11 Reasons I Adore My Man

In honor of my eleventh wedding anniversary, I thought it would be fun to think of 11 reasons that 

 make it easy for me to love my groom...

1.  He loves God more than he loves me. 

2.  He can always make me laugh.

3.  He is an exceptional daddy. Always including Sean is sweet.

4.  He pays attention to things I like and don't like.

5.  He's the world's best gift giver.

6.  He works very hard at whatever he does (servant's heart).

7.  He knows how to fix just about everything.

8.  He offers to run errands for me even when he'd love nothing more than to be home resting.

9.  He's a man's man.

10.  He's fun to hang out with.

11.  He encourages me to dream.

Dishwasher Soap Version 2.0

I started my DIY dishwasher soap making adventure with this recipelink text

Pretty awesome working power and simple. But, I like to try new things, so I found this onelink text.

I liked that I could cube it and throw it in the compartment without measuring.

But, I did not like the white film it was leaving on my dishes! It may work great for some, but not for my dishwasher, who is a teenager and quite sassy...not so much.

She is15 years old.

So, I kept searching.

Then, I found the most absolute perfect oneLink text for my sassy teenager. Dish soap, Sun oxygen powder, and vinegar. That's it.

Results?

Love.

No white stuff!! No extra suds to ruin dishwasher. Literally squeaky clean and only 3 ingredients! Score!

This was a pretty amazing recipe. Even better than my original.

But, I loved the idea of chunking a cube in rather than measuring each time!

So, I took the concept of the cube recipe, only I used the ingredients from the rockin' good 3-ingredient recipe.

Guess what?

It worked!

I won't be switching for a while!

Here's how I did it:

I mixed 1/2 cup of original blue dish soap and 1 cup of Sun "oxiclean".

Kinda cool experiment, actually. The reaction of the 2 mixing created heat. Yep, my mixing bowl was hot!

Then, I got my ice cube trays....yep ...those again...and made what would be equivalent to the single servings of dish soap and sun. It made 48 itty bitty cubes.

I let 'em dry overnight, then popped them right out on the counter and added them to my trusty container.

I put one of those in the dispenser, and place a bowl on the top rack right side up with 1/2 cup of vinegar. My rinse agent dispenser is moody. Remember, she's a teenager. ;) So, this works very well.

And much like a typical teenager, she adapted well to the change and loved the new adventure.

Per batch, I spent about $ .86. Divide that by 48 and that's 1.8¢ per load. That's vinegar included, y'all!!

I buy my dish soap and Sun Oxygen cleaner at WM, and my vinegar at Sam's. That's where the prices came from.

Super-duper impressed with this find.

Happy washing and saving!

If you've known me for any amount of time, you know I'm very frugal and an avid DIY'er.

Is "DIY'er" a word? Well, it is now.

So, with my two older daughters, I really didn't know much about making my own baby food, but I didn't like how much I was spending. After my second daughter was too old for baby food, I found many of my friends were doing this very crunchy granola thing.....making their own baby food!

So, I decided then and there that if there were any more children in store for us, I would definitely do this. There were. ;) So, I did.

I've made some cereals with success, so I wanted to share a few fruits and veggies that I made today. I plan to get Ruth Yaron's, "Super Baby Food" cookbook, but I haven't managed to pick it up yet.

This process was very easy, cost effective, and not too time consuming.

After I washed both the apples and green beans, and peeled the apples, I started by steaming the chopped up apples and green beans for about 20-30 minutes.


The green beans went straight into the food processor.


Nice and baby-foodish


Now, on to the ice cube trays. 3 of these cubes yield about 2 oz(1/4 cup)


I did the same with my bananas and apples.






Once the cubes were frozen, I popped them out, and put them in freezer bags.


Next time, I will make more and devote some more time so I can save time later. We are just testing everything now for our boys' tolerance. I love the idea of it being inexpensive and so healthy!! We would spend a minimum of $5 per day on baby food if I didn't make it myself. That's $150 a month folks. And that's just Stage 1 food! So, I feel really good about doing this. Plus, it's fun for me!

Have you made baby food before? If so, what are some of your tricks?
If not, why not give it a try!?

It's kid tested...mother approved. ;)

He thinks so!


And he says...."After my nap, mom. After my nap."