All-Natural Sunburn Relief

So. 

Essential Oils. 

Everyone's doing them.

Aaaand a while back my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try them to find out what all they hype was about. I'm ashamed to admit that they have mostly lived peacefully in the sweet little subdivided box I purchased for them.

There are one or two that I've used several times, but they were blends--designed to perform a specific purpose. No mixing or creativity required. One is designed to help boost your immune system, and the other helps with congestion.

So I've decided to experiment and bit and share my successes (hopefully no failures, right!?) here. 

My first experiment?

Sunburn relief.

We enrolled my girls in swimming lessons this year, but they didn't start until the end of July. And that may have been the first time I've worn my swimsuit this year. Nope--that's false. It was the second time. But that's beside the point. 

The point is that most of my lovely skin hadn't said hello to the summer sun yet, and I got a bit rosy after bobbing around in the pool with my mini-man while the girlies were getting their swim on. When I got home I rolled my eyes a bit, realizing that I didn't have any aloe vera in my house.

But then inspiration hit.

Essential oils!

Hey! I have some of those! Maybe one of my oils provides relief from sunburn! 

After a bit of research on the world wide web, I decided to go with this:

INGREDIENTS:

20 drops lavendar oil (for healing and soothing)

25 drops peppermint oil (for cooling and soothing)

water/fractionated coconut oil to fill a 2 ounce spray bottle

(I happened to have a pump bottle of hair spray from my airplane-friendly toiletries stash.)

And that's it! Make sure your pump bottle is clean, put in the oils, and fill with the carrier. I used fractionated coconut oil. Shake well, and spray away. I like to rub it in a bit after I spray.

It wasn't the same sort of instant cool that a bottle of aloe provides, but I felt like the soothing lasted much longer and I healed faster. Plus I always feel sticky when I use aloe, but not with this!

But get this--EVEN MY HUSBAND LIKED IT.

Say WHAT!?

This is the same husband who puts the word essential in little quotation marks with his fingers whenever he talks about them. He sunburned his feet pretty bad when we went paddle boarding last weekend, and I put some of this on his feet when we got home (to the tune of some eye rolling on the Mr.'s part), and what do you know! The next day there was no sign of it. 

The Mr. said (and I quote):

"You've made me a believer!"

Closet Playroom Remodel

Sometimes I feel a little claustrophobic. We are a family of 6 living in a little over 1000 sq. feet. I know that we are incredibly blessed to have a home to call our own, and I LOVE our house! I really do! But there are days where I feel like the walls are caving in, and on those days I spend way too much time thinking about my dream home… A beautiful 3000 sq ft home nestled safely at the end of a cul-de-sac, with enough space for us to breathe. Surrounded by trees and a luscious garden, and a yard where my kids can run amuck… and we’ll have a garage, and a kitchen with enough counter space to cook a meal… sigh… It’s a beautiful dream. 

But it’s just that. A dream.   

One of the biggest items on my wish list is a playroom. I’d love to have a space where the kids can imagine, play, and create… and where I can close the door to contain the mess and pretend like it isn't there if I have to. This week while I was doing some deep cleaning in our closet under the stairs I decided… hey… if I want a playroom so badly, why don’t I just make one?!

So I did.

Now I’m totally kicking myself for not taking a before picture of what this closet looked like. But I didn’t realize I was going to be doing anything fun or exciting when I started my de-junking mission that morning. Sorry! There are no pictures of the total disaster that existed under my stairs. Imagine with me for a moment a closet so scary that you didn’t dare open the door lest something fall out of its precariously stacked location and knock you on the noggin. The floor was so littered with puzzle pieces, Legos, Barbies, and broken toys that you couldn't even see the floor.  In fact, there was no floor- just a knee deep swamp of despair.

True story. 

I took a deep breath and dug in. The first thing I did was empty the closet and get rid of anything and everything we don’t actually use. Then I vacuumed up the bag of powdered sugar that had apparently exploded underneath all the mess. How it got there in the first place I have no idea. After the space was nice and clean, I decided I wanted to paint! After all, what’s a playroom without some fun color?! I had a can of blue paint left over from an old project and used that to brighten up the space.

While the paint was drying, I organized the toys. An old wicker basket now holds all the dress up clothes. I happened to have some empty organizing bins in the attic, so I pulled those out and used them to store small toys and dress up accessories like hats, shoes and necklaces. (Ignore the ugly sticker... I don't know why I didn't pull it off.) Then I used an empty container from Sam’s Club that used to contain cheese puffs (I mean… uh… organic chia-flax-spinach-kale chips) to store all the play food.

