Square Native

This is the moment I've been waiting for for a long, LONG time! I'd like to introduce you to our latest project: Square Native. When I say we, I mean Jill and I, and OF COURSE Matt!



Jill came to me last year with the idea of starting a blog/site that caters to all-things Utah County. I was so excited because I had been thinking of doing something like this for a long time now, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity! We got my personal designer/coder on board, had planning meetings, and got to work!

After designing, coding, building content, and collaborating way back from the middle of last year, the day has finally come that we are all ready to show our lovely new website to the world!

Make sure to click on the "about us" link in the footer of the site to see a little more of what Square Native is about!

You can see what we're up to by subscribing to these links:

Square Native
Square Native Twitter
Square Native Facebook

Enjoy!

Homemade Bath Bombs & Bath Fizzies For Sick Kiddies

It was a cold winter night. I was craving a bath, as usual, and wishing I had something delightful to adorn my bath with, when it hit me! Ashmae brought me back a Lush bath bomb from her trip a while ago. I drew my piping hot bath and got in. Then I dropped the bath bomb in, not knowing what to expect. It was magical, it was mesmerizing, it was unforgettable. This thing that I had dropped into my bath took on a new life. It fizzed, hissed, and eventually dissolved, leaving delicious smelling oils that weren't only nice to smell, but also made my skin silky smooth and moisturized. It was a lovely thing.

I immediately knew that every bath I took for the rest of my life now required a bath bomb. I knew I couldn't afford $7-$10 baths every night. And that's when it hit me. I just make my own...

And then it hits me again! When my kids are sick I put a few drop of special essential oils into their baths (particularly eucalyptus) to help open their airways and feel better, so why can't I make it fun?! Why couldn't I make beneficial bath bombs and fizzies for my kids adorned with healing properties? The answer was simple. I can.

And here's how YOU can too:

This first recipe is for a simple bath bomb. Below, I'll indicate how you can make them into bath fizzies for sick kiddies!



(this is the best recipe I found, and then adapted a tiny bit)

The ingredients:


Dry Ingredients:

1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup corn starch

Mix dry ingredients together until completely combined and smooth. (I ground up oats in the Magic Bullet and mixed in about 1/4 cup as well. This makes not only pretty flex in the bath, but is good for your skin as well)



Wet Ingredients:

2 1/2 Tbsp sunflower or other light oil (I use sweet almond oil, available at drug or health food stores)
3/4 Tbsp water
1/2 to 2 teaspoons essential oils or fragrance oils (depends on strength of the oils)...I used lemon
1/4 tsp Vitamin E oil (optional, but recommended - an antioxidant which preserves the oils somewhat)
1/4 teaspoon borax (an emulsifier)
witch hazel in a spray bottle (I put it in the spray bottle after I bought it)
vegetable or other natural colourant (optional - a few drops of food colouring works well)

Whisk all of the wet ingredients and Borax together in a large bowl. I didn't use any food coloring for the batch in the pictures because I wanted it white.





Drizzle slowly onto the dry ingredients and blend thoroughly. It should not fizz while you are drizzling and mixing. If it does, slow down! Mix with your hands until all of the ingredients are combined. Lightly spray the mixture 2-3 times with whitch hazel. You know you have the right consistency if, when pressed together in your hand, it molds and sticks together, but is easily broken apart as well. If it's not sticking together, spray a little more witch hazel into the mixture.





Pack tightly into molds, then slide out.

A lot of people use clear, plastic christmas ornaments for their molds, and although the molds make them pretty and round, I found that they're too big and just not necessary. So I used one of my son's stacking cups. it's about 1/4 c. It works well. You could use measuring cups or anything else you'd like for the molds.

To give the bath bombs a little extra umph, I dropped a tiny bit of whole oats into the bottom of the mold to make them pretty. I've seen people to fun little sprinkles and things like that. It's not necessary, but makes it fun!

*note: This mixture is dry and crumbly and needs to be packed into the molds very firmly.





Sometimes the molds need a little tap and squeeze before they come out.





Let the bath bombs dry and harden overnight before you pick them up. They will become rock hard.

This recipe makes about 6 bath bombs that are approximately 1/4 cups each.

*If you don't want to make bath bombs with molds, you can just bag or jar the crumb mixture and spoon as much as you'd like into your bath. (see picture)

Another fun thing that I did once was I made lavender bombs and sprinkled dry tea leaves into the dry ingredients.



You can easily make beneficial bath fizzies for your sick kids, too! The kids LOVE them! However, because there are some oils in the recipe, I suggest washing their hair first, then put the fizzies in so the oils don't make their hair yucky.

Follow the directions above, but put in beneficial essential oils such as eucalyptus (for colds and coughs), chamomile and/or lavender (for relaxing and soothing), or anything else you want! Have fun with it! I like to go to this website to look up different benefits of certain essential oils.



