Thursday, November 29, 2012

Best cleaner ever!!!!

Today a friend on Facebook asked about a good cleaner for her tub. She said she had used all of these different products and scrubbed like crazy and couln't get it totally clean.
 
Well, let me introduce you to the same magical cleaner that I told her about :) And guess what?!? Her tub is now clean!
 
I know a lot of you who read this already use the magical cleaner, but for those of you who don't, let me tell you a little story.
 
 A little over five months ago I was asked by our landlord to clean his two rental properties. His rental houses happen to be frat houses! That means 6-7 college age boys living under one roof and never cleaning for the whole 10 months out of the year that they live there!!!
 
IT WAS GROSS!!
 
I told my friend that if rubber gloves didn't exist I would not have cleaned these houses, and I am totally serious!
 
My landlord agreed to pay me $20 an hour to clean and he supplied me the rubber gloves, so I was up for the nastiest challenge of the year.
 
I had some friends tell me about the best cleaner in the world a couple of months before this and I figured that these 2 houses were going to be my test subjects. If this cleaner could clean this disgusting mess then it was going to be my new best friend and the only cleaner I would ever use.
 
Here are a couple of before pictures........
 
This is one of the shower floors.
 
I cleaned a total of 6 showers that ALL looked like this, 2 were actually worse.
 
(*I didn't think about taking before and after pictures until I was halfway done cleaning, so I didn't get as many before pics as I did after ones, sorry!)
 
 
One of the 5 lovely toilets I got to clean.
Again, the ALL looked like this!!!
 
So, are you grossed out yet??
 
Well, here are the after pictures :)
 
 
 

 
 

 

 
AMAZING difference!!
 BTW, I did clean the grout under this toilet with an amazing grout cleaner that will be shared another day :)
 
Ready for my magical recipe for this amazing cleaner?!?!?
 
 
 
Blue Dawn and Vinegar. Yup, that is it!
Mix equal parts of HOT vinegar and dawn. Let cool and put into a spray bottle. Voila, BEST CLEANER EVER!
 
Not only does it clean to a sparkle shine, but there are no harsh chemicals :)
 
*I use it on everything- tubs, sinks, toilets, kitchen sink, shower scum... NOTHING I have ever tried works as well as this stuff.
 
If it is really bad, then let it sit for a while. The showers and toilets in these pictures were spayed and left to sit for an hour or two.
 
It works, it isn't harsh and best of all it is SUPER cheap to make! That is the best part ;)
 
Now, get to cleaning!!

 


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Rainbow cake

Last month was Gabby's 10th birthday and I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. Her answer, a rainbow cake.
 
I can do that!! I was actually excited because I remembered pinning something from Pinterest where the inside of the cake looked like a rainbow. Off to Pinterest I went..... Only to discover that my pin didn't lead to anywhere except a picture. No directions what-so-ever on how to make it.
 
Luckily for Gabby I am good in the kitchen and I am fully capable of figuring it out all by myself.
 
First, Get a box of white or vanilla cake mix.
(I made my own, but I was not overly impressed with the flavor so I am going to leave that recipe out until I find one that I am happy with!)
 
Mix it together like the back of the box says.
(If you want your boxed cake to taste better use milk instead of water, butter instead of oil and add one more egg than the recipe calls for.)


Divide your mix up into different bowls. I wanted 5 different colors in my cake, so I used 5 bowls. Use as many or as little colors as your little heart wants to use :)

Get some icing colors

Add it to your cake mix

Stir it up

Here are the 5 colors I chose to use.

Now, you need to make your pans non-stick.
You don't want your cake to get stuck to the pan!!

Cover the pans in shortening.

Next, sprinkle flour all around.
 
Time to add your cake mix :) 
 
Add the color that you want on the outside ring first. Then, the next color that you want in your ring you need to pour right into the middle of the pan.
(Now, if I would have been using my brain that day I would not have put yellow and blue next to each other. Remember back to kindergarten??? Yellow+Blue=Green. Try to remember that kind of stuff when you decide what colors to pout next to each other!!)
 
