Sunday, May 25, 2014

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

To kick of the beautiful summer weather we headed out to a Salt Lake Bees Baseball game!



They had a little free train that rose around the field. The wait was worth it! Eli was in little boy heaven!! 


 
A very sleepy boy up way past his bedtime. 

Little Bit of Lately



We've had a fun week of snow cones, feeding the ducks, and even Eli feeding himself!! Haha. 

I can't remember if I did an update on his eating issues, but he was struggling to eat table food. He would gag and throw up so easily. We started him on prevacid, which is used for adult acid reflux and it's made such a huge difference. Now he only eats people food and is working on getting more interested and feeding himself! One tiny triumph!!












5K Fun Run

I ran in our church's 5k fun run! I hadn't run a 5k since 2010. It was rewarding to have worked so hard to get in shape and then get to do a fun race. But this was a tough course. The last 2 miles were uphill! 

But I finished! 

Crossing the finish line 
I got first in my age group (19-30) 
My fan club! 

Family Date


We had such a great family date a couple weeks ago. We went on a hike up to a little reservoir to fish and have a picnic. The weather was gorgeous and Eli could not have been a better passenger :D










Thursday, May 8, 2014

Mini Laundry Room Make Over




When my mom was here we took a little break and organized my laundry room (tiny apartment closet).  And as usual, I forgot to take a before picture.  It honestly wasn't bad because everything was in some type of basket, but they were all different sizes and over flowing.  I have been making my homemade laundry soap for over a year now and have loved it!!  I decided to test out a dry version using Zote, and its equally as good, maybe even better since it contains oxy clean. 


 


Sorry for the terrible lighting, its in a hallway with no light.  We picked up these awesome wire and fabric lined baskets from Walmart!  They have a chalkboard square to write what's in it.  It seems much more organized to me! 

Okay here is the link to the liquid laundry soap:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/03/super-concentrated-no-grate-liquid-laundry-detergent.html

It uses dawn dish soap, washing soda, and borax.  Simple. I add those yummy smelling unstoppable things and keep it stored in an empty juice jug.  Its sooo cheap to make. Like a couple pennies a load.

  One batch uses .25$ for Dawn, .25$ for washing soda, and .50$ for Borax.  That  makes it 1.00 a batch which works for about 40-50 loads using 1/4 cup or a bit more per load.  That's 2 pennies a load.  Um WOW!

If you prefer powdered detergent I tried that too.

Here is the dry detergent:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/02/homemade-laundry-detergent-trial-size-version.html

I had tried a batch using Fels Naptha, but I didn't like how hard it was to grate, and I didn't care for the smell.  Zote grates easier than cheese, and smells way better.  Plus its pink, and who doesn't feel happy when washing with pink soap :)

I halfed the amount of oxy clean in the recipe, and ended up using the whole jar from the Dollar Tree.  Awesome Oxyclean bleach for 1$ is a pretty amazing deal.  Oh, and if you make this I subbed Zote for the Fels Naptha, so you actually use 1/3 of the Zote bar instead of one Fels Naptha.   FYI.

One batch makes 70 loads, give or take when using 2Tbs per load.  It cost about 5$ for one batch (which was exactly this jar full).  So that's roughly 7 cents a load.  Wait, seriously?!?!  Yea!  Regular laundry detergent (Tide, All, ect) is 15 cents a load at the cheapest price on sale with coupons.

So its not a crazy difference, but it is nice to know what goes into your laundry soap, and it just makes me feel a little proud of myself that I can make laundry detergent! 



Mom Mom Visits

 
My mom came to visit for almost a week! It was SOO fun to have her here.   Eli and I were going up and down the escalators waiting for the plane to come in.  When she exited the security area, Eli got so excited and was jumping up and down just jabbering away. It was so sweet because they don't get to see each other often.  Since then they were inseparable all week!  It was so hard to see her off at the airport.  Eli cried and cried and kept saying "byeee-byeeee."  Sad day :(
 



On Thursday we went to the zoo. Last time we went I looked like this:


 
I should have taken another picture this trip to compare :)  I was much more comfortable ;)
 




(Eli was exhausted and getting grumpy in this picture)

It melts my heart to watch Eli and my mom hang out and play together.  All day I heard "Mom mom".  That's what he calls her and I totally love it.

Friday we ran some errands to get things ready for Eli's party.  He struggles to eat people food so I had to document that he WILLINGLY took bites of ice cream and a hot dog.  I'll take what I can get!


 
Saturday came and of course, I didn't take enough pictures of his birthday party.  Dang. Here is his birthday outfit I made.  I had to get a picture of it before he put it on because as I expected it was covered in strawberries within minutes :) 
 
 


The theme was Airplanes, and the best part of the party were the 1$ foam planes from the dollar store.  Hours of entertainment!




 (He was going to town on ice chips in these pictures)


Saturday afternoon we went on a hike with my sister in law Laura up to a waterfall.  It was short but so pretty, and just the right length for Eli in the hiking back pack. 






One of the gifts Doug and Laura got Eli was this funny hat.  When you squeeze the little handle the ears pop up!  Haha!
 
And naturally, he didn't want to take it off all day.  He may or may not have insisted on wearing it INTO church.  Yikes.

 
Sunday afternoon we sang to Eli and had him blow out his candles, then opened a couple gifts.  He even took a bite of the cupcake! 




This little boy melts my heart every day.  Although he's not quite 2 I'll give a quick update of his life:

--He loves to say prayers at bedtime and has style to getting down on his knees to pray.  Its hilarious!
--With the help of Prevacid for reflux, he is eating people food 100%.  He has not eaten baby food in over a week.  This is incredible.  P.S. he ate an ENTIRE peanut butter sandwich today.  There is hope :)
--His speech has exploded in the past couple weeks.  He now says sentences like 'it won't work, mom help, where is it, its broken' I'm one proud momma.
-- He is so sweet with giving kisses, and hugs too.  He nestles his head right on my shoulder and wraps his little arms around me.
--Eli loves stories.  He wants to read them 3-4 times a day!  His favorite story right now is "The Potty Book"  I have it completely memorized, but hopefully its a good sign that he likes this book
--He LOVES Mom Mom.  I can't believe how quickly they bonded and how much I loved watching them build towers, cook, read stories, and play with bubbles.  Oh I love my family.