learning center and dress up closet...

We have been working on a lot of projects around our house lately! I can't wait to share some of the others with you!

 I made Annie Rice a little learning station in her room. It was so easy! I took clip boards and used the new "colorful" duck tape. They look awesome and go right along with her room:)

Kaz also made Annie Rice a dress up closet. He made it awhile back but I haven't been able to fully finish it until recently. I love the way it turned out:)

a love book for him...

Lately, I have been cleaning out and trying to organize things that have never been organized before. The one thing that always got me, and I really never knew what to do with was all the notes/cards from Kaz and my parents[see Mom and Dad, I didn't only read them, I kept them:)]. I've always kept them in a REALLY large folder but it has always driven me crazy because it was chaotic and in order to find something, I had to go through every letter or card. My friend Carissa swears by SMASH books, so I decided to give it a try and make a love book of all of our notes/letters so that we will always have it, be able to look at it whenever we want, and hopefully one day allow our kids to see how our relationship struggled and grew over the years. I worked on this book for about 5-6 hours and gave it to Kaz yesterday...He loved it. He loved it so much he woke me up this morning at 5am to tell me he read some of the letters this morning[I was pretty grumpy..I'm not a morning person:)]. I love how it turned out and it really was so neat to go back and read through all the notes we gave to each other...I even found the letter Kaz first told me loved me in:) I included some other things in the book as well such as honeymoon plane tickets, a program from when we visited President Ford when he passed away, college football tickets, etc. The best part is we can keep adding to it...pretty soon, we will need to start a new book! 

I am now a fan of SMASH books and have BIG plans to use them for some other projects.

 his first I love you:)

farmhouse table made by my husband....

Kaz and I have been talking for awhile about some different things we wanted to do to our house. We love our house, but it’s definitely gotten smaller now that we are a family of 3 + Miley. We have worked really hard to pay down our mortgage over the last few years, and after looking at buying a new house for awhile, we decided to stay in this house for a few more years to save money.  We could definitely use more space, BUT we have worked so hard to lower our monthly mortgage payment, we know moving would only increase that payment. SO, we have been talking about different options of things to do in the house to make more room for our family especially since we are starting the adoption process again. I absolutely love the layout of our house and my talented husband has put so much hard work into it! 

The first thing we wanted to do was get a bigger kitchen table. Our house has a dinning room that we turned into my office. 

The table we had in our eat in kitchen was a tall pub table and Miley’s kennel was in there. It always felt really cluttered and we couldn’t have more than 2 people over for dinner without having to eat in the living room. A few weeks ago, we literally went to every furniture store in Charleston trying to find the table we wanted. That night, I was discouraged because we found nothing that we both liked and we really didn’t even find anything remotely close to what we wanted! SO, I found a table on pinterest I liked and Kaz built it and built it within 2 weeks! He worked supper hard and he did such a good job! I love our new table. It changes the whole feel of our house and every time we sit down for dinner, it feels more “family like”. We have 1 other project to complete in the kitchen with some frames I bought from the thrift store, so once we have that done, I’ll show you pictures of our whole kitchen:) 

Here’s some of the pictures that Kaz’s dad took while they built the table...and some of there little helper:) I was at a wedding while all these pictures were taken, so Annie Rice’s hair is everywhere:)

 I'm going tomorrow to get 1 more chair for the other end of the table:) We can now sit up to 7 people at the table:) 

Laundry Detergent Making Party...

Last night, me and a few girls from our Sunday School class made our own laundry soap! I saw the idea on pinterest and have several family/friends who make it, so we decided to give it a try! I bought the supplies for everyone and it came out to be right at $20 per person! We made enough laundry soap that should last our family between 9-12 months! It made a ton, and the best part is I only have to use a tablespoon per load of laundry:)  Here's the formula!

1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz) 

1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg) 

1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz) 

3 bars of Fels-naptha soap,

2 small containers of oxyclean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total (1.58 kg)) This is optional BUT I decided to add it because it adds that extra power of cleanliness to it:)

(you can also use pink Zote soap instead of Fels-naptha)

I found all of these supplies at Wal-Mart on the detergent isle and I literally cleaned them out:)

Basically, you mix everything together in a 5 gallon bucket. We lined our's with trash bags. Fels-naptha soap has to be shredded either with a cheese grater or a food processor[that is the easiest] and then tossed in the mix[these will dissolve in the wash even with cold water). Once everything is together, mix it all really well together and you have your soap! I have been told by friends who have HE washers that it works great in those specific washers. I'm super excited that I don't have to buy detergent hopefully for the rest of the year:) AND it was a fun time to spend with friends!

 We are storing most of ours in the 5 gallon bucket in our garage BUT I bought this container at Wal-Mart for $3, and sprayed a little chalk board paint on it to keep in our laundry room. This isn't even half of what the detergent made and it only takes a tablespoon:)