Secrets

I have some secrets to share with you. Sorry they aren't juicy ones!

I have been in a Bible Study since around Sept. I think and it has been a lot of fun. The study is about mentoring this generation through simple homemaking tips and spiritual insight. I have learned a lot and thought I would share some things with you.

Homemade Laundry Detergent
1 bar of ivory soap
1 box of borax
1 box of washing soda/baking soda/oxiclean

Grate the bar of soap up and mix the borax and washing soda all together until well blended. For a light load use 1/2 T. powder and for a heaving load use 1 T powder.

This makes a huge amount and then you don't use that much of the powder for each load so it lasts you a long time. It only costs about 10 dollars to buy all the ingredients. If you think about how much you spend on detergent now which I think I spend around 10 or more and you might only get 50 loads if that out of it. Well you will easily get twice if not more out of this recipe. Also if you have sensitive skin or a family member does this is really good. I am almost done with my detergent and can't wait to go buy all of this and start making my own!

We took a night to talk about cleaning and different cleaning products. I amazingly knew a lot of the things that were said especially when it came to cleaning with vinegar and baking soda. It's a natural way of cleaning and cheaper too. Just google the different ways of cleaning with those products and you will be amazed what all it can do.

Something I didn't know existed and I went out and bought one and I think it works great. I don't like cleaning blinds, well who does anyway?!? But there is a nifty tool that can help you with that and it goes much faster. So here it is and I own one now!

I haven't tried this yet but to get rid of rings in the toilet or just to get them clean is to use denture cleaner. And just buy the cheapest brand of it. 

If I think of other secrets I have I will share more later!! 

L-town!

This past weekend we visited some of our best friends that live in Louisville, KY, Ashley, Brandon and Aven! We had a lot of fun! We are blessed to have had them in our lives for so long. We have watched each other grow up and now we get to watch our girls grow up! Time flies!  Our girls are only about 3 weeks apart in age so it was a lot of fun to play with them, and for them to play with each other. They were great together. Aside from the few times of having to teach them to share and the mini, and I mean tiny, tiny, tiny melt downs after done the sharing, everything was good! We did notice or shall I say Ashley and I noticed that it seemed that Amber and Aven decided to trade off cranky times. One minute or hours Amber would be cranky and then she would be in a great mood and Aven would be cranky. But all in all the girls were great!! I'm glad we did it! Hopefully they are glad that we visited :) Amber even got a new toy out of it. She loved the one toy that Aven had. Ashley and I went to the Once Upon a Child there and they happened to have that same toy. I bought it and didn't show it to Amber until we got home from the trip. When I pulled it out she had her mouth wide open! It was like she was thinking, "oh my, mom stole that from Aven!"

Here is the toy that she has been playing with a lot since we got back:

Makeup Praying

Are you curious about the title? As I was putting on my makeup this morning it hit me to blog about this. No, not about putting my makeup on but what I do while putting my makeup on. I have every so often prayed while putting my makeup on. Think about it, it doesn't take rocket science to put it on. We do it just about every day without even thinking. What a waste of time! (sort of :) ) If you are like me, my mind wanders as I put it on, thinking of a million different things. If someone comes to mind I just start praying about them right then. So it hit me today, what if I make a point to pray every time I'm putting my make up on! So I have done the math. Now I'm not the greatest at math so I hope I calculated correctly. Correct me if I'm wrong but: There are 365 days in a year. Lets just say that you put it on every day. Now lets just say it takes you 10 min. to do it. Some people might not take as long, some might take longer but I'm just getting a good even figure. So you multiply 365 by 10 min. which equals 3650 min. that you use to put on makeup divide that by 60 secs. and that gives you 60.8 hours that you spend a year putting make up on. Right?! Hope I did the math right. Even if its not right you get the point. We spend A LOT of time putting makeup on. And God doesn't care when you talk to him, just talk to him! Even if you have a toddler running in and out interrupting God doesn't mind.

So the next time you do this:

Do a little of this:

Snow

I truly believe we brought the snow with us when we moved back to Memphis. Memphis has never seen this much snow during winter before! Granted its still not close to what we had in St. Joe. Which they have been hit even worse this winter, I couldn't imagine being in that with my toddler. Especially since my precious little girl doesn't really care for the snow as of now. I took her out in it when Memphis got the first big snow to come through and well she didn't want to wear her gloves and right when I put her down in it she fell and she did not like that at all!! So it took us more time to get all bundle up then it did out in the snow. Good thing she is still in diapers because I told her as I was bundling her up that if she was potty trained this would be the time that you would say I have to go potty. :)

The other night after another big storm came through we were stuck at my parents house and they have an innertube. We bundled her up and put her in it and my dad drug her around the back yard. She didn't smile but she wasn't crying either, she just sat there. So we didn't do it for long and then we came in. My dad stayed out there doing something so Amber started to cry and we thought it was because Grandpa was out there and she wanted to be with him. Well, today I went over to my moms and Amber ran to the back door and the innertube was still out there. She started squealing and we didn't know why until we looked, the innertube!! Apparently, she DID have a good time in it :)

However to say all that, the snow really CAN stay away and the Gipson family will be just fine!!!