Clean Laundry...

Last Saturday, after seeing a friend's post, I made my own laundry soap.  I have made a double batch for around $20 as I already had a big bucket of Oxyclean and a big bag of the baking soda too.  I have about 30 pounds of laundry soap made.  It smells good in the wash but doesn't leave a perfumy smell when the clothes are dried.  I placed a tablespoon measuring spoon in the soap with the instructions to the kids to use no more than 2 tablespoons for their load.  It will be fun to see how long this laundry soap lasts.  I always hate the price of laundry soap in the stores and now I may never buy it pre-mixed again.
-------------------

DIY Laundry Soap

1- 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz) found in the detergent isle
1 -4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg) found in the cooking isle
1-  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz) found in the detergent isle 
3- bars of Fels-naptha soap, found in the detergent isle
2- small containers of oxyclean or store brand oxyclean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total (1.58 kg)) found in the detergent isle. (this is optional, I added it into mine because I have pretty messy kids and the cleaner the better)

  Here's to many clean loads of laundry!!!!

Source: beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com via Jeniffer on Pinterest

For Humans

Steve here.

I told Emily it was okay to take a drink from a gallon jug of distilled water. She was unsure about drinking from such a strange bottle. I told her, "it's okay, go ahead."

She took a drink and said it tasted good.

"Of course it did, I put drinking water in that bottle. It's drinking water."

"It's just for humans!" she said, "Not for bugs, or kangaroos, or tigers, or other tigers...or lions."

Emily gives a talk...

Emily gave her first talk in Primary today.  I prepared her talk and reviewed it with her and she wanted her Daddy to help her give it.  She usually is so very shy in front of people.  She sat in front of the room and declared to the closest teacher that she was giving a talk today.  She showed her pictures and repeated what her Daddy whispered to her.  She did great!  I sat a couple of rows back and pointed my phone-camera at her inconspicuously while she spoke.

Pinned him....

Carson is really enjoying wrestling.  He has wrestled 5 matches and won 3 of those matches.  Not too bad for his first year.  It is fun to watch him.

Emily put on Carson's headgear and said "Mom, look..."

And that is Carson getting ready to make his 3rd winning pin!  Way to go Carson!

Ward Christmas party...

Last Saturday our ward had a Christmas breakfast.  The wise men came, otherwise known as our Bishopric.

The children acted out the Nativity scene.

We even had the animals in the stable which included our Emily.  She was excited to be a sheep until it was time to be a sheep.  She was finally ok with going on stage if she could be a sheep-lion.  If you notice her hands most of the time are curled like claws.  If you ask her about being a sheep she will correct you that she was a sheep-lion.

The finale...

Christmas Music at RMHS....

Logan had his Holiday Concert last week too.  He looks so handsome in his Tux.  All the choirs sang beautifully!  I love to see my kids in choir as that is where I was in school too!  It was the most fun!

They are singing again....

Last week we had two back to back concerts with Carson & Katie's middle school concert and then Logan's high school concert.  The kids had fun and looked cute in their festive attire.

Carson joined choir second quarter and is loving it!!  

Carson had a blast singing and being upfront with the Santa letters.

A little fun in Sumner...

On November 18th we headed to Washington to spend Thanksgiving with Steve's parents.  The first activity of our trip was to head to the fairgrounds to the Quilt show for the big girls and I.  Steve, Grandpa, and the boys went to the train show.

Zoo.....

We had a great visit to the Point Defiance Zoo in spite of the grey clouds looming overhead. (A corn maze photo snuck into the beginning of the slideshow....oops!)

Playing in the leaves....

The kids had some fun raking leaves at the neighborhood park so they could jump in the piles of leaves.  It was cold but they had fun till the sun went down.

Happy Birthday Jon!!

We miss our son Jonny and we celebrated his birthday on November 9th surrounded by family and close friends.  We ate Jonny's favorite dinner, pizza followed by Jonny's favorite birthday cake, an ice cream cake.

We each wrote a note to Jonny and put it inside a balloon.  We took the helium filled balloons and let them go outside.

Happy Birthday Kristina....

Kristina turned 15 on November 17th.  She requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  I was happy to make those wishes come true.

Zoo Lights...

Saturday night, November 26th we headed back to the zoo to see Zoo Lights.  The Murphy cousins from Utah were staying the night on their way back to California.  The kids had a great time visiting while going around the Zoo.  The lights were amazing!  Most of the animals were not available to see during this event.

Logan, Nathan, Grandpa, and Carson

Emily inside of the Sea Anemone at the play ground in the Zoo.  The kids couldn't see each other the toys very much either but they climbed in and played anyway.  Thanks to Steve's flash on his camera we could get this cute shot.

Corn Maze...

We made our annual trek to the Corn Maze and had some fun.

We did the smaller maze with Emily while the big kids went off in hopes of finding every station on their maze card and completing the maze.