Month: October 2015

This week has been pretty, freaking amazing! We have family pics on Friday and of course my little one catches Hand Foot Mouth Disease. Of course he freaking did!! This is how life works right?!?

Not only is the poor baby completely covered in rash but he has a fever and is not sleeping well at all. Right now he is down for his second nap of the day which seems like its going to be exactly like the first…10min of sleep!! Ugh!! I better write this shit up fast because it does not look like he is going to sleep lol.

So, my whole point in writing this is to mention this new “hippie dippy” (hope that doesn’t offend anyone), home remedy I have been hearing about lately. It’s called Elderberry Syrup. It’s an immunity booster people take to prevent getting sick and to reduce the length of time you are sick. Basically, you can use all year round. However, in my case, just trying anything to help my little one get better quickly. Actually, maybe I will try it out this fall/winter and see if it helps keep sickness at bay!

Back to HFMD…While reading up on it, I came across a lot of home remedies. Since doctors don’t really do anything for HFMD. Well, other than tell you to give them Tylenol and ride it out for up to 10days. I hit up google and Pinterest of course, to see what I could find!

The remedies I am using right now are…

1. Tylenol
2. Coconut Oil (for skin)
3. Nature’s Way Black Elderberry Syrup
4. Anything cold to help with the sores in his mouth (ice, frozen washcloths to chew on, teething rings, frozen pacifiers)
5. Hydrocortisone (if needed)

Since I have been into a lot of homemade stuff recently, I wanted to make my own elderberry syrup. However, since “ain’t no body got time for that”,  I just went to Whole Foods and picked some up. I just wanted to get it so my little nugget could recover quickly! If you want to try making it yourself though, there is an easy homemade recipe from Happy Money Saver.  I will try it, but that will have to be for another day. Now, based off of the ingredients, I thought it would be gross, but that stuff is AMAZING! At least the store bought stuff is. It tastes just like juice!!  Hope the homemade stuff is just as good. I am going to have to give it a try and let you know!

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers because I want this gone, out of our house so…we can take amazing family pictures lol!!!

Let me know if you have any home remedies for HFMD I should try!

My favorite money saving go to right now is Ebates!!! Let me start out by saying that this is AMAZING and ridiculously easy to use!!! If you are an online shopper, this is for you. With the holidays coming up, this is going to earn you some cash back for sure!

What is Ebates?

The company is an affiliate to 1,800 online stores. So, when they refer people to a retailer, they make a small commission. That’s why they offer cash back and coupons because as you make an online purchase, they make $$ too.

Here’s how:

1. You earn money back by shopping online! All you have to do is go through their website. You set up an account (it takes all of a min to do), search for the store you want to purchase from, click on the “shop now” link and it sends you right to it. Couldn’t be easier!

For example: I want to shop at Gap so… I go to my Ebates account, search Gap, click on the “shop now” button and BOOM! That’s it. As soon as you make the purchase, it sends the cash to your account.

Ways to make money:

1. They give you a $10 gift card or $10 applied to your your account for signing up! In order for it to be applied you do have to make one online purchase with the retailer of your choice. That’s the whole point of using Ebates anyway, to save on your online purchases right?!?!

2. Cash back! Each retailer has a different % of cash back. When you make a purchase from that retailers site, the cash back gets applied to your account.

3. They give you $5.00 for every friend referred!

4. Each week they send an email out with coupons for online retailers and sometimes double the normal cash back savings! Two weeks ago I saved 60% online at gap.com with a coupon Ebates provided, 40% and cash back!!

The only drawback is that you do have to wait a while for your earnings since the payout is four times a year. Other than that, I LOVE it! It truly is the easiest way to save!

Give Ebates a try if you like to save :)!

SIGN UP HERE: http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=j%2Fz4GlI63aYS9XoptbjcUA%3D%3D&eeid=26471

Pinterest got me again!!! This project was definitely something I will NOT regret doing though. I am glad to announce this was NOT pinterest fail!!

It was a bit of a challenge to do this project because I wasn’t really prepared for it. This is definitely one that you need to prep for. To make the 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent it only took me… 36min total! It was kind of a mess but definitely worth it. Not only was it pretty easy to do but it saves a TON of money and it actually works as a laundry detergent.

I found the instructions from this blog. Check it out and follow the directions because it truly works!

Products and cost:

Fels Naptha Laundry Bar $1.99

Arm & Hammer washing soda $3.59

Borax $5.79 (already had at home)

Essential Oils Orange  $8.18(already had at home)

Instructions:

Shred the Fels Naptha. Do not leave chunks because it wont melt properly.

