Just call me “Ma.”

Today I decided to tackle two tasks: Making more laundry soap and making pickles.  Both tasks were inspired by Mother Necessity.  We were out of laundry soap and needed clean clothes, and the cukes in the garden were ready to be picked! 

This is the second time I’ve made this powdered laundry soap mixture.  I use the recipe on the Duggar’s website. I had leftover Borax and Washing Soda from when I made it the last time, and 4 bars of Ivory Soap that Jeremy bought to make more laundry detergent.  After shredding the 4 bars, I discovered I did not have enough Washing Soda for 4 batches of detergent.  So I sent Jeremy to the store to get more, and he also bought 4 more bars of soap.  Happily, this used up all the Washing Soda and made 8 batches of detergent.  This should hopefully last us a long time!  I wasn’t sure how well it was removing stains, so I might try using extra borax if the clothes are especially dirty.  

After this I started slicing the cukes for pickles.  I discovered I like the pickles slices round instead of spears, so I bought a mandoline slicer to make this process easier.  I love it!  ($15 at Target!)

I didn’t get to actually pickle the cukes tonight since we discovered we don’t have garlic.  So that will have to wait until tomorrow.  For now, the cukes are sitting in ice water and getting very crispy.  Let me say folks, that REALLY WORKS!  The cukes I sliced last night were in ice water overnight and wow are they crispy today.  I just hope they stay that way until I can get them pickled. 

For supper tonight we ate green beans from our garden, picked yesterday.  (Spaghetti and green beans cooked courtesy of Jeremy Groff – thanks hunny!) Wow, fresh really is best!  There’s nothing like fresh veggies right out of your backyard.  Gardening is hard work but so fun and such rewards reaped – literally!

Jeremy commented on my activities today of homemade laundry soap and pickling cucumbers from our garden, trying to say I was being very domestic and natural. 

“Just call me Ma,” I replied. 

Sleeping, Soccer, Shopping and Storms

 

I couldn’t resist taking this picture last night of Asher sleeping with his teddy.  Rest up, Buddy!  Soccer game tomorrow!

Team Charge is ready to play!

Teams Courage and Charge pray with the Ref before the game.

Asher and Coach Daddy!  Asher really was happy, this just caught him by surprise!

Mom-Mom, Grandma and Grandpa came to watch his game!

Ellie sits on the bench with Asher.

Asher congratulates Team Courage on a good game!

After soccer we ended up shopping with Grandma at Miracles Consignment.  I found some Little Tikes doll house items, a dry-erase letter practice book, Disney princess shorts for Ellie to wear with her new Disney princess shirt from Missy, and a clock toy for Asher.  We then went next door for pizza at Caruso’s with Mom and Dad. Here is Asher as Pop-Pop, posing with Grandma. 

After that we went home and we all took NAPS!  Jeremy had been up since 5:30 since we thought we’d have to be there at 8 for pictures.  (They were cancelled due to the weather).  Games were then held INSIDE – ours was at 10 am. 

After a delicious meal of spaghetti and broccoli prepared by Jeremy (thanks hunny), we all went about different projects.  Jeremy started the taxes and the kids were watching Mary Poppins.  I started re-arranging the Living Room, again…only to put it back how it was, again.  About that time Dad called and said there was a tornado warning in our area.  So, we all headed to the basement for about 15 minutes until we were clear.  I was praying for God to calm the storm and not allow damage to occur!  We are so thankful for His protection! 

After that I started working on organizing the basement stairway – finally installing these clips for hanging brooms and vacuums and such.  Here is the result of my work!

I hung the various hooks on the opposite side for the dusters, etc.  You’ll notice Asher’s famous Blue Vacuum now has a home on one of the clips  

Jeremy finished the taxes…almost – only the local to finish now.  All in all it was a great day, busy, but great.  We are teaching the 2s tomorrow, so I’d better get to bed!  Good night!

Spring Things

Today was a beautiful spring day with a high of 67 degrees. It was a perfect day to get some gardening done since it was sunny but not hot. I took advantage of the soft soil from the last two days of rain and started hoeing the weeds out of the garden area. The picture above shows one area I had done before. Today I started on the areas that were the vegetable garden last year. Here is the upper area. It’s fun to take pictures so I can see what I accomplished!

Before

After

Here is the side of the house after I hoed the weeds. I don’t have a “before” picture.

Here is our lawn. I wanted a picture of it now, early in Spring, because HOPEFULLY it will look better after we treat with fertilizer. Right now there are a lot of patches of these blue flowered weeds – I think it’s chickweed and it seems to have taken over a lot of the yard. I was explaining to Asher and Ellie that weeds grow because of the curse of sin. They’ve recently watched “In the Beginning” on DVD and so I was trying to tie it in with that.

Here is Ellie in her fairy wings, swinging away!

I got a great picture of Asher here! He’s finally learned to SMILE for the camera! Lord, I thank you for the beautiful day, for safety, for fun, and for hard work and health. Amen!*****************************************

After we got home from soccer practice, the kids played outside while Jeremy and I (mostly Jeremy) removed the stones from the path out front. (We want to extend the flower bed to include that area). As we worked, Jeremy remembered a time working on this same area with two other children – Kaylee and Kearstin. They were spending the night with us when we were working on digging this flower bed and putting the stones down for a path!

Ellie was helping by picking up stones and putting them in her wheelbarrow.