He needs a home!

This little guy needs a family.  Just look at that face.  My mommy heart breaks over the future of this little guy.  Please help get the word out.  Darren has a family.....Somewhere.  Is it yours?

http://reecesrainbow.org/439/darren405

http://www.facebook.com/DarrenNeedsAFamily



UPDATE:  Darren has a home!  Go to his FaceBook page to see a picture of him with his new family!

When Life Hands You Puke....

I shared this on my FaceBook page this evening and I thought it might bless some of you as well.  Have a wonderful evening!

Today has been a rough day. The kids are tired from puking all night. Mommy's tired from the kids puking all night There's puke on blankets and pillows. The washer is broken. My head is pounding from lack of sleep. Someone fell asleep on my bed and peed on it. Did I mention the washer is broken? But then I think of my friend whose tiny 1 pound baby is fighting for his life. A local house fire. A friend whose husband has cancer. A local woman and children who lost their daddy last week. And then I think....Puke? I can do puke. I can do a broken washer. A headache is at the very least a minor annoyance. Habukuk 3:17-18 says "Even though I'm broke and my kids are sick and my shirt smells like baby puke...I WILL STILL PRAISE YOU." (Heather version) I praise God for living children. I praise God for waterproof mattress covers. I praise God for good friends with washers. I praise God for soup stock I put in the freezer months ago. I praise God for older children to help when I need a nap. Perspective. Can't you find something to praise God for today?

Whatever you do....

I just finished these two precious dolls as a donation to an online auction to benefit the Musser family. If you would like one or even a different item to help the Musser family bring Tommy home you can help through this online auction....http://itstommystime.blogspot.com/

The Mussers have already rescued Katie from a love-less existence and now they're going back for Tommy.  You can read all about Katie and Tommy (and the rest of the Musser family) at http://theblessingofverity.com/.

We can't yet adopt our own child from that awful life but the Bible says in Mathew 25:40 that whatever we do for the the least of these, we do for Jesus. This is my "whatever". Could you do "whatever" too?

Please feel free to copy this picture to your own FB page or blog or whatever with a link to the auction site. Or, link back to this post.  Please help me get the word out!!

The girl doll is made out of cotton fabric with a muslin head and the boy is made from flannel with a muslin head.  Both dolls measure approximately 9 inches from head to toe. (Not including their little blankets)

Home Made Laundry Soap

So here's the deal.  It's not really a secret.  Are you ready?  

We make a lot of laundry!  

Big surprise, right?  The problem is that it is INSANELY expensive to buy laundry soap in Valdez for a family my size.  Most of the time I remember to grab some at SAM'S, but sometimes I forget or push the limits a little too long and I have to buy local.

I've been looking at all these blogs and people who make their own laundry soap.  It all looks well and good.  Until you get to the grating soap part....Or the boiling soap part....Or the part where my friend who makes her own has dingy looking clothes...Or...And here's the kicker.....THE PART WHERE IT DOESN'T SMELL LIKE LAUNDRY SOAP!  I know, I'm shallow.  But, I LOVE,LOVE,LOVE the smell of clean laundry. 

I finally found a laundry soap recipe that doesn't call for grating  soap or boiling it down so I thought I would try it.  It still wouldn't SMELL like laundry soap but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I would still have my beloved dryer sheets....And then, there it was....right there in the laundry aisle!

 Angels sang from Heaven.  Not even kidding.  Do you mean to tell me that for $6.99 my laundry can smell MORE like laundry?  Whoever made this stuff deserves a Nobel Prize! I thought, "Surely I can add this stuff to a home made laundry soap recipe, right?"  Granted, it makes the financial purpose of making ones own laundry soap a little bit less of a savings but.......Ah, who cares!

So, I gathered my supplies. For Valdez people who are wondering where I got the Washing Soda from...Fred Meyer.  That's also where I got the Downy Unstopables.  They may have washing soda at Eagle, but I doubt it.  I didn't look.  Anyway, supplies.......

 So here's what you do.  You mix 3T washing soda, 3T Borax, 2T dawn dish soap, and 2 Capfulls Unstopables in a gallon sized container.  I'm using a jar because I wanted to be able to see through it for pictures.  I should stop right here and say....People have suggested using different "scents" of Dawn.  In my research, it has been commented several times that the other colors do not work as well as the "Original Blue Dawn" so, take my advice and just stick with the blue stuff.

 Next, you're going to add 4 cups of boiling water and stir it up until everything is all mixed together. I recommend moving your laptop out of the way to keep it safe from dribbles.  *Ahem*

 Here's the part where I started to get a tad worried that my Unstopables idea wouldn't work.  Do you see that it's separating?

 I left it sitting on the counter.  I used a wire wisk to give it a good stir every now and then.  You're supposed to wait until it's completely cool before doing the next step but...well...patience has never been my personal virtue and my mother taught me never to pray for it....So I went ahead and filled the rest of the container with cold water as soon as I was convinced everything was well dissolved.

Don't worry, all those suds disappear after just a bit.  Just go ahead and let them run over the side of the container while you're adding the water.

So, now I'm into my 3rd load of wash using the soap.  I'm using 3/4 a cup in each load.  I have a toploader that uses INSANE amounts of water BUT it gets my cloth diapers cleaner than my front loader ever dreamed of getting them.  In fact, I never cared for my front loader and sold it to go back to the "old fashioned" top loader, but that's a post for another day.  The most expensive part was the Unstopables which is a completely unnecessary ingredient.  I'm finding that it works just as well as my "Name Brand" soap and....Are you ready....IT SMELLS AMAZING! 

