DIY Easy Laundry Detergent and Dryer Sheets

WOW! It's been forever since I've posted and this is how I start . . . a laundry detergent recipe. :)

Before the triplets were born, I decided to find a way to save some money on what I knew would be a mountain of laundry every week (no understatement there!). After combing Pintrest, I realized there were some very complicated recipes out there and some seemingly simple recipes out there. Being a simple minded person, I went for the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach. If it ain't easy, I ain't doing it!! I found some common ingredients and set out to figure out my own recipe. It worked! I found a very simple, easy to make powered laundry detergent that gets our clothes clean. My kids are dirty, so that says a lot!

About 6 months ago, I decided to venture into making my own dryer sheets. Two reasons for this: 1. I like the idea of no waste from my laundry (my sheets are reusable) and 2. When I read about all the chemicals in dryer sheets, I was pretty turned off. Don't get me wrong, I'm not as "crunchy" as you might think. Mostly, it's about saving time, money and keeping my family as toxin free as I can.
The dryer sheet recipe was much easier to figure out and you won't believe the simplicity!

Nancy's Powdered Laundry Detergent
1 bar Ivory soap (grated or powered - see below about how to powder your Ivory)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1-2 drops of Young Living's Purification blend per load, as desired

I usually make a triple or quadruple batch of this stuff.

In a large container, mix the soap, Borax, and washing soda. It only takes 2-4 Tablespoons per load depending on the size of the load. It is best to add the detergent, start the water, then add the clothes. I have found that putting the powder on top of clothes that are getting wet leads to white marks. If you are adding the Purification oil (totally optional), put that in with the detergent.

SCIENCE LESSON: If you want to make your Ivory soap into a powder, take your kids, line them up in front of the microwave and teach them a science lesson! Take half a bar of soap and microwave it 2-5 mins (you can't overheat it). Watch it turn info foam! The cool thing about this is that no chemical reaction takes place, the soap is the same as it was before. You have only created a physical reaction by heating up the air already in the bar. Thus, the foam. Once cooled, you can rub it between your hands and it turns into a fine powder (I recommend doing this part outside unless you like cleaning soap powder off of everything in the room). Super fun and gets the kids involved!


Nancy's Reusable Dryer Sheets
1/2 package of reusable cleaning cloths (buy the cheap ones)
1/2 - 1 cup white vinegar
10 (or so) drops of Young Living's Lavender Essential Oil (optional)

Cut the reusable clothes into quarters. This should make it about the size of a regular dryer sheet. Add vinegar to a glass container with a sealable lid. Mix in the essential oil if using. Add the cleaning cloths and get everything saturated. That's it! When you are ready to dry a load of laundry, pull one out, give it a little squeeze to keep it from dripping, and throw it in the dryer. Your clothes will not smell like vinegar or anything. They will just be clean, soft, and static free :)

 NOTE: the first time I made this, I thought it would be a good idea to use tee tree oil. Save your nose and use something else. Seriously, it smelled like some kind of industrial waste. Thank God the clothes did not retain the smell!

Hope you enjoyed my escapades in laundry! If you are ever in the neighborhood and just really feel the need to do some washing, my laundry is always available :))

FROGS

I realize it's been since January that I've posted anything. Believe me when I say that life with 1+triplets doesn't leave much time for blogging. Here is a quick update then I'm on to the real reason for this post.

January marked the beginning of homeschooling in our house. Luckily, I started with kindergarten so we had the spring to take things pretty easy and be VERY flexible with the schedule. We also found ourselves facing a mystery illness for my dad. Turns out he had advanced brain cancer and we lost him at the end of February. Again, thankful for homeschooling because this meant we basically took the last half of February and first of March off for all that. I'm so grateful that he met the babies and I have pictures of him holding them. Ironically, I was about their age when my mom's father passed. The rest of the spring has been busy but good. I ended up with knee surgery at the end of June and am happy to say that less than a month post-op, I'm doing great and far better than the doctor ever expected. Praise God for His healing power and knowing this busy momma doesn't have time to get down!

So, the reason for this post is FROGS. We've all heard the acronym F.R.O.G = Fully Rely On God. As a mother of four, I know first-hand that my life is impossible without God. But that's not what I'm talking about.

What if God makes us frogs? I'm talking about fat, green, slimy, croaking bull frogs. How often do you find yourself feeling like a frog? Maybe you are jumping for joy one minute then swimming through murky water the next. I sincerely hope that you aren't eating bugs though! More importantly, God sometimes treats us as the frog in a pot. If you've ever heard of how frogs are cooked, you know what I'm talking about. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he will jump out. If you put a frog in a pot of cool water, he will stay in. He doesn't notice that you are slowly turning up the heat. He has no idea of the destiny that he is now moving toward. Eventually, he is fully cooked and becomes nutrition for the person who eats him.

