Wordless Wednesday: Tickle Me!

Sunset

Sunset, August 19, Prairie Acres, eastern Iowa.

Sweet!

Look what my husband brought home today!

Four boxes of peaches!

We gave the peaches a hot bath.

Then a cold one.

We washed the cans, boiled the lids and took pictures of the rings. 

After removing the skin, we sliced the peaches and put them into jars.

And admired their beauty!

And dreamed about how good they'd taste for breakfast after a blizzard this winter...

Then we (meaning my husband, cuz I was feeding the baby and taking pictures and getting the bread out of the oven and burning another batch of granola and washing dishes...) poured a mix of water, ascorbic acid and a little bit of sugar over the peaches.

After carefully wiping the outside of the jars and putting on lids and rings,

the jars got a boiling hot bath for 25 minutes.

Then we stepped back and admired our handiwork!

Start to finish: 2.5 hours!

Think about this: Quarts of peaches are sold for what, $4? Our box was around $14 and we got 9 quart jars from it. That makes each of our jars cost $1.55. 

Niiiiice!

 

Personalized Cards on the Cheap

Ok, so you know from yesterday's post that my baby is now 3 months old, right?

Yeah, I just finished his thank you cards...

I didn't want plain cards, get tired of the available baby thank you cards, and didn't want to shell out a chunk of change for making my own cards, so I did what any former scrapbooker would do and made my own.

And I used what I had.

*Boring thank you cards

*Pretty paper

*Cute picture of baby's feet that I took and had printed at the store while I was grocery shopping

I cut the pictures to size (they're wallet-sized and came printed two per page)

and did the same with the pretty paper.

I made an assembly line...

And put it all together. 

I love that it's cute, simple, personalized and CHEAP!

Mom, you'll be getting your card in a couple days--sorry for the spoiler!

Wordless Wednesday: Three Months old!

Dirty Laundry

Sorry, no juicy gossip here, but I can tell you an inexpensive way to get your literal dirty laundry clean again!

I know there are precisely a million and six recipes on other blogs.

I counted.

For that reason, I'm not going to get into why this detergent is better, except to say for our family it works. 

It cleans well, smells great, is super-simple and is cheap! 

(That would be "inexpensive", right Mom?)

Before I've used Ivory bar soap from the toiletries section, Borax from the laundry section, and had to make a special stop at Ace Hardware to get the washing soda, but today at Walmart I found all of the ingredients right there!

In the laundry soap aisle! Together!

Here's the recipe:

1 bar Fels Naptha soap

2 cups Borax

2 cups washing soda.

Here's how I like to make powdered laundry detergent.

Cut the cheddar cheese Fels Naptha into chunks. (Just one bar.)

Measure 2 cups washing soda.

Toss the chunks and powder into the food processor.

Who wants to grate all that cheese by hand? Not me!

Blend until the bar soap is powdered, then add 2 cups of Borax.

Mix for another 15 seconds or so.

I made three batches. Why not? It keeps well and now I don't have to make it for a long time!

Pour the detergent into a container.

Right now I'm using an empty peanut butter bucket.

Yes, my family eats peanut butter by the bucket!

I'd like to get one of those pretty glass containers, but I'll wait until I have a pretty laundry space to put it in.

Each load of laundry requires only 2 tablespoons of powdered detergent!

Yes, that's a shot glass-mixer-deal-thingy.

Isn't that a great way to measure 2 tablespoons with one scoop?

(Thanks, mother-in-law!)

I learned on this blog that this detergent costs $.075 per load!

Anniversary Date

My husband and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary in July. 

It's been 6 weeks--about time give a report!

July 2, 2006

We are usually pretty simple with our anniversary celebrations. Dinner out is typical, usually without kids. The more kids we have, the harder that is to arrange, naturally. But since we've been spending Fourth of July with my in-laws in Missouri, it's easier to arrange for babysitting! (Thank you!!!)

