Pop Art Pixies Giveaway!

Pop Art Pixies are a wonderful line of products geared toward tween and teen girls.  Gosh, what I would give to get my hands on some of these fabulous kits!

This giveaway is being offered at Raising Olives to one of their lucky readers!  Check our Pop Art Pixies and see what all they hype is about...then enter to win the prize pack yourself! :)

Homemade Detergent

After everything we have been through, I have been so fortunate to be able to continue to stay at home with the flock!  We live on a very limited income and we have learned to be very frugal!  People are always asking me how we do it and I'm always eager to share a frugal tip.  Things that we take for granted, others are glad we shared, such as our Uncrustables and our homemade Lucky Charms Treats!

I have made our own laundry detergent for the past 2 years.  I've used different recipes and finally found one I like better than all the rest.  Having a large family myself, I am a Duggar fan and I love their recipes!  Now, when I first started making laundry detergent, I turned to their website and made a 5 gallon bucket full of their liquid laundry detergent.  After this formula sat overnight, I found myself with a 5 gallon bucket full of detergent that had set like a bowl of jello :/ it ended up getting dumped outside!  I then turned to their powder recipe for laundry detergent and I used this for about a year.  I was then given a different recipe from a friend and while I was never really happy with the consistancy of that formula, I used it for about 6 months.

The other day, I decided to compare the ingredients of the recipe I was using and the recipe that the Duggar's use.  I was surprised to see how similar the recipes were.  Basically, the amount of Borax (Duggar's recipe uses 1/2 cup less) and water (Duggar's recipe uses more) and the way the detergent was prepared were the only differences!  Also, the recipe I used was only yielding about 2 gallons of detergent and the Duggar's recipe claimed to yield 10 gallons.  WOW!!! What a difference in quantity!!!  Who wouldn't rather get 8 more gallons when using the same amount of soap, washing soda and less borax!

So, I decided to give the Duggar's recipe one more try!  Here is their recipe:

4 cups water

1 bar Fels-Naptha Soap

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1/2 cup Borax

I didn't have a 5 gallon bucket, so I used a clean, empty garbage can instead.  This is how I made mine...

Grate soap in a saucepan with 4 cups of water.  Stir until soap is disolved.  In my garbage can, I added 2 1/2 gallons of hot water, washing soda & borax and stirred until powder was disolved.  I added my disolved Fels-Naptha mixture and stirred well.  Then I added 2 1/2 more gallons of hot water and stirred.  Instead of leaving it sit overnight to thicken (since this did not work well for me last time), I allowed it to sit until it began to set.  Then, I filled my containers (empty 1 gallon Hawaiian Punch containers, 1 gallon milk jugs, empty laundry detergent containers....).  I filled them half full with the soap mixture and the rest of the way with water, shook them up and sat them aside. 

I am so much happier with the consistancy of this detergent!  The other stuff I was using was sometimes so thick, it wouldn't pour out of the container!  This recipe turned out with about the same consistancy of store bought liquid detergent.

I love this detergent not only because it is CHEAP, but because contains no dyes or other irritants that we can not use due to numerous family members who suffer from eczema, and in our house it serves as a multi-purpose detergent, as I also use this in my Rug Doctor (not sure if it's good for my machine, but it works).  In our cloth diapering days, this made a wonderful detergent for our nappies! 

This recipe yielded about 6 1/2 Gallons of ready to use detergent and 4 quarts of concentrate!  If we bought this amount (aprox. 1088 oz.) of Tide Free and Gentle we would have spent approx. $176!  To make this detergent, we spent about $2.00!

I love being FRUGAL...and that my friends is one way that I "do it"!

Mmmmmm! Chicken-etti

Once a week, my family is forced to try a new dish!  We started this a few months ago and I think only once dinner was so horrible that we had to rush out to get pizza.  It is very difficult to come up with new things and/or venture outside of our comfort zone but I must say, we have been introduced to some great recipes! 

Tonight, we tried Chicken-etti.  I found this recipe on Josh & Anna Duggar's website.  It was absolutely amazing!  Once again...SCORE, everyone in the flock liked it!

I decided to double their recipe and I'm glad I did because it left us enough for leftovers (that doesn't happen much around here).  It was just my lucky day because Diced Chicken was on sale, so I cheated a bit and thought convience was definately worth saving a few $. 