The other day, I was doing the diaper assembly line and realized that I have become the frog in the pot. God started me out in comfortable water where He knew I would stay. I had one child and a fulfilling career. The water felt good. Slowly, God moved my soul and placed it on my heart that we needed another child (the first temperature raise). Then we found out we were pregnant, then it was triplets (big temp rise on that one), then it was hospital bed rest for two months with complete faith that God had His hand on my babies. Once the babies were born, the temperature in my "pot" continued to rise as we have been through the first year, are working on walking and have now introduced homeschooling and cloth diapers into the mix. People look at my life and say, "Wow! I don't see how you do it!" My answer is always simple, "It's by the grace of God." You see, it's HIS pot that I'm in. He is the one slowly adjusting me and preparing me for every temperature change. Three years ago, I could not have done what I'm doing now. I hadn't adjusted to the new temps. How often does God give us a challenge (put us in a pot) and we immediately try to jump out? There are also those times that God puts us in the pot and doesn't turn up the heat just yet. As we "cook" in preparation of the destiny He has for us, we find that we can do more and more. It's actually a very empowering feeling! The hotter the water, the more we have been relying on Him. Eventually, we get to a point that we become "food" for someone else. Not literally, but spiritually. I think of what a better, different mother I am now than when I first started. I don't worry about as much. I focus on time with my children and not fussing about the house or tied up with work. I now think about how I'm spiritually, mentally, physically, and educationally feeding my children. As their mother, I am their nourishment.

God has a different path for all of us. We are destined to be parents who work, stay at home, get involved in sports, teach our kids the arts, etc. You get my point. The important thing is that we follow His path in our parenting. We need to be the frogs in the pot. By allowing Him to turn up the heat, we become better parents because we are relying more on our Father. How hot is your water right now?


Oh . . . we also added a dog to the mix this past weekend!

2013 Ruminitions

It's New Year's Eve and my house is quiet for once. Miraculously, only one of the babies is asleep. The boys are playing and the big kids (sis and hubs) are watching a show.

2013 was an unbelievable year for our family. We love that we doubled our family size in the span of 3 minutes. The triplets have added so much chaos, laughter, and love to our house. They have the world's best big sister who is still my #1 cuddle bug.

It's definitely been a year for transitions. I, personally, have had to make the transition from working outside the home full-time to working my @$$ off at home all day, every day. Until recently, I wasn't making this transition well, but the end of this year has taught me to embrace it and discover some things about myself that I had lost touch with. It's going to be fun to see where 2014 leads me as I try to develop these new skills and interests. Mainly, cooking! I used to love to bake but hated making dinner. Now, I'm having fun with it! We are cutting the carbs this year and my new challenge is to find low carb recipes that I like and want to make. Nobody likes a boring meal plan! I went to college in the 90's, I know what that is like :)

Many of my friends had tough years this year and I can't say that ours was easy. My prayer for you all is a joyous 2014 filled with laughter, love and the desires of your heart. God hears our prayers and answers them. All you have to do is pray!

Many blessings to you all in 2014!
The Ilfrey family

Roller Coasters

A dear, sweet friend of mine delivered triplet girls last week! I am so excited for her as she is now a full-fledged member of this special sorority. Like me, she has an older child who also had some NICU time. We are not unfamiliar with the heart break that comes from delivering a baby only to leave the hospital, days later, empty handed. However, having done this before does not mean that we are immune to that heart break the second time around. It is still just as hard.

This made me think of roller coasters. Life with triplets is like riding a large roller coaster. There is the initial climbing high of finding out you are pregnant with triplets followed by the first plummeting low of the scariness of triplet pregnancies. From here on out, you are on the smaller ups and downs with a few twists and larger hills built in. Here is our roller coaster thus far:

1. HIGH = seeing THREE BABIES on our 7 week ultrasound. In case you missed it, we were quite surprised with our trio.
2. LOW = triplet pregnancy reality. Things were great until I hit the 22 week mark. It went downhill from there finally ending in 2 months of hospitalized bed rest with a constant drip of magnesium to stop contractions.
3. HIGH = April 24, 2013 our trio were delivered, healthy, into this world. After all our hard work, we finally had babies to hold in our arms!
4. LOW = April 24-25, 2013 we had babies we wanted to hold but could barely touch them. Seeing your 3 pound infant with all kinds of tubes and wires is a tough sight for even the strongest mom and dad.

