year! Back to the mailbox...it was boring, messy and just plain ugly. There are lots of projects we want to do outside {and inside} of our house, but with two small children and a budget we aren't able to do every project now...or ever. But the mailbox was one thing on the top of our list. We look at it everyday when we pull in and out of our driveway, so it was hard to ignore. First let me show you how it looked before we made any changes.

overgrown and messy

das our house!

 Kyle first cut, ripped and pulled everything out.  We felt kinda bad killing all of the plants, but I don't think there would've been a way to save them.

This is what the area looked like after everything was out. 

We planted new flowering plants, added richer soil, made a border, and painted the mailbox and post. And the final outcome.....

yep, bright yellow :)

I LOVE the changes.  The flowers have started blooming and growing more since this picture was taken and they look SO MUCH BETTER than the old shrubbery.  We went with the yellow because we wanted something bright and different.  I've been unsure of the color, but I think we've finally decided to keep it. We may be painting our door a lovely yellow color to match...  Overall, we are thrilled about the changes! It makes me happy seeing the new mailbox area everyday when we're outside.  We live in a neightboorhood with lots of older, more established families so I wonder what they think about our new mailbox color, but really we like it so that's all we care about. haha :) 

DIY Dishwasher detergent

I'm back with my next diy switch!

I've heard lots of people talk about making their own laundry detergent {which I will be doing once ours is out} so it got me thinking about finding a recipe for dishwasher detergent.

One Google search later and I found this recipe from diynatural.com. 

It seemed simple, cheap and promising. 

Kosher salt, washing soda, borax, citric acid, vinegar, and a container to store it all in.

I bought every needed ingredient at Kroger except for the citirc acid which I found at Brighter Day, a natural foods store in Savannah.

You can also find it online. 

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent: 
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup kosher salt

And the white vinegar is added to your rinse aid compartment in place of Jet-Dry.
{We actually hadn't been using anything for this before now}

So from here I just combined all of the ingredients together in an old Trader Joe's coffee can and shook it up.

 1 cup Borax

 1 cup of washing soda

 1/2 cup of citric acid
*On diynatural.com they recommended using double this amount for hard water.  Since we DO have hard water I may try this next time.

 1/2 cup of kosher salt

*Just as they recommended, to avoid clumping caused by the citric acid, I let the detergent sit out on the counter for a few days and stirred it several times each day. Even though I did this, over time large clumps did form so I simply dumped the entire mixture into my blender one day and blended all the clumps out and haven't had any since.

Make a nice label for it so no one gets confused.

And you only use 1 tablespoon per load! 

 That didn't seem like it would be enough but surprisingly it is. 

We've been using this detergent for over a month and it's worked great for us.

I would definitely recommended trying it if you're looking to save some money--this one is a no-brainer! 

There's a breakdown on the post for you here. 

Happy washing :)

Spring At Our House