While I was waiting for my spaghetti to cook, in a seperate pan, I added a bit of vegtable oil in the pan and heated the chicken up.  I sat that aside and then using a large saucepan (I melted my sauce on the stove because I didn't have a big enough microwave safe bowl), I mixed the Ro*tel, Velveta, Cream of Chicken Soup and Milk and stirred until it was melted.  By this time, my spaghetti was finished and sat aside.  I spread the spaghetti in the baking dish, then poured the cheese sauce on top.  Then, I sprinkled the chicken over the top of the noodles 

and covered it all with cheese! 

It baked until the cheese was all melted!

It was so yummy!  I've already had requests for the recipe...so, here is how I made it!

2 cans of Ro*tel
2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
2 cups of Milk
32 oz. block of Velveeta Cheese (cut into cubes)
2 packages of Spaghetti Noodles
1 bag (22oz) Diced Grilled Chicken Breasts
2 1/2 cups of Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in frying pan, add chicken cook until heated through, set aside.  Combine first four ingredients in saucepan and stir until melted.  Boil spaghetti noodles, drain and spread in a 9 x 13" pan, add cheese sauce and mix throughly.  Top with chicken dices and mozzerella cheese bake in oven at 35o until cheese melts.
Enjoy!

This is the way days should be :)



Today, Falcon started a new job.  This change will help us stay more on schedule around here because my day is guaranteed to start somewhere between 5:00am and 5:30am. 

This morning, Macaw woke up at around 6:30am.  This is very early for her, but she couldn't go back to sleep because the poor thing was so disturbed about a horrible dream she had.  So, after I did a few morning chores we started her school day!  She was finished with school at 9:30am  at which time Eagle had already begun his work.  Since Eagle doesn't take to change very well, he had quite a struggle today with us being back on a strict schedule.  His day took much longer than it should have, but he managed to get all of his school work done, including Art!  In Art, he studied the life and art of Henry Rousseau.  Rousseau was born more than 150 years ago in France.  He was an artist who loved to paint rainforests filled with wild animals.  Eagle studied some of Rousseau's paintings and he learned about how he used different colors, shapes and patterns in paintings.  He also learned how to use "overlapping" as a way to show distance in his artwork.  He did a fabulous job on his Exotic Animals Project in which he put his overlapping skills to work.

So, our day is halfway over...two kids are schooled, one is sleeping.  Eagle is trying his hand at making a batch of cookies all by himself (and it seems to be going well)!  Emu and Macaw are eagerly waiting to do an art project (rock painting) and I'm going to take advantage of the quiet time to get a few chores done before dinner.  It's about time for Cardinal and Hawk to begin their school day...this cold and gloomy weather has made them quite lazy today (that and the fact that Hawk isn't feeling well).  Our entire school day should be done by now, but that's the beauty of homeschooling...we can adjust our schedule as we need to and even though we are quite off schedule, we are having a picture perfect day!

Good to be back on track!

Whew....for the past 3 months, we have been living in complete disarray!  We no longer started school and we were packing for our vacation.  When we returned from our vacation, it was time to switch out fall/winter clothes...then there was catching up on all that school work, more clothes, doctor appointments, surgeries.....and well, yes...we are just now back on track around here!  Most people don't understand why it would take so long to get life back in order, but then again, most people aren't large homeschooling families!  We are especially busy this time of year, so it's such an awesome feeling to be back in a routine!

Last Friday, we met with our small homeschooling group and made Greeting Cards that we donated to be sent with care packages for soldiers for Christmas.

Each month we participate in events with our deaf community.  Unfortunately, this year we have not been able to attend most of the events (due to illness or schedule conflicts).  On Saturday, we were able to celebrate Christmas with this wonderful community of people!  The young members of our flock especially enjoyed visiting with the signing Santa!

On Sunday, we were suppossed to meet with a few of our close friends and visit a Christmas Lights Display, but the weather didn't cooperate and we had to postpone our outing.  It was a good thing because Hawk came down with a sore throat and a terrible headache.  We took advantage of the unexpected time at home and got all the cleaning done that we could.

It's Triplets!

There couldn't have been a more perfect time for one of our Guniea Pigs to have babies! 

Just this week, Eagle has been working on his "Life Cycle" unit in Science!

This was not something we planned to coincide with his lesson, it just happened that way.  While we missed the birth of these babies, we caught the show so soon after it started that when we caught our first glimpse of the babies they had not yet been entirely cleaned by their momma and one of them even still had her full umbilical cord and sac attached.

