st patricks day and zanders blessing

 green, green, and more green, call me crazy, but I love st. patricks day! It started with green pancakes and ugly green carmel syrup, and green whip cream. but oh it was so yummy!  Abby and jason had so much fun running around the house finding all the things the crazy leprechan did in our house, like turning the milk green, and the toliet water green,, and leaving footprints in the bathroom.

 Me and the little man, chillin in our green outfits.

 And this is what that leprechan did when we set up our trap to try to catch him. He knocked over our stools,and bench, but at least he left us candy :) Once again we didn't catch him, maybe next year.

 Here is the little monkey, It seems that this is his favorite place, in the bathtub!! He is kind of a fussy baby. He hates the carseat, hates being put down, as long as someone is holding him, and feeding him or he is in the tub, he is happy! what a goofy kid. but we sure love him!!

 And this kid, he turned 13 this last weekend, can you believe that! And all he asked for for his birthday was jerseys, or an ipad, or new ipods, or cell phone, or anything along those lines, (he doesn't ask for much!!) So  the spoiled kid got a jersey. I think he was pretty happy. Its crazy to think he is already a teenager. my babies are growing up. But he is an amazing kid. And although it would be quiet I sure don't what I would do without my joey!! love you buddy.

 This weekend we also had zanders blessing. It was amazing. we had so many family and friends come out to support us. thanks to all of you that made it. we appreciate it so much. We had such a great time with all of you. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such great people. It was crazy hectic, and of course brian changed his clothes as soon as we got home, so thats what brought on the next picture.....

 yep.... thats my husband. I had to get a pic of us in our church clothes with zander in his blessing outfit, but brian had changed so I made him change back into his shirt. what a goof.

 We are so blessed to have talented women in our family. this blanked in this picutre was made by my great grandma van patten. I have been able to have each of my kids have their pics taken in their blessing outfits in this blanket.

 And grandma carroll made this blanket. I wish I inherited, or learned some of this, but so far, I have nothing! Maybe its not too late. We will see. But I think my kids are very lucky to have the grandparents, and great grandparents that they have!!

Here are my munchkins! I have to say that I have some pretty awesome kids. I am a very lucky mom to have what I do in my life.

making my great grandmas proud, (I hope) I just had a do it yourself weekend!

 Ok I don't know about the rest of your households, but in mine even with just 2 girls, we go through the detangler like crazy, so I looked up how to make your own detangler. Well as crazy as it is, it was simple and cheap. just take any conditioner, I always have some conditioner left after I use all my shampoo, I don't know why, fill a bottle 3/4 with warm water, then the rest with the conditioner, there ya go, detangler! So I no longer have to rush off to walmart for it, I will make my own!

 The second thing I made (actually this is the second time I made it) was homemade baby wipes this is kinda fun, I don't actually use them as baby wipes, although you could, we just sipmly use them for whatever, washing faces, cleaning up spills, washing our hands, whatever we need to use them for we do. You take a roll of paper towels, cut them in half with a serated knife, thats the fun part. pull out center cardboard round thing of the paper towel so you can pull the paper towels from the center. put it cut side down in some type of tupperware. I found one pretty cheap at walmart. then you boil 2 cups water, let it cool a bit. add in 2 TB. Baby wash, and 1 TB baby oil, also if you want to you can add 1 tsp lavendar essential oil. pour over the paper towels let it soak in for a couple hours, you are ready to go, they smell so yummy!

 Homemade laundry soap! This was kinda fun to make. I have been wanting to try this for a while, I have just been too lazy! First I bought the Irish spring soap, you can use any brand soap you want to use, you can grate it up, I just gave the soap to joey and let him whittle it with his knife, it kept him busy for a while. But the ingredients you need are: 1 bar of soap, arm and hammer super washing soda,  and borax! and now I am sounding like a commercial, but yes, I found all this at..... walmart! so to make 2 gallons of soap, you grate, or in my case whittle 1 bar of soap, put it in a large pot, or pan, pour 1 gallon of water over it, and bring to boil, continue to boil till all dissolved. once dissolved, add 1 c. borax, and 1 c. washing soda. bring back to boil. It will coagulate. Turn off heat. Add 1 gallon cold water. Stir well, pour into whatever container you choose, I just used old milk containers. to use, pour 1/2 c. into wash. It works great. p.s. it is safe for h.e. wahsers :) less than pennies per load!!!

 Ok, so I also decided to make my own mozzarella cheese. so here is the way easy recipe: citric acid powder, rennet,whole milk salt!!! thats it :) disolve 1 1/2 tsp citric acid powder in 1/4 c. cool water set aside, also disolve 1/4 tsp rennet in 1/4 c. cool water, also set this aside.
pour the gallon of whole milk in large stockpot. sprinkle the citric acid over the top and stir gently. heat milk to 88 degrees. dont panic when it starts to curdle, thats the idea. while pot is still over heat. stir in the rennet. heat to 100-105. shut off heat. walk away from the pan for about 5 min. do not touch the pan!! when you come back the curds (the white part) should've pulled away from the sides of the pot and you should see lots of whey on top and around the sides. now for the fun part. scoop the curds out with a slotted spoon into a microwave safe bowl. press the curds against the side of the bowl with your clean hand so the when squishes out dump the whey back into the pot. do not throw the whey away. microwave the cures for 1 min. using your hands knead the curds and drain the whey back into the stockpot. put the curds back into microvave for 30 seconds, knead curds, drain, repeat 1 more time. at this time you can either stretch it into a smooth ball and eat it warm , drop the ballin ice water to cool the curd quickly for storage or pull off little pieces of mozzarella between walnut size and golf ball size and stretch and roll it to form little balls. drop little balls into an ice water bath and repeat with the remaining curd.

 I just made mine into logs and we just ate them!! I will be making more real soon!

 and here is our little buddy hanging out while we do all our work!

I had to throw this Pic in cause I thought it was so cute, it looks like Zander is hugging his daddy while he is sleeping! its so adorable! And for those of you interested, we are blessing this little guy on march 25. we would love to have our family and friends there with us! call me if you have any questions.