This over the door organizer holds library books, and a few favorites from our bookshelf… I plan to rotate through them so we don’t always end up reading the same books.

 

One of the biggest reasons I wanted a playroom was to provide some creative space for my kids. My older girls LOVE to make crafts and they just end up all over the house and stuffed into every crevice of their closets. To solve the clutter issue I strung some twine on the wall, and used clothespins to hang up their masterpieces. If they want to put a new piece of art up, and there isn’t any room, they have to decide which piece they have to retire. That way I’m no longer the bad guy who sneaks old art projects into the garbage when no one is looking because I just can’t handle the clutter anymore. 

I also found two child-sized wooden chairs in my attic that had been sitting up there far too long so I pulled them out and stuck them in the "playroom." (This is why I have a hard time getting rid of things! You’ll never know when you need them again!) 

This totally rad ottoman now holds all the art supplies and also acts like a little table for pretend tea parties.

An empty tin is now the home for the stamps and glue sticks.

And as a finishing touch I decided to make a chalkboard out of an old picture frame and some chalkboard paint I’ve been holding onto for a while. I hung it over the ugly metal utility access panel on the wall… because why not? J

I seriously love this room! I know it’s small, but it’s so functional now! My kids spend hours in here every day, and I don’t know who is happier about it- them or ME! (Pretty sure it’s me.) They play dress up, do art projects, play house and their favorite make believe game- super spy! My oldest has also been using this room as a quiet place to do her homework. 

I think my favorite part of this whole project is that for the most part I just used items I already had on hand. The only two things I bought were the red ottoman and the super funky rug… both on sale at Ross! Score!

(bonus points if you can find spot the tiger and the yellow rose who snuck into this picture.) 

This project was so much fun, and it was a great reminder to me that THIS home can be my dream home. I know it's small, but we I honestly believe that someday we will look back on our years spent here and realize they were some of the happiest years of our lives. Some days I may feel like we don't have "enough" but I  am learning to that I have the ability to take what I have right now and make it enough. It’s all about being happy, wherever you are J

~FROZEN BIRTHDAY PARTY~

My daughter has had her heart set on a Frozen party ever since we saw the movie back in November, so even though the whole world would probably like to "Let it Go" at this point, we brought in our own personal flurry and created something truly magical for her birthday!

Now before we jump into a major photo overload- I have to say that this party would not have been possible without the massive amounts of help I received from my mother in law, Vicki, and my sister in law Kyrell. Kyrell threw a beautiful Frozen party for her daughter Sahara a few weeks ago and was gracious enough to let me re-use a lot of her decorations. Vicki pulled things out of her "Mary Poppins bag" (aka- her fabulous stash of beautiful things that she uses for her wedding business), helped me set things up the night before, and even let me use her house for the party. Family! What would I do without them?!

Let the fun begin! 

 I love how excited she is! When she walked in the room she gasped and whispered "Mom! Oh my goodness... it's so beautiful I think I'm going to cry!" her reaction alone was totally worth the effort. She's been counting down the days for a month now, and when the big day finally arrived she was positively giddy with excitement! 

The food for this party was so fun to put together!

The party took place after school on Friday so I wanted to have a few healthy options like string cheese-snowmen, yogurt parfaits, pretzel sticks (snowmen arms) and strawberries (dipped in white chocolate- aka- Frozen Hearts) ...  but of course we had to have a few kid favorites too!

We had glittery marshmallow pops, Kristoff's jello ice blocks, blue hershey's kisses, edible icicles (chocolate dipped pretzel rods)...

Snowballs (Coconut cake balls), an ice cream bar with pretty blue and white toppings to choose from, and beautiful blue gum-balls that were leftover from Kyrell's party. (Thanks girl!) 

Oh yes! More healthy food! Haha, THIS is why we take pictures- I had already forgotten all about the "bonus food table" we had to put up because I couldn't get all the food to fit on one table. 

Too much food?

 Psshh! No such thing! 

On our little extra food table we had Olaf noses (baby carrots), and frozen grapes- which are one of my daughter's favorite snacks. And of course we needed some water to wash it all down. 

I love the labels on the water bottles. :)

Check out that glitzy number 5! 

Goodness... FIVE?! Is my baby really FIVE YEARS OLD? When did that happen? 

Let's not talk about it.

In the living room we had set up a little activity station where we played games and built donut snowmen... you know... because we hadn't had enough sugar. 

This cake was so much fun to make. I just made a lollipop recipe I found online, and poured the whole batch into a greased cookie sheet. After it cooled down I cracked it into pieces and we placed it around the cake. Super cool!