Continue to add the rest of your colors.
Pour each color into the middle of the cake. It spreads itself out :)
 
Here are all of my colors.
 
Pop cakes into oven and bake according to the directions.
 

Pull out cakes and let cool completely.

Cut off the top dome part so that your cake is flat when you go to ice it.

I decorated her cake to keep with the rainbow theme.
Here is my sky and grass.

I used rainbow twizzlers around the bottom, skittles for the flowers and a rainbow sour candy thing for the rainbow. (Yes, they have an actual name, but I can't remember what they are called right now!!)
She loved it :)

The inside looked really cool when it was cut into!
 

YUMMY!!!!

Monday, November 26, 2012

Learning to sew!

Happy Birthday to me (again) :)
 
Today, I finally opened up my sewing machine that my sister-in-law bought me for my birthday!!!
 
It is ok to be a little jealous.....LOL
 
 
The first thing that I had to do was figure out how to work it! I admit that I was a bit intimidated, but after I figured it out it wasn't bad :) I know that there are still TONS of things to learn on it, but I am taking it one step at a time.
 
The girls and I received our flag patches at karate and they need to be sewed onto our uniforms, so I figured that was a good starting project.
 
YAY!!! I did it!!!
 
My next project with my sewing machine will be completed by the end of the week because I need it by the 1st.
 
 
I am making a calender with pockets in it. Everyday in the month of December up until Christmas we are going to have something special to do. I want a calender that has pockets and can hold the card that tells us what we are doing that day. Hopefully it will turn out how I want it to!! Fingers crossed :)

 


Saturday, November 24, 2012

Never again!!!!!!!

Today was the day that we decided to go to the tree farm and cut down our Christmas tree!! Woohoo!!!! I LOVE Christmas time :)
 
Growing up we always had a real Christmas tree. My mom was not a fake tree type of person! BUT growing up in Florida, well, we don't have Christmas tree farms....... unless you want a palm tree as your Christmas tree.... Anyways, we always had to get our real tree from a tree lot on the side of the road.
 
Living in Virgina on the other hand there are LOTS and LOTS of tree farms where we can go pick out and cut down any tree that we want!! Last year we decided that we wanted to start the tradition of cutting down our own tree every year :) We had such a good experience last year and I was rather excited for today to get here so we could pick out and cut down our tree.
 
Our experience this year should be just as wonderful right?!?!
 
 
I went online and did a search of tree farms in our area and basically picked the closest one to our house. We loaded up the van and off we went. It was a GORGEOUS day yesterday, but today when we went it was a lovely 34 degrees out. (That made for a lot of fun with the little ones.) The tree farm was at the top of this mountain with this TINY road. I was 100% sure that we were going to fall off of the mountain when another vehicle passed us. 
 
For those of you who do not know, we have a 15 passenger van and it pretty much took up this whole road! Passing another vehicle seriously made my heart stop beating!
 
We got there alive despite my doubts and I was very pleased with the farm :) They had gorgeous trees!! The name of the farm was Ralph's for any of you who may want to go :)
I'm ready, mommy!!
 
We started looking around....

Then, Michael found it...... The tree that he HAD to have!
Yup, you guessed it. It is that BIG one he is standing next to.
 

Vanessa told me she wanted this little tree for her bedroom...lol
(And after everything we went through tonight with Michael's tree I really wish we had gotten this little tree instead!!!)
 
Ok babe, get your saw ready now you have to cut it down.
I was really unsure about getting a tree this big, but Michael was insistent. His reason was that where we are renting now has HUGE vaulted ceilings and we may never have a chance to have a huge tree like this again. I was hesitant, but I went along with him anyways. (Note to self....ALWAYS follow your gut!)
 