Add the shredded soap to 4c of hot water. Stir for about 10min. (There should be no chunks left)

 

Fill a 5 gallon bucket halfway with warm water (40c of water).

Pour in the soap mixture.

Add in 1c borax, 1c washing soda and 1/4oz orange essential oil.

Then you stir the mixture.

Fill the rest of the bucket with warm water and stir it all together.

Then let it sit, covered, for 24hrs!!!!!

My husband came home to this 5 gallon bucket full of detergent. I thought for sure he was going to divorce me lol. Okay, he wouldn’t over something like that, but then again this isn’t my first time doing some crazy project so who knows! Can’t help it! I like saving money and I like trying different things. So, he thought I was crazy and to be honest, I totally thought that I may be losing my mind too (I mean I made a 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent).

What saved me in the end is that after the 24hr soaking period… Yep, I had to wait 24hrs to see if I truly had lost it haha. So…after the 24hrs I grabbed a 1/2c and tried it out on a load of whites. Guess what…it worked!!!! This basically means that I have the ability to try out any nutty idea I have from now on. Right?!? That’s what I think it means at least.

Putting it into the separate containers got a little messy but it was so worth it. I filled up all 3 empty laundry containers and that drink dispenser!!! Amazing!!!

Best part is that I still have a whole box of Arm & Hammer washing soda, borax and some left of the essential oil. In total you would spend $19 give or take a few for the ingredients, which is that you would pay for just one of those containers, but you now have a lot left over to make more or to use for other projects. I actually use the orange essential oil a lot for homemade cleaning products and even just drop a little bit in the sink after doing dishes. The left over Borax can be used for other cleaning products and silly putty!! I made silly putty for the boys the other day, just need to make a post!

The only thing that I thought was strange about the detergent is that after a few days it starts to separate. Just shake or stir and it’s fine.

Seriously, if you are looking for ways to save and still have a quality product, you should definitely try this!

If you have any questions, please ask away and hopefully I can answer them ;)!

As a stay at home mom, I like to keep the boys and myself as busy as possible…mainly so I don’t have to clean lol.  Playing with little ones all the time can definitely get a little monotonous and boring though!  I mean, your aren’t really having any enlightening or intellectually stimulating conversations unless it’s your child telling you…nope, nothing stimulating! For the most part I try and get them out of the house unless it’s raining or they are sick. It’s good to be out and about, especially when you have 2 very active boys.

Since it’s sometimes hard to always have a new activity to keep them entertained, my go to is playtime in the tub!!!! After a long day of chasing the kids around, I can’t help but want to get them to sleep early haha. Instead of that, I  plan a messy play activity (painting, playing with playdoh, etc.), get them up for baths 20min earlier than normal and let them play.

Some of my go-to bath activities include blowing up balloons, with or without water, throwing in some ball pit balls, or just letting them color with bath crayons. Check out my Dinosaur diy bath crayons from the other post here if you want to try making your own crayons. Recently, I saw this post about putting mega blocks in the tub. It was genius!!! Yes, you have to get them out and let them dry on a towel afterwards but you don’t have to clean the tub of crayons :).  It was so simple and the boys loved it. Legos would prob work really well too, as long as they don’t have stickers or anything that can easily scrape off. The other really great thing about these activities is that you can take advantage that they can’t run around and u can have them work on their colors and counting!

It may seem like it is more work to some but it works for me. It’s so nice to have them and the mess contained in the tub. Plus, it makes bath time way more fun for them!!

So after a really long day of cranky kids and tired mommy, It’s either an early bath and bedtime or…

Yes…my little one is trying to drink bath water :/. Another day in the life right?!?

Hope you got some good ideas for making bathtime a little more interesting and fun!! Share if you liked it :)!

Links:
Munchkin 5 Piece Bath Crayons Set

Munchkin 10 Piece Bath Crayons (better deal)

Recently, I have noticed that my towels smell a little too ripe after just one or two uses. It’s not because we are especially dirty, it’s because I leave the towels in the wash sometimes and complete forget to move them out until hours later. By then it’s too late and the damage is done!  I know I can not be the only person in the world that leaves laundry in the wash a little too long. If you say you have never done it, I call total BS!!!

I am going to tell you how to get rid of the smell…stop leaving towels in the wash!!! Just kidding! The answer is so easy. Just add Vinegar into the tray you normally put in your detergent and wash the load at the hottest setting! If your towels still smell then you can do another load with baking soda. My towels were definitely a little funky. Ok, pretty freaking funky, and I only had to do 1 load with 1/2 of vinegar. Afterwards I ran a regular load with detergent and GONE was the funk smell :)!

It truly is so easy to do and does the trick! Share if this worked for you!!!!