This year, with it being the whole 5-year thing, I got the idea in my head that we should have an overnight date. In St. Louis. Something bigger and more special than dinner. Some real time to reconnect and enjoy being a couple, not just parents of three children aged 4 and under. Since the baby was only 6 weeks old, he would be included in our plans.

St. Louis Arch

Did I mention that the first time we met in person was in St. Louis?

See, I was living in Las Vegas at the time, he was in Iowa. 

We were set-up by his sister-in-law who was a teacher at the school where I taught and a very good friend of mine. 

Me & my sweetheart, spring 2006

After putting off her you-should-meet-my-brother-in-law comments for months, I said, fine, you can give him my email address. She called her husband who was away for business. He called his brother who awkwardly brought up the subject (ME!). 

And I got an email.

Then a phone call.

Then a date in St. Louis.

And the rest is history!

The right Hyatt 

Now fast forward almost 6 years to our 5-year wedding anniversary, and I'm planning a date in St. Louis! So cool right?!

So there I went, planning away. 

Dinner at the fancy Italian restaurant on The Hill.

Reservations at the Hyatt where we stayed (in separate rooms, thankyouverymuch--it was our FIRST date!), and a babysitter for the baby! (My sister-in-law--a different one--lives in St. Louis.)

Perfect.

This was all for Saturday. On Friday, my credit card got rejected three times!!! Turns out there had been "suspicious activity" on my account so the bank closed my card and issued me a new one via snail mail. Without telling me! To the wrong address!! Um, we moved almost 3 years ago... I think it was reserving the hotel online that was "suspicious". Why didn't they contact me? Call me? Ask me if I'd done such-and-such. Tell me they're issuing me a new card, confirm my address, send the card to the right house?! 

I worried that the hotel wouldn't accept our reservation because it had been made with an account that was no longer valid.

Meanwhile, my sweet, easy baby is being cranky! He was up at least three times during the night before our date. He fussed all morning and hardly napped. My husband and I tag-teamed during church and got to sit together for maybe 10 minutes. We ate lunch, kissed our older boys, and listened to our baby cry on and off during the nearly 2 hour drive to St. Louis.

Baby J3, July 4, 2011

We cancelled the babysitter Aunt. 

The baby finally took a nap, so we headed to The Hill to eat dinner.

He started crying on the way inside and continued for half an hour. 

I hid in the restroom, trying to breastfeed him in a bathroom stall. I shushed, I comforted, he cried.

I left.

My husband ordered and got our food to go. The restaurant was very nice to us, but I was so disappointed!

As we drove downtown to our hotel, we realized what the Fourth of July weekend meant to a big city: crowds. 

Duh.

Our hotel  was right by the fireworks display. No, we didn't have a view, but we fought traffic for an hour trying to get to the hotel. Thankfully, the baby was finally sleeping. And the hotel took my husbands card with no problems on the closed account!

The old courthouse, St. Louis, from our hotel

But parking was like a mile away and 7 stories underground and the elevator was closed for the night!

Oh, did I mention it was the wrong hotel? Yup. Who knew St. Louis would have two Hyatts?! Not me!

We finally got to our room, hungry, hot and exhausted. Some date!

This is all we saw of the arch this time!

I fed the baby and he went back to sleep--miracle! I still don't know for sure what was bothering him, but he was back to his easy ways after that.

Our room had these neat windows--kinda like a window seat but too high to really be called that. We had an amazing view of the crowds and sunset.

Beautiful sunset viewed from our room

We ate our 80-dollar meal from styrofoam containers sitting in the window watching the crowds. Not a fancy restaurant, no waiters bringing water, but still nice.

Romantic dinner for two in the windowsill

Then we watched TV. We don't normally, so it was fun! We took long showers, enjoyed the relative quiet and the huge, fancy bed.

St. Louis at night from our hotel room

We headed back to my in-laws and our boys the next day, refreshed. 

Me & my sweetie on the way back from our date

Happy 5th Anniversary, sweetheart!