While Michael cut down the tree I took the little ones back to the van to defrost, and a snack :)
 
I went back to see how Michael was doing and he hadn't progressed very much. Lucky for him, I spotted a man carrying a chainsaw, so Michael went and asked if he could borrow it.
 
All I kept saying was, "Are you sure about this Michael??"
 
All he kept saying was, "Oh yeah!"
 
The next obstacle was going to be how to get his massive beast home.... 5 guys stood around the van saying that this was not going to work. Which of course only made Michael more determined to make it work. We decided to drop the back seat in the van and just shoved it in as much as we could. 
 
Here was the finished product. I made Michael stop 3 times on the way home so I could check it because I was sure that it was going to fall out!! Despite my negative thoughts we did make it home without any problems, Thank God!! Now the next test for the tree..... How to get it into the house!!!
 
Me-Are you sure about this Michael???
Michael- Oh yeah!
 
We got it in, and up..... sort of.....
 
I wish I could say that it stayed there, but it didn't. It kept leaning, BAD! About 3 min after we got it up it fell....... The hubs rigged it and got it straight and exactly where I wanted it..... After about 90 min of fighting with the tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was sooooo happy that it was finally up. Then 5 minutes later it fell again!! After it fell for a second time I started thinking... I wonder if my wonderful husband cut the bottom of the tree to make sure it was perfectly straight before he put it in the stand. I mean, that is tree stand LOGIC 101, right?? His answer, Nope!! WHAT?!?!?
No wonder the stupid thing kept falling! So while the tree was in the house we had to bust out the electric saw. That didn't make a mess or anything....
 
Now, we are sitting here an hour after putting the tree up (again!) We cleaned up the mess from the tree falling over, the mess from the saw dust everywhere and thankfully the tree is still standing! If I ever get over my irritation of the tree I will post a picture of it standing tall in our living room and maybe I will even decide to decorate it. For now though I choose to wait here and think about how I will NEVER get a huge tree like that again!!!! Also, I will be praying through out the night that it is still standing when I wake up in the morning, because I REALLY do not want to hold that tree up anymore!! 
 
 
*It still leans slightly (Like maybe an inch) to the left, but it is staying like that!! I think it helps the tree build character :)
   
In case you were wondering, I will NEVER get a tree this big again!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Friday, November 23, 2012

Gabby's Re-'do'

So........... Apparently I totally wasted my money the other day on Gabby's new do.
 
Why, do you ask?? Because I just fixed it! Meaning I just re-cut her hair.
 
I was sitting at the kitchen table and I was looking at her hair and it was NOT cut right! Pieces that were supposed to be short were longer than they were supposed to be, and honestly it was not even the haircut that she wanted. They lady totally didn't listen to how Gabby told her to cut it. I think she just listen to what she wanted to hear and then did what she felt like she wanted to do.
 
But have no fear Gabby....... Mommy hair salon is open 24/7...well, maybe not 24/7, but it is open pretty late ;)
 
Gabby has SUPER thick hair!!

This is how much hair I ended up cutting off!!

SO MUCH CUTER NOW!!!

She is very happy!!
See how it actually goes from log in the front to short in the back??
That is what she wanted, but it did not look like that before.

Besides the whole I don't want to pay for haircuts, this is another reason I don't go to salons!!!! I end up re-doing it myself!!!
 
It didn't necessarily look bad before, but I did not like it as much as I do now :)
 
I have learned my lesson, I will never take them to a salon for a haircut again!!
 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Abortion

Yesterday, I posted a picture on my Facebook page that started a debate between two of my friends.
 
Here is the picture that I posted.
 
Now, here is MY position on it. I was going to post on my FB page last night, but honestly I have a LOT to say so I figured that a blog was needed.
 
This is an unborn child.....
 I don't care if he/she is 4 weeks old or 37 1/2 weeks old like in this picture. It IS A BABY! Period, end of discussion.

2 weeks later I had this.....
A BABY!!!
 
