The past week I have been really trying to clean our house out of products that aren't so great for us. I follow Casey Wiegand's blog and she wrote about an app called Think Dirty. Now don't get the wrong idea, this app is actually a really helpful tool for anyone wanting to go a more natural route for their family. You can use the bar code scanner and scan products around your house to see how toxic they are. It gives you a scale from 0-10, 10 being the worst for you and when you see something ranked at a 10 in your house it's a bit scary. I went through our bathroom items to start and got rid of a lot. Mostly my stuff.
We had a mix of really low ranked products and really high in the kids. Their bath wash was the worst. Anything ranked higher than a 5 I put in a bag and am getting rid of it. A lot of the reasons some of the stuff ranked so high was fragrance so maybe for some that isn't a big deal but our kids all have very sensitive skin, especially Ashlyn so it was good to just get rid of it. I had noticed how sensitive she was when her cheeks got super swollen from sunscreen. At first I thought maybe she got sunburnt but she literally layers it on herself after I put it on her so I knew there was no way. She also has always had eczema. Everly gets little bumps on her legs and Ace is just so fair that his skin gets red easily.
Most of our cleaning products are natural so that part isn't an issue. We get Melaleuca products from Branden's Mom so that made it easy to not worry about cleaning items.
Now I am on a journey to get some really great, natural products for our family. I already have ordered some from Amazon and went to Whole Foods yesterday to replace the products I got rid of. I ended up sticking with Honest company for the kids bath items. They ranked 1 on the app. Can't go wrong there. I will post the other items I ended up getting later on once I have used them. I know Honest company is good since I used their products in the past so we shall see how the rest goes.
Another part of me wanting to go this route is I have anxiety. It's not consistently horrible and I know how to control it to an extent but life happens and sometimes it just gets to be too much. When that happens I usually just need to chill out for a bit and relax. Some natural ways to help is exercise, eating well and taking a warm bath. I also have heard essential oils are a huge help so I really want to try that. If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to let me know!
This post is totally late, I actually wrote it and forgot to post it because, well, life. So here is my post from June…
Ace has officially finished preschool! His preschool had a really cute graduation for all their VPK students at my work (I work at my old high school). Ace's class performed two dances, one of which was ABC by Jackson Five. Seriously, the cutest thing ever! Ace did amazing too. He got so into it.
We were fortunate enough to have my sister, cousins and our neighbor Diny come to support him. Our neighbor is like a second grandma to the kids, she adores them so much. It was very special having her there. After his graduation we stopped and got frozen yogurt. It was nice being able to focus on Ace and give him our full attention. The girls stayed home with a babysitter so we didn't have to worry about chasing them around. Ace is such a good little boy and does so much to help out that it is nice to give him special attention once in awhile.
Did anyone else's little one have a special gradation this year? Or maybe your not so little ones?
Hey there! How was everyone's 4th of July? Ours was pretty low key but nice. We have had such a busy Summer already that I have a lot to fill you in on.
So far Ace has spent a week at camp
We went to our Keys house
Celebrated Ace's birthday early
Bran and I had my best friends girls for a few days, we went to see Pan. Ace is now obsessed with being able to fly. He actually told me to today that I should have named him Peter Pan so he'd be able to fly.
Then we had a little romantic couple of days away while my best friend took the girls and my sister took Ace. We got to explore St. Augustine. So beautiful!
Spent some time in Daytona and celebrated the 4th. We had ice cream for dinner and the girls loved it!
We are now back home settling back into normalcy before our Summer gets busy again.
Next up we have more Summer camp for all kids, $1 movies, play dates, another trip, Ace and Branden's birthdays, mine and Bran's 7th anniversary (how did that happen?!) and getting ready for our girls to start preschool and Ace to start kindergarten (again how did that happen?!).
I am sure by now everyone has heard of the horrific tragedies coming out of Orlando. From the Christina Grimmie shooting, Pulse terrorist attack and now the 2-year-old who was pulled into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. My heart hurts so much for these families that have lost their loved ones. I can not even imagine the magnitude of their pain. To know your loved one died in such a horrible way must add more salt to the wound.
So much of the Pulse and 2-year-old deaths have hit way too close to home. Having two 2-year-olds I just think what if that were one of my children, what if I had to witness that? I was talking to Branden about it while holding Everly and I just wanted to hold her and cry. I want to tell that mother and father to not blame themselves because I am sure that is exactly what they are doing right now. I am sure they are filled with what ifs and what could I have done to prevent this. The truth is we all do simple things that we don't realize have a larger impact until they happen.
The Pulse shooting just terrifies me in general. After I heard about this I just kept thinking about my students who are going up to Orlando for college and wondering were any of them in there? Had they left yet for school? I was so sick over it. I still am. I went to the movies last night and had so much anxiety over something happening. It sucks living with that fear because of the terrorist who now sit and wait to hurt our people. Who hate us so much they are willing to sacrifice their own lives to get rid of as many of us as they can.
I don't want this post to be all about how horrific this world is becoming because I truly believe there is a lot of good as well. I see my children's beautiful faces and it makes life seem perfect. There are people out there supporting the LGBTQ community and our country. The amount of people who were waiting hours to donate blood was amazing. So hold your loved ones tighter, be kind to those around you and remember what is important in this life.