Daniel

Faith

5. HIGH = April 26, 2013 got to hold our babies for the first time!

6. LOW = Leaving the hospital with out them

This list goes on and on with everything from having them all home together (finally!) to last week when both boys had the flu, I had bronchitis, Gracie had a stomach bug and Dad was getting sick too. The only one not sick was Faith :)

The triplet lane is not for the faint of heart. It is not for people who like stability and predictability in their lives. It is not for anyone without a sense of humor. And it is certainly not for those who are squeamish with bodily fluids (spit up, drool, or anything wet that comes out of the body).

The triplet lane is designed for people who love family, know that the only way to do this is to rely on God and whose sense of humor is not only well intact, but can be pretty sick at times :)

Life, itself, is a roller coaster. I think having triplets just moves you from the tried and true coaster to the super-deluxe, hold on for your dear life coaster.

For someone who doesn't like roller coasters, I'm sure enjoying this one!

Road Trippin'

Okay, so I know the title is a corny pun but I couldn't resist!

Yesterday was an exercise in patience, perseverance, and potty breaks. We decided it would be a GREAT idea to travel 500 miles, by car, to see family for Thanksgiving. As with almost everything pertaining to our family, it is much harder in the moment than when I look back. We planned to leave around 6am and get to our destination by 4pm. This is normally a 7-8 hour drive and we planned some extra time for the babies. HAHAHA! Boy, were we wrong! We didn't leave until 9am and then we didn't get to my parent's house until 9pm. What were we doing this whole time? What was the extra 4 hours spent doing? Mostly, feeding babies.

I can't believe what bottomless pits these guys have become. This is wonderful because it means they are now "on the chart" for their actual ages, not their adjusted ages.
THANKFUL THOUGHT #1: my babies aren't just surviving, they are thriving

Back to my title, let me explain the logistics of getting 2 adults, 1 five year old, and 7 month old triplets from point A to point B. Laundry - this is the bane of my existence. I HATE doing laundry and it's the one thing I have to keep up with. I didn't do that for a couple of weeks and paid the price about 3 days before we left. I think I washed, dried, folded and put away about 15-20 loads. Part of my problem is that I'm completely OCD about the clothes and don't want anyone else to do them. Once the laundry was done, I realized that the boys didn't have warm enough clothes for the 20 degree weather we were going to. Off to the store to buy more clothes (I'll blog that later) and launder those! Packing to fit everything into a minivan was the biggest challenge. We had our stuff, G's stuff, and then all the junk that infants require (much less 3) PLUS 2 strollers. That van was packed to the gills!
THANKFUL THOUGHT #2: my wonderful husband who not only indulges my uber-organized  packing, but takes it all out to the car

Finally on the road, we proceeded to realize all the things we forgot. Primarily, Dramamine for G and me. The first stop was only about 2 miles from home! We did make it to the halfway mark in pretty good time. The babies slept, I slept, and G watched movies. Our halfway stop ended up being about 2 hours (felt like 4). The second half of the trip wasn't as quiet or peaceful as the first half. We had Podee bottles for the boys so they could eat in the car. Problem is, they didnt want them. They just wanted out of their car seats. If you have never heard of a Podee, it is a wonder for feeding multiples.

Greatest thing ever!

THANKFUL THOUGHT #3: I have an amazing support network who teaches me about things like Podees and loves me through the really tough times.

Having finally arrived at our destination, I am at my fourth Thankful Thought.
THANKFUL THOUGHT #4: what an incredible family I have! My husband who is the best partner in the world, my sweet sweet daughter, my miracle babies, and my fabulous parents who are always there to help when we need it. 

Have a blessed Thanksgiving tomorrow! Don't forget in all the superficial thankfulness to take a moment to praise The Father who gave His only Son so that we may have everlasting life. And that is what I am most thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pity, Party of One . . .

Warning: this blog contains whining

If you are still reading, you realize that whining isn't really my thing, but today is an emotional dump day. School starts next week and I will be sending Grace off to kindergarten. This shouldn't be that big of a deal, she has been in full-time pre-school for the past three years but there is something very emotional about kindergarten. My little girl isn't going to be a little girl much longer! I'm coupling this with having the triplets qualify for an early intervention program today. All three have developmental delays related to their adjusted age. If you don't know what an adjusted age is, you take how old the baby is (17 weeks) and subtract how many weeks early they were (9 weeks). This makes my kiddos adjusted age at 8 weeks or 2 months. They should at least be doing things a 2 month old would do and some things a 4 month old would do. They pretty much are, but there are some things they should be doing that they are not. Hence the need for early intervention. We will have an occupational therapist and a developmental specialist to the house every other week to work with them and let me know what to do in between visits.