 I know someone is going to want to know if this is HE safe and the answer is YES.  The cloth diaper community has been stripping their dipes in HE washers with Dawn dish soap forever with absolutely no problems!

In My Spare Time

People are always asking what I do in my spare time....As if I have any....But on the occasions I MAKE time to go do something just for fun this is my all time, #1 favorite thing to do.  The crowd isn't usually this big but this one happened to be at the Valdez Quilt Festival so the crowd was rather large.  Quilters from all over the state came to learn and socialize.  The halls leading to the classroom were lined with yummy fabrics just waiting to be caressed....and purchased.  I have to admit to buying Hannah some Lorax fabric.  She came with me as my official "baby holder" so I could sew hands-free.  It was her payment.

OK, so, on to what I was actually doing.  I signed up for the Mystery Quilt.  I love Mystery Quilts and I hate them all in the same breath!  I love them because of the Mystery.  I hate them because of the Mystery.  Ha!  It's a catch 22!

Once you sign up you receive your fabric requirements and cutting instructions for step #1.  Here's where the mystery comes in....YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FINISHED PRODUCT WILL LOOK LIKE!  The directions are somewhat vague...."You need X yards of light fabric", You need X yards of medium fabric", and so on.  They are kind enough to tell you when a directional (meaning striped or something where you want the heads to be upright, that sort of thing) fabric is a dumb idea but that's about it.  You complete step #1 at home.  I always sign up at the last minute so I always end up doing step #1 at the "class".

Here I am just quilting away.  This time I went "shopping" in my own stash so I could use up some stuff that had been  hanging around for a while.

Once I got to step #4 I realized they were going to be throwing a twist at us.  The blocks NEVER look this complete on the 4th out of 8 steps.  My guess was that we were going to be cutting them up and sewing them back together in a different way.....

I was right.  The next step revealed the cutting.

We then used some strips we had made earlier, but didn't know what we would be doing with them, to piece the cut up triangles back into a block and these are what I ended up with....

I left class with 4 out of 12 finished blocks.  It will literally only take me about 10 minutes each to do the remaining blocks.  I should get on that....In my spare time. ;)

Squishy Baby-ness!

I would like to apologize to my wonderful readers for the obvious lack of posts the past few weeks.  I'm afraid my midnight ramblings have been replaced by midnight feedings and, boy howdy, typing with one hand sure is slow!

Samara Truth was born on Saturday, August 11.  She weighed a mere 9 pounds 3 ounces and has lots of dark hair.  Not the kind that falls out either!  Want to see a picture?

We have wanted to name a baby Sam, after my grandfather, for quite sometime but Husband isn't a fan of gender neutral names so "just plain Sam" wasn't gonna make it on his list for a girl.  I have spent years searching for a girl's name that included Sam and wasn't Samantha.  I heard Samara on a forum I belong to and, while I wasn't crazy about it at first, once I looked up the  meaning I was sold.  I guess you probably want to know what it means?  Samara is Hebrew for Guardian so her name is translated as "Guardian of Truth".  What was that?  Another picture?  Certainly!  Here's one in the cloth diaper I made for her.

Things are a little bit different when you have your 10th child and there's still lots of little guys in the house.  For instance...How many of you lock YOUR baby in your room while she sleeps?  I use the term "lock" loosely meaning that the door is shut securely and I make sure the latch has engaged.  Why?  Because Miss Liberty is smitten with her new little baby and is more than delighted to "hold" her for me whether I am in the room or not.  It's for Samara's safety!  I promise!  I daresay I would find Samara on the floor and Liberty in Samara's bed if I were to leave the two alone!  Look, I have proof!  (No, Samara wasn't on the floor, she was laying on my bed.)

As a true Alaskan, Sam has already been on her first camping trip!  Here she is all bundled up to go out by the fire.  She's VERY excited....she's yawning.  LOL  I should mention that by "camping" I mean we packed up the motorhome and went off grid.  No more tents for this mama!  (Though I still make the Bigs sleep in them.)

And, here's a picture from just a bit ago.  Do I sound like a proud mommy?  I am!  I can promise you, a girl isn't any less in love with the 10th one than she was with the 1st.  (Only now, I have mad skill.  Then, I was playing by ear!)

I suppose I should stop bragging now and hit the sack!  Sam could care less if I stayed up too late blogging and will most likely not accept my excuses when I try to explain to her that Mommy needs sleep.  Goodnight all.  I hope to be back to my regular blogging soon but you'll probably just get more pictures of this gorgeous baby! LOL

Quilt for sale!

I've finally done it!  The quilt is completed and ready to be put on the market.  This isn't just a quilt though, it's a whole set!  Ready to "see" it?

The quilt measures 48X52 inches.  It is a generously sized toddler quilt.  It would also look lovely in a crib but would not lay flat as the sides are meant to hang down.  It is pieced with fabrics from Moda's "Ruby" collection.  Moda is well known for their heirloom quality fabrics and you can expect to pass this set on for generations!  Also included is a decorative ruched pillow made from the same quality fabrics, a re-purposed decorative bird cage, and a three piece wall hanging set crafted with coordinating fabrics.  The flowers in the corner of the quilt are made to fray at the edges giving this quilt a unique three dimensional appearance and, since I personally designed this quilt, it is truly one of a kind!

The quilt will come pre-washed in hypo-allergenic detergent, ready for your princess to snuggle into!  We are a smoke free, MOSTLY pet free home.  We do have dogs, but they aren't in the habit of sleeping on quilts!  ;)

I am asking $400 for this heirloom set.  I accept paypal, local checks, and, of course, cold, hard cash.  I am happy to ship for the actual cost of shipping.  Thanks for looking!