Feb 09
Everyone,
Today started out being a very lazy day. I had several phone calls to make and laundry to do. Wow do I ever have so much laundry today. Probably because we’ve been wearing 3 or more layers every day to go play outside. Butterfly has no more clean socks. The laundry has been running constantly all day.
We also ran to the post office. I was going slightly crazy in the house. To the post office was enough, though. The roads are piled high with snow. It covers half way up the street signs. I also felt like I was driving through a big white tunnel. Very hard to see anything beyond what is in front of you. The roads are mostly dry and passable. Good thing too because it just started snowing again (around 4pm).
It seems so weird to have this much snow here and more coming down. I feel like I am living in a mountain town where everyone goes skiing every day. The snow is beautiful, though. I’m not sure I can ever have enough of it.
After the post office I let the kids play outside for a few minutes. I figured why not since I took the time to shove them into their coats. They love that slide they made. Butterfly went down it once and then dashed back inside. I told her she’d be cold wearing a dress and tights but she has to figure things out for herself. The boys went down it several times each. The path to the slide is right next to the house next to us. And that house is growing some pretty impressive icicles. (As I was driving to the post office, I saw a house with an icicle from roof to front step. It was awesome looking and I wished I brought my camera!) As I was eying the icicles above my young children’s heads, I failed to notice that the snow path is now an ice rink. I only noticed it when Pirate fell and bashed his face on the ice. There was blood and everything. He is going to have one impressive bruise for awhile on his cheek.
That ended the fun really quick and we all went back inside.
According to Weather.com, we should get another 6-12 inches through Thursday morning. That is a lot for this area. Combine that with 9 foot piles of snow on the roads and we’re going to be totally buried. Love it. I don’t have to go ANYWHERE all week long.
Safire
Safirebumps and bruises, laundry, snow
Jan 18
Everyone,
Today my goal was to get through the laundry. ALL OF IT. I’m great at washing. The washing part is fun! I even do well switching the clothes to the dryer. It’s the folding and putting away that I suck at. I had spent Saturday washing about 7 loads so today the goal was to fold and put away. Plus wash all of our Sunday stuff.
Since we decluttered our room on Saturday, the kids have been running back and forth through it. It’s probably the longest room in the house. Basically, our master bedroom is a regular sized room with a sitting room attached and a master bath. I love how big our room is. But because it’s so big, it accumulates a lot of junk. Now that the junk is out of the way, the room is back to being big(ish).
Pirate turned on my music for me while I was trying to do some exersizes and I just left it on. All three kids were running back and forth through the room, jumping and dancing. It’s just so so cute! I wish my video camera was charged or you would have gotten pictures. Find out what were they dancing to.
With the peppy music, I was able to fold all kinds of laundry today. Yay!
In other news, Butterfly is OBSESSED with being a princess. I don’t know what happened but now all she wants to do is wear dresses and dance and go on adventures. Oh, wait. I do know what happened. We bought her a Disney Princess Wii game. Yeah. Great game for her, not so much for the aftermath.
I also got a round of “I don’t want to be a part of this family anymore!” That’s a fun one. She moaned for a good hour before I sent her to her room (“If you don’t want to be a part of this family, then stop making it so miserable and be lonely upstairs!”) I think the boys are getting to her. They so want to do what she is doing. I can’t wait until she goes to school and has a little bit of time away from everyone.
She also got up to use the potty late last night and forgot to open the lid before she sat down and peed. Icky.
Do you think I could use this with my Sunday school class this year? We’re learning about the Old Testament.
Safire
SafireButterfly-isms, dancing, ipod music, laundry
Sep 02
Everyone,
I know, I must be boring you with all this talk of clothes. But apparently I need to talk about them because that’s all I’ve been thinking about lately.
So. Clothes. How do you keep clothes clean? I swear between my 3 kids I am always washing something or pretreating something. The past 2 weeks or so I have washed something every single day, as well as doing all the rest of my laundry on my laundry day. Well, I should have been doing laundry on laundry day. But I was so burned out with laundry every day that I just wasn’t keeping up with it. Then I thought, “Why not just do this every day?” I’ve been trying it out for the past little while and it’s been working great. I think, any way. I have a lot less laundry to put away. I do kid laundry, then our laundry, then towels, then kid laundry, our laundry, sheets. And when I need to do whites, I’ll do those that day and start up my rotation a day later. I also throw whatever is stained in with whatever I’m doing that day.
Speaking of stains, my mom is the queen of stain removal. I am trying to become so but it is slow going. I have started to use this stain removal called Soilove. It’s pretty good, and seems to be working for most things. Plus it has so many other uses!
One other thing I do is I make up my own laundry detergent. I take half a cup of borax and washing soda, and add that to a cup of grated soap. I use fels naptha soap and it is working beautifully. I also mix them together in my food processor. I usually make a huge batch of it, mixing at least 4 bars of soap (grated) and about half a box each of the borax and washing soda. I figure I make about 96 loads at a time and it only costs me around 7 or 8 cents a load. Pretty cheep! I make the powdered soap but if you want to, you can make this into a liquid (more like jelly than liquid) by cooking down the soap with water before adding the borax and the washing soda. I don’t do this because I think it takes forever and I also don’t have a 5 gallon bucket to put it in. Or even a place to put this supposed 5 gallon bucket. So, I go powdered.