Anyone who tries to tell me that a baby isn't a baby until it is born will hear a bunch of crap from me. Just because you can't see it and just because it isn't breathing air doesn't mean that it is not a baby. This baby had to be a 4 week old gestation baby at some point in time in order for it to be a baby like this. It is not like when I was 6 months pregnant the baby didn't look like this... It had a heartbeat, arms, legs....everything that you and I do, you just can't see it without special equipment.
 
Now, my friend didn't take the position of it not being a baby. Which I was very happy about. What she did say was that abortion is offensive to me because I am a Christian. Well, I am not offended by abortion. Let's get that out there. Offending me would be to tell me that my kids are stupid, that my husband is lazy or that I am a bad mother. Now those are things that I would be offended by.  Abortion doesn't offend me. Abortion is just wrong..... It is murder. The fact that I am a Christian does not play any roll in this. Yes, God says it is wrong, He formed that baby inside of his/her mother (even if she doesn't think so). I have only been a Christian for 5 years and this was wrong in my eyes LONG before I became a Christian.
 
Why? Why do I feel so strongly that it is wrong? Because to me it is murder. Period, end of discussion. It is a life. I don't think that people should ever be ok with one person taking another persons life. People are shocked and dismayed when someone goes into a school and shoots people. People will say afterwards, "Oh, those poor innocent people, this is such a tragedy!" Yes, it is! They didn't have any say in whether or not they were gong to live or die by the hand of this crazy person who had their mind set on killing another person. Likewise with an unborn baby. This baby doesn't have any say in what happens to him/her by the hand of another. How is this any different? I don't understand how people can see it as anything less than murder!
 
This baby did not choose for you to go off and spread your legs and then decide....Oh well, I don't want a baby! Then keep your legs closed!!! Anytime two people have sex there is always a possibility of pregnancy. Don't have sex if you are not willing to have a baby!! Then people will say, "What about rape?" The woman didn't ask to have sex. You are right. They didn't. Now, this is where my Christianity will kick in and say, "What satan intended for evil, God will use for good."
 
Adoption is always an option. If it wasn't for some woman choosing life some of my friends wouldn't be parents. I have a handful of friends who have adopted, including my in-laws. For those of you who don't know, Michael has 3 adopted siblings (triplets). I can't imagine Michael's family without them in it! I also can't imagine some of my wonderful friends lives if it wasn't for adoption. They would have never had the chance to be parents if it wasn't for women choosing life and then adoption. I know my friend has said something about what would happen to all of these babies if they weren't aborted. No one would adopt them.... Wrong! I know a LOT of people who would adopt (including us) if it wasn't so hard and expensive to do.
 
My friend's argument was that a woman should have the right to do whatever she wants to do with her body. Well, it isn't her body she is doing something to. It is someone else's body that they are doing something to. Yes, this baby may inhabit someone else's body, but it is still not their body. Last time I checked your body doesn't have 2 heartbeats, 2 brains, 4 arms, etc...... Nope, sure doesn't. To me that shows that this is not just your body. She said that if her 16 year old daughter came to her pregnant and wanted an abortion then she would take her to have it done, because it is her body therefore her decision......... Hmmmm..... So, does that mean that if your 16 year old daughter came to you and said she decided she was going to be a prostitute at the age of 16 that would be ok? I mean it is her body right? She can do that if she wants? I really hope that my friend would not be ok with her daughter being a prostitute, but maybe to prove me wrong she would, who knows ;)
 
She also stated that she wouldn't personally get an abortion, and I do believe that. She then said why should she care what Sally down the street does with her body. Well, she most certainly should care what Sally down the street does with her body. What if Sally down the street is caring the cure for cancer in her womb or a future president of the United States? What if Steve Jobs' (Apple founder) mother had decided to go forward with an abortion instead of deciding to give him up for adoption?? Look at how much impact that one person has had on this country!! Because of that ONE person who could have easily been aborted.....His biological parents were unwed college kids and her mother (Steve's maternal grandmother) did not approve of their relationship. Instead of abortion she chose life for her son. He was adopted and left a HUGE mark on the world. Because of that one person THOUSANDS of people have jobs. Because of that one man thousands of people have technology to make their lives easier. See, every life has a purpose. No one knows who that baby that is being aborted may turn out to be.
 