So that's the facts, the thoughts running through my head are, "you have the education to be a developmental specialist, why didn't you see this coming and already start working on it?" "Geez, your kid can't do that? You must really suck as a mother." And my personal favorite, "These people are going to realize I don't have it together and judge me based on my children." What they won't see is the 12 hours a day I spend making sure they are well fed and have clean diapers and clothes. They certainly won't see the 2-3 loads of laundry I have every day or the fact that I clean 20 bottles at a time and go through almost 4 quarts of formula. All while making sure they receive reflux meds and precautions and taking care of/entertaining a five year old. Let's not also forget there is the rest of the house to run. This involves grocery shopping, other errands, doctor's appointments, making business phone calls and generally trying to keep things from falling into chaos. Can you hear the whine at this point?

Some women start in their 20's (or even teens) knowing that they want to be a SAHM. This is a role they identify with early on and embrace. I envy those women. I was never one of those women. My plan was to work full-time, further my education and raise my one child. When we decided to have a second child, I accepted that furthering my education would not happen, but I was working in a job that I loved and didn't need to do more. When the triple surprise came, I realized quite quickly that my life was no longer going to be the way I envisioned it. It's like taking a flight to Paris and landing in Australia. You didn't plan on Australia, it just happened. There are wonderful things there, but you were looking forward to croissants and the Eiffel Tower. Instead of shopping and the Louvre, you find yourself with koalas and kangaroos. Today has been a day of asking myself, "How the heck did I get here?" It's definitely an identity crisis. Everything of who I was physically, mentally, professionally has been changed in a very short amount of time. I brought barrettes and purses on my flight only to find I need board shorts and flip flops.

As I wind down this party, I'm reminded of a fortune cookie I got in 2001. It read, "Your wildest dreams will come true." I kept it taped to my home computer. That fortune cookie was a beacon of hope during some dark times. After Grace was born, I removed it thinking how my fortune had come true. Never did I imagine that my life would go beyond my wildest dreams. That's what God does. He takes our dream of going to Paris and reroutes us to Australia. A place we would never have gone on our own. A place with a beauty unlike any other on the planet. God's ultimate destination for us is not usually where we see our destination. But once we are there, it is so easy to look around and say, "Wow! Thank you, God for not giving me what I wanted. I would have missed out on all this!"

So I go to bed tonight thinking I still don't know who this new person is that used to be me. But I'm at least a little more thankful she has the opportunity to be here. As my precious children sleep, I praise God that he chose me to be their mommy.

Good night.

NICU = No Income Covers Us

Ah, the (not so) fun times in the NICU. Don't get me wrong, the nurses and doctors were wonderful. But having three children in the NICU is not fun for anyone. Once the trips were born, they went straight to the NICU for evaluation, getting hooked up to all their tubes and placed in their isolets. We started in the main part with the maximum amount of care required. Throughout our stay, we had one nurse assigned just to us. Care pretty much consisted of constant monitoring, hooking up the feeding tubes, checking for signs of intestinal bleeding and a myriad of other medical issues. These nurses are highly skilled and genuinely care for "their" babies.

After about 3 weeks in the main section, we were "graduated" to the step-down nursery. This is still in the NICU department, but is an open room for feeders and growers. The babies were medically stable and were only working on their eating skills and needed time to grow some more. It was this room that became "Camp NICU." The open room with babies all around the outside made it feel like the kids were at camp and not so hospital-y. Camp NICU time was bitter sweet. We made some friends who were other multiple parents and I met a fellow SFA Lumberjack who was the roommate of one of my former students. Small world!

One thing I learned about the NICU is that it's a great equalizer. No one cares what kind of car you drive, how big your house is, or what you/your spouse do for a living. It is all about the babies. When one of our Camp NICU "friends" had a set back with intestinal issues, my heart broke for that mother seeing her baby have to be re-hooked and go back to feeding tubes. We also rejoiced when our kiddos got to go home. Since then, I have stayed in contact with several of our NICU nurses and parents.

All in all, we had 7 weeks from the time the babies were born to Faith finally coming home. I wish there was more I could tell you about this, but it's highly detailed and would be quite boring for anyone but me (and probably my mom).

Well, the never-ending load of laundry calls. Next time, I'll start telling you all about life at home with these guys.