For Christmas my girls received some Frozen toys from their grandparents, which was like 3 months ago. Since then they have been WELL loved. The night before her party Livy snuck the little Elsa doll into bed with her and rolled over her at some point during the night... breaking her left arm off. She also broke Anna's feet off at one point, and one of our little Olaf dolls is missing his hair and both of his arms. It's like a Frozen massacre! 

Just don't look too closely. :)

 When the guests first arrived we passed out princess crowns for the girls, and Sven antlers for the boys. Then we sat down to eat.

 Let the games begin! We played pin the nose on Olaf- which was a hoot!

 Had a "snowball" fight with cotton balls and built our donut snowmen...

And then we did a fun relay game that- in retrospect- most of the kids were too young to understand. The older kids thought it was great though! They were divided into teams and had to wrap their teammate up like a snowman using a roll of toilet paper, then wrap a scarf around their neck, and walk across the room without ripping the toilet paper... yeaaahhhh it was kind of advanced for our littlest party guests, who ended up creating a toilet paper snowstorm, which was fine by me!

 I just love parties! I love them just as much now as I did when I was little- maybe even more! Maybe I have a little bit of Peter Pan running through my veins because I never ever ever want to grow up. At least not completely. :) 

Thanks for inspiring me to keep the magic alive!

 Love you Birthday Girl!

Create a New Holiday!

Wide open schedule? Kids feeling restless? Itching for a treat?

I have your solution.

Create your very own holiday!

My 3-and-a-half-year-old looooved making a hundred paper heart valentines to "heart-attack" my husbands car with for Valentine's Day. She has been begging to make valentines again ever since. So when she climbed into bed with us one morning, asking yet again to make more, "Davison Day" was officially born.

Creating your own holiday can be as simple or complicated as you feel up to. 

We pulled out a bunch of scrap paper and cardstock, stickers, fancy scissors, and glue (all of which we had on hand) to make Davison Day cards to send to some family and friends. 

We wrote a personalized note and glued it on the back or inside. They aren't anything super fancy--but all unique and original! 

We got some pictures printed off to send to the relatives that haven't seen us for a while--one of the whole family, and another one that is just TOO cute not to send along of the girls getting ready for the neighborhood easter egg hunt. 

Then we dropped those at the post office all together. 

Creating your very own holiday is also a great excuse to make a yummy treat with the kiddos. Our youngest was napping by this point in the day, so our three-year-old and Daddy went to the store to get some fixin's for a cake. 

We kept it classy and got a cake mix with some funfetti frosting. Only the best. :)

No pictures of the cake, unfortunately. It didn't last long.

I know. You are all heartbroken to be robbed of the opportunity to see our infinitely creative Davison Day cake. You'll just have to use your imaginations!

So our "empty" day turned into a brand new holiday (which may be celebrated more than once a year, depending on our card-making and cake-eating needs). You can create an arbitrary family holiday like we did, or you could find something else to celebrate with the kiddos. Potty training? Hair cuts? It's sunny outside? The possibilities are endless. 

What new holiday will you create?

What will you celebrate?

Click HERE for more fun summer ideas!

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Today's cheap summer fun installment comes via Pinterest from Domestic Charm.  We whipped up a batch of Sidewalk Paint in a couple minutes, and spent the rest of the afternoon decorating our driveway.

The recipe is easy peasy: 1 cup cornstarch, 1 cup water, and food coloring.  We used regular food coloring drops, but Domestic Charm suggests color gels, and I wonder if it would have made the paint stay vibrant on the sidewalk:

 You can see the paint is quite bright when it's wet, but as it dried on the edges, it turned very light!

I dressed the boys up in paint smocks (a.k.a. Daddy's old Church shirts) because I wasn't sure how well the paint would wash out, and I didn't want to ruin our guests' clothes!  But I'm guessing it would wash out easily, based on my easy clean up when we made ooze monsters.  The next heavy rain washed it right off the driveway too--I love easy cleanup!

Can you see the delight beaming from those four munchkins?  They loved loved loved LOVED painting the driveway--and ask to do it every day now!

Click HERE for more fun summer ideas!

Father's Day is Almost Here Again!

Hi there!  I know we've promised summer fun, but I need to get my Father's Day card up here so you can print it and cut it if you'd like.

It's a simple card, perfect for all of the men in your life--they don't want anything fussy, do they?  I did allow myself a tiny bit of baker's twine and ribbon, but I tried to balance them out with some manly staples.

If you'd like to use a Silhouette:
Silhouette Card Base
Silhouette "Dad" File

If you'd like to print and use scissors:
Dad Printable PDF
Card Base PDF