What if out of all of the babies that have been aborted there were just 10 babies like Walt Disney or the founder of Wal-Mart. There would be hundreds of thousands of more jobs in this country. So it most certainly should matter to you what Sally down the street does with her body. Because what she does with her body may possibly be killing off the baby that will have the cure for diabetes or may create thousands of jobs for this crap hole of an economy we live in...... You don't know.
 
Because of this debate I have spent the past 2 days just thinking about life and how sacred it is. I know that there will always be people like my friend who believe that abortion is ok. And that if it was illegal people would still find other ways to do it.....blah, blah, blah..... But the fact is that it is murder whether you want to tell yourself that or not.
 
I really feel strongly on this issue and again it has nothing to do with my faith, but my morals. I don't need to be a Christian to know the difference  between right and wrong. Yes, being a Christian helps me to see things clearer, but it is not my only reason for why I feel the way that I do about this issue. I have a lot more that I could say, but I am ready for bed :)......good night!!! 
 
*I want it noted that this friend that I am referring to I consider a very close friend and I care a lot about her. She is NOT a bad person and I am not saying that she is because she thinks abortion is ok. We just have vastly different views on this subject (and just about every other subject that we encounter) But I love her like family. Just because people don't share the same thoughts or values as you doesn't make them bad people or people you can not be friends with!!!
 
 
 


Monday, November 19, 2012

Boxerwood

Yesterday was a wonderful day :)
 
It started out with this....

Carson dropped his donut on the floor

and Blake found it!
 
I think he liked it!! SO CUTE!!!
I don't really give him table food yet so this was a big surprise for him :)
 
We went to church and then after church we went to eat lunch at our wonderful friend's house.
 
But, the real fun came after lunch. Our friends have been telling us that they wanted to take us to a place called Boxerwood to let the kids play. We are not from the area and had no clue what it was, but apparently it is a great place for kids. So after lunch our family and the O'Mahony family went to Boxerwood.
 
Come on mommy!!!
 
Boxerwood is a play area made out of trees!!
 
 
Now, the rules for Boxerwood.....
 
Sounds like good rules to me!
 
 

Carrie & Micaiah

They have a mud kitchen that the kids had a BLAST playing with!!!
 
More people should learn this lesson! lol
 
 
 
This place was a dream come true for Mr. Carson!!
 

He was allowed to climb on ANYTHING he wanted!

He got to play with daddy!

He wanted Michael to go up and down this fort with him about 7 different times :)
 
He kept saying, "Come on, daddy!" Over and over..... up & down.....

This is my all time favorite picture!


Climb and climb and climb and no one yelling at him to get down!!
This was the BEST place ever for a little boy with WAY to much energy :)
 
 
Then there was this thing.......


I think it was enjoyable and painful all at the same time....lol

Kay Kay bringing some more mud to the mud kitchen.

Did I mention that they had a blast in the mud kitchen???

Vanessa was on water fetching duty!

Luther and Kay on mud duty.

There was also a green house that had some BIG fish in it!

Michael and I on the throne. We let Blake hang out with us also, but no one else was allowed ;)

We have been truly blessed by this family and I pray that our friendship continues to grow!
 
This was our first time to Boxerwood, but I can guarantee that it will not be our last!! This was GREAT for kids, but especially Carson. If you have not been to Boxerwood I highly recommend it! If you don't live in the area, then plan a trip to come visit us :) We always have plenty of room!! *Mariela wants it noted that we only want people that we know since we don't know who all reads my blog*