Two of the babies seemed to be in danger at first one of them was very limp and lifeless and they were both cold.  They had wandered away into their own little corner of the cage but we promptly put them both back with momma and they ended up just fine.

We have raised 5 guinea pigs over the course of the last 7 years and while we were on our cruise the last of our herd had died.  We just couldn't live without that piggy kind of love in our house for very long and in no time we had adopted 7 new cavy's.  We had every intention of breeding our new herd and we got very young females for this reason, but one of our females unexpectedly came to us already pregnant.  We were so upset and worried about her because she was far too young to safely breed.  Our plan was to breed her in December, when she was old enough to do so.

Things don't always happen as planned and instead of pairing her for mating this week...she delivered instead!  She gave birth to three healthy babies! 

While it's really too soon to tell, it appears she has two boys and one girl.  We are fairly certain that we will not breed this poor girl again, as we feel like she has been through enough already!  She came through it all like a champ and she is such an awesome mommy!

What an amazing experience it has been for my children to watch over her and take care of her during her pregnancy...learning what she needed to ensure a healthy pregnancy and always making sure she had everything she needed...getting to hold her and feel her babies moving and now watching her as nature takes it's course and she cares for her young.  It's amazing how she just "knows" everything to do, from cutting their umbilical cords to constantly grooming them and keeping them clean and feeding them.  My kids were all so full of excitement, concern and curiousity and luckily homeschooling offers no time restraints on learning...so at sometime after midnight, my Kindergartener sat contendedly holding one of our new babies!

The boys were reserved before they were born!  Their new owner is so excited and we hope that the boys will be ready to go home just in time for Christmas!  Parting with them will be tough, as everyone is growing attached to them already. 

We are so glad that we decided to take this journey!  Cardinal very much wants to be a vet and we are thrilled to have the capability of feeding into her passion of her love for animals!  Soon she will be shadowing a vet, working with service animals as a volunteer and entering into program at our local animal shelter and in the meantime, she will be breeding, raising and possibly showing her guinea pigs...learning all she can along the way!

With so many things to be Thankful for, I too WISH and HOPE!

During the month of November, I reflected daily on the many things that I was thankful for each day from November 1 until Thanksgiving!  While I could never list them all, each night, I listed the first thing that came to my mind.

I am a very blessed woman!  I have so much to be thankful for...but I also have a wish (well, lots of them actually) and I hope for many things....

I wish that my younger three children will always love me the same as they do now.  That they will never be taught that I am less of a mother or less deserving of them because I can't afford things I used to be able to.  I wish that they will always know that the amount of money I have to spend on them is no indication of the amount of love that I have for them.  I wish that they will never fall under influences of people who do not like me.  I wish that I will not be faulted for paying the price I paid to protect them.  I wish that no one will ever tell them that they wished they lived with someone else because it would be "better" because they think having a better house and more money makes for a better life.  I wish that no one will tell them that where they live is so terrible.  I wish that no one will ever try to manipulate them.  I wish that no one will ever tell them how terrible it must be to have younger siblings.   I wish that no one will ever try to turn them against me or my other children. 

And...

I wish....

That my older kids would not have fallen victim to all of those things.

And...

I hope...

I hope that my older three children know that I will always love them the same as I do now.  I hope that they know that I am not less of a mother and that I still deserve them even though I can't afford things I used to be able to.  I hope that they will always know that the amount of money I have to spend on them is not an indication of the amount of love I have for them.  I hope that they stand up to the people that do not like me.  I hope that they are proud of the price WE paid for me to protect them.  I hope that they never wish they lived with someone else because they think a a better house and more money means a better life for them.  I hope that they know the difference between the "house" that we used to have and the "home" that we live in now.  I hope that they will not be manipulated by others.  I hope that always realize how lucky they are to have their younger siblings.  I hope that they will always love me for who I am and not hate me because they were convinced that I am someone different.

I am a very blessed woman! 

I am proud of who I am.

I am a wonderful mother, I know it and anyone who knows me knows it.

The place I call home, the amount of money I have...those things do not make me a worse mother. 

I was strong enough to PROTECT my children, 

"THAT" makes me a "BETTER" mother! 

I just HOPE that someday my kids will know THAT!

"Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it's greedy or loving." ~Dan Millman