I think I am boring myself now. I’m off to find something else to do. Oh I know, picture clean up! I am excited. And sarcastic.
Safire
PS- I went with Lolli and AJ to a castle park today and we had so much fun! The boys took 3 hour naps afterwards, and only 3 hours because I woke them up when it became 5pm. A fun day! No pictures though because I forgot my camera. Oops.
Safireclothes, laundry, Lolli, play parks
Aug 28
Everyone,
Today I thought Butterfly needed a down day so we spent the day at home. Okay, she spent the day at home with the boys and Nana. I did laundry all morning (yay clean socks!) and relaxed with a book. Juice had one of his best friends come over so they spent the morning carrying around babies and playing strawberry shortcake with Butterfly. It’s really funny to watch almost 30 year olds on the floor saying, “Don’t do it Strawberry!” or “My name is Lemon Pie.” Especially since one of those guys is a bachelor. Very cute.
Anyway, Juice and I took advantage of our free babysitting and did some work at the temple. It was relaxing to be there. I can see the new Corner Canyon Temple from my bedroom window and I am looking forward to doing work there when we come back next time. Butterfly cried because she couldn’t come to church with us and play with the toys.
While we were out, we bought some fresh fruit. I love Bear Lake raspberries. So good!
This evening the boys have been majorly cluster feeding and I’ve had one attached to me for close to 3 hours. (One after the other.) They are both currently sleeping in their beds and hopefully I will be shortly. 
Here is the picture from yesterday.
Yay for the first ever Cousin Camp 2008!
Safire
SafireCousin Camp, cousins, laundry, temple
Nov 07
Everyone,
The Cough That Won’t Die (CTWD or Ed for short) really did a number on us. And I come to find out that my parents who were here while I was in the throws of it, took it home with them. Sorry, again. And sorry to whoever was on the airplane with them. And sorry to my mom’s work. This is the worst cough ever and I had no wish to infect the west coast with it’s ravaging croakiness. My dad’s doctor seems to think his strain of Ed turned into pocket pneumonia. Yucky.
In any case, Juice went to work today only to come home and say he was not going tomorrow. Butterfly is still coughing but seems to be less and less. Ed is hopefully loosing it’s grip on her and she will be better shortly. Me, I still have a small lingering cough in the morning, but nothing to stop me.
I’ve been trying to catch up on all the housework that went astray when Ed first joined us. I finally cleaned out the last of the shorts in Butterfly’s drawers (left the short sleeve shirts because it’s still fairly nice here). And this week I have been doing load after load of laundry. I finally am all caught up with it. I can take it out of the kitchen! Yay! I hate having our washer and dryer in the kitchen because there is no counter space to put things on while you’re doing wash. I never thought I’d miss it but I did.
I also was able to get ink out of Butterfly’s brand new winter dress. Juice let her play with one of his pens at church and she came away with a huge streak of ink down the front of her cranberry velor dress with a big cranberry bow in front. I was sad but resigned. I mean, what can you do with ink? Thankfully, the Master of Laundry (my Mom) was visiting us that day and she told me to put hairspray on it. Oookaay…I’d have to try that one out. And man, it worked! First I tested the dress for color fastness (wouldn’t do to have the dress bleached out). I poured hairspray right from the bottle onto the stain and used cotton balls to dab up the ink. Came right out in a snap. The first dab took out most of the biggest stain, and 2 more dabs you couldn’t even see it. I feel empowered by new found knowledge. Thanks Mom!
Safire
Safirelaundry, NaBloPoMo, sickness 2007
Aug 22
Everyone,
Butterfly has a cold. It’s a small cold. There is not snot everywhere. She sounds a little stuffy but is pretty happy most of the time. She fell asleep in the car this morning and stayed there for over an hour while I tossed balls for my dog and Babysitting place’s dog in the front yard to keep an eye on her. (I am dog sitting for a week. Can I just say that I never ever want a German Shepard? They are pretty, but I love being able to pick up Soot when she is being bad.)
We took a trip to the mall to scout out some clothes for her. The weather has dropped to the mid-70s and while that’s not cold, it is when you’ve been having mid-90s for 3 or 4 weeks. I put her in a pair of pants from last year that were a little too big. The length is just right. The waist…not so much. I took her to a few different places in the mall and found that her length is right around a 2T but she would be more comfortable in a 3T. So I will buy 3Ts this time around and she can have some growing room.
After a jaunt at the kiddy play area and some lunch, we came home. She peed on the potty again (yay! And a purple jelly bean today!) and is now up in her bedroom. I don’t know if she’s sleeping yet but it’s very quiet up there. Poor thing…she must be sick!
On a side note, does anyone know how to get purple berry stains out of clothes? Babysitting Place has a huge tree that drops these little purple berries all over and their dog has jumped on me twice with purple stained paws. I am highly annoyed. I have also tried numerous stain removers, soaking, not soaking, hot water, warm water, color safe bleach, etc. Help!
Safire
Safirebabysitting, laundry, sickness 2007
