How To Make Hand Soap {a money saving tutorial}

Our family manages to go through a lot of hand soap. 

 I’ve tried switching to using bar soap,

 but the kids turn each bar into a sculpture,

 and much of that ends up down the drain or in the trash. 

 I found this recipe  for making your own hand soap. 

It cost me about $0.70, and 15 minutes to make this large refill sized bottle. 

Here’s how to do it:

Shred the bar of soap using a cheese grater.

You will need 1 cup of the soap flakes. 

The bar of soap I had ended up being about 1.5 cups. 

 Save the flakes you do not use for the next batch, in a Ziploc bag.

Combine 10 cups of water, 1 cup of soap flakes,

 and 1 teaspoon of glycerin in a large pot. 

Heat on medium high heat just until the soap flakes have melted,

 about 4-5 minutes or so. 

Allow the mixture to cool, stirring occasionally. 

 Using a funnel, pour the soap into a bottle. 

You can label it if you like. 

My kids are loving this soap! 

 They think it is neat that I made it too. 

The original tutorial that I found said that the better quality of soap you use,

the better the hand soap will turn out. 

 Our favorite bar soap is Yardley.

 The smell is mild, and it doesn’t dry out your hands.

Give it a try and let me know how it went! 

 Leave a comment, especially if you tried another type of soap. 

 I would love to hear from you!

Mommy and Me

Isaac snapped a photo of of the two of us snuggled on the sofa.

Just after he took it, she fell asleep laying on me,

tired from being up the night before with the tummy bug.

That has rarely happened before.

I'm so glad I have a picture to remember it by!

Linking up with Working on a Project for her photo challenge: Focus on Mom.

 

Tot School - 25.5 Months

Poor baby had a rough couple of weeks, so school has been hit or miss. 

 It did seem to help distract her when she wasn’t feeling well though.

She did a little from our Monster Tot Pack. 

 This is size sorting biggest to smallest. 

 She points to them and assigns a family name to each…

Daddy, Isaac, Nate, Elaina, and Olivia.

She placed the shapes on top of the monsters head,

 and we practiced saying the colors and names of the shapes.

She requested to do a lot of coloring with the dry erase markers….

I had these mice out for an activity with Elaina and she wanted to play with them. 

We lined them up on the magnet board and counted them. 

 She had the most fun though, just pouring them in and out of their container!

We went through lots of books, as usual. 

 She is loving this one now, B is for Bear.

I had her put straws into an old grated cheese container. 

This occupied her for a very long time and she asked to do it often this week.

She is really starting to enjoy playing with Play-doh…

And mashed it into the letter N Play-doh page.

She did the letter N is for Nest magnet page with our pom pom magnets.

And did some lacing…

I got out the teddy bears again, and this time a mini ice-cube tray for her to place them into.

I just recently found these Three Bear Family Pattern and Sequencing Cards at the thrift store for $1. 

She is too young for them but she enjoyed lining them up anyway.

She got to wear rollers in her hair for the first time this week. 

 I was completely amazed that she slept in them all night. 

 Her hair is just a little too short for these curls,

but it sure looked cute up in a curly pony tail the next day!

This day she was really sick, but wanted to do school so bad just like her sister. 

She sat and colored quietly for a long time.

 Despite not feeling well, she still smiled a lot! 

 I am so praying that our family finds health next week!

Moments to Remember {Spelling Beez}

We had a hard week. 

 Again. 

We spent a lot of days in our jammies,

 did very little school work,

 and mostly just camped out in front of the t.v. 

I did manage to set out a few “educational” games for those who felt up to it. 

 I came down from rocking the baby to find these two playing

our game of Spelling Beez. 

 Loving this moment of Isaac and Elaina taking the initiative to stay occupied

 when their tired, wore out momma was starting to get a little cranky....

So proud of you guys!

fun friday

I love to reward my kids, after a great week of school, with “Fun Friday”. 

We usually try to do all of our schooling in 4 days a week. 

If everyone has been cooperating, and completed their work with a cheerful heart,

 then Friday becomes our fun school! 

 We do lots of art projects, crafts, science experiments, learning games,

educational movies, computer games, and usually a fun snack. 

Sometimes we go on a field trip, or invite our friends over to join us!

On the grid (from left to right):
1.  Maddie.  She had the prettiest Rainbow Fish!
2.  Isaac who was by far the messiest.
3.  Nate and Ben who never stopped laughing that day.
4.  Elaina carefully filling in her fish.
5.  Ben.
6.  Elaina and Olivia playing with baby Samantha. 
7.  Gracie {with the cutest cheese smile!} 
8.  Nate counting his play money. 
9.  Baby Samantha, catching some Zzzzzz….

Now that's a lot of kids.  Count them.  There are 8!

I read them The Rainbow Fish and the kids helped tell the story with our cute felt board set.  Then they made their own Rainbow Fish via crayon resist and water colors.  And for some fish bling we embossed some silver scales on top.  The kids played Hyperdash outside, and then Sports Market Game for some money counting practice.  We made homemade pizza.  The kids gobbled it up (next time making two!)  And enjoyed some delish funfetti cupcakes.

So much fun!

Already planning the next one…

Posh Princess Preschool - Letter N

N is for: Nest, Numbers, Noah’s Ark

We used the handy dandy Word Whammer.

N says nnnnn….

And learned how to write the letter Nn with this worksheet...

Made a letter N on our Play-doh page,

and cut out a letter N with these cookie cutters...

N for Nose coloring sheet…

Letter N search…

And smallest object page…

She is working through this fun set from

 Lakeshore Learning called Sound Sort. 

 She is slowly grasping the difference

 between beginning and ending sounds.

We are still using this set of Follow the Dots Stamps.

She loves to write over them when she is done stamping.

Priddy Book Wipe Clean Activity Cards...

Letter N for nest magnet page from Making Learning Fun.

She did this number puzzle from Melissa and Doug...

I got out our magnetic numbers and put them into a basket
 for her to “fish” with her magnetic fishing pole.

Then she lined them up in order…
somehow we were missing the 4…
and the 9....

We read through the Noah’s Ark story in the bible,
 and watched an old VHS movie we had about Noah’s Ark too. 
Then she and Isaac worked on this Noah’s Ark puzzle.

And she painted a few Noah’s Ark pictures…

We still do a lot of review each week, over the letters she has already learned. 
This week I took out our N is for Nature Blocks.
 As she took one from the basket, she wrote the letter down
 and drew pictures to go with each letter. 
She loves to write and to draw, and she did this activity for over half an hour.

My sweet momma gave Elaina some new rollers for her hair,
and we had to try them out! 
Even The Baby got in on the fun!

I caught them afterwards playing with Barbies. 
Ok so I have to admit, this was soooo sweet to me! 
My mom could tell you that I was often like this,
 rollers in my hair, Saturday night before church. 
And oh, how I loved to play with my Barbies!

I love this one of Elaina singing…

And then in the morning, with her cute curls!

Love you so much sweetie!

Linking up with Preschool Corner.