I bought almost all of my ingredients online at Amazon, and bought the baking soda and cornstarch in bulk at Winco. Everything priced out to be about $40. That's not bad though considering you can make a TON, and give them out to friends and neighbors as gifts.

Get crazy and have fin mixing and making your own aromas! I bought my essential oils at the health food store.

Adventurers

Last week Hawk, Cole, and I set out on an adventure and visited my parents. It was a lot of fun! Traveling with two kids by myself was a little daunting, but we did it! They were pretty good, and Old-Soul-Cole was an excellent helper, which made life so much easier.



It's weird seeing myself in photos because usually I'm the one behind the camera! My mom had hers in tow at ALL times (as usual), so I didn't even bother bringing mine.

Our first stop after landing was Old Town Albuquerque where we explored every quaint shop. I figured there's no better way to spend money than traveling, so when we discovered an entire store dedicated to Minnetonka Moccasins, I had to splurge and buy myself two pairs.



Over the next few days we had a delightful time exploring all of the sites. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting El Paso's Saddle Blanket Showroom where Cole obtained his very first pair of real cowboy boots and cowboy hat. He is pretty darn proud of them too. When I say real, I mean REAL- like you could probably mistake him for a 3 year old cattle rancher if you saw him. It is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Of course he wanted to sport his getup on the way home in the airport. It was probably one of the smartest moves I've ever done by letting him wear it all because you would not believe the positive attention and special treatment we got. It was a beautiful thing.

Moving on.

We headed to El Paso to check out their awesome little Mexican market. It was like Tijuana, but way better. Better, because you didn't have to cross the boarder. Better because this was where all the locals shopped. Better because it wasn't scary. Better because I didn't have to bargain down prices because they were already low. I needed two guns and a holster to top off Cole's cowboy outfit. We found a set and asked the price. $1. Yes, you heard me. $1. I instantly thought, "I need to but 20 more for birthday presents!", but was then reminded that guns probably aren't an appropriate gift to give to young children who's parents might have different rules on toy guns. Sorry guys. You'll just have to come over to our house if you want to play with the guns. I also fulfilled my lifelong dream of owning a hot water bottle. Why have they always been so enchanting to me? I can't tell you. But later tonight I will be able to tell you if my $2 purchase was worth it. Oh, and my 1/2 pound bag of rubber bands. I can't forget that. I bought a giant bag of assorted rubber bands. Why? To make a rubber band ball, of course. I started it yesterday and it's coming along way better than expected.



We visited an amazing missile range where the military builds and tests missiles. They displayed practically every missile they've ever used in the history of war and it was like we were at Disneyland for Cole. He wouldn't let us move on to the next display until I had read to him every word on the plaque with the according missile. Looks like he inherited something from good old Grandpa Mildenstein. Apparently this missile range where George Lucas got all of his sounds for Star Wars, from recording the launching missiles.

We also visited White Sands National Monument. It was CA-RAZY! In the middle of NOWHERE, you just come across acres and acres of bright stark white sand. Apparently it is some sort of gypsum deposit. You can sled down the sand dunes, hike around, it was so beautiful! I honestly can't even start to describe it's amazement, so I wont.

Thanks for the good time, Mom & Dad! And thanks for the pictures!

xoxo

Just When I Thought My Heart Was As Full As Possible...

It grew.

One of the things moms talk about after they have their first child is how in the world can they love another child (their second, third...) as much as the first? Do you split your love? Does it grow? How does it work? It's hard to think about. It's hard to imagine. It's a strange thing to wonder how all your love is supposed to spread to another child. I had a hard time understanding it, until I had my second baby, Hawk.

It's the craziest thing. Believe it or not, I honestly feel that my love for my boys multiplied time a hundred thousand for EACH boy after I had Hawk. I guess because I had such a wonderful, happy, loving relationship with Cole, that I couldn't imagine bonding with the second child like I did with the first. But lo and behold, my relationships with both kids multiplied greater than anyone could ever imagine. Your heart grows, and makes room for each love you have, overflowing like the Niagara falls. That's the only way I can describe it. It's almost tangible. It's good. Life is good.

How much sweetness can a mom take in one lifetime? I certainly hope I don't sound like one of those blogs that makes everything sound "so wonderful and nothing is EVER wrong!". The crappy times in life just make the sweeter times that much tastier! And that sweet time is right now, so dig in!

Hawk- 6 months. And the happiest baby on the block...literally.

Happy Heart Paint Chip Garland

Head on over to The Alison Show to see more fabulous Valentine's Day crafts for her Share The Love posts!

I love crafting, but I also love SIMPLE, QUICK crafting! I don't have a lot of Valentine's Day decor around, but I wanted something to liven things up around my house for the big V-Day. I remembered my Easter egg garland and figured why not do the same thing with hearts?! This project only took be about 10 minutes, including cutting the hearts and sewing them together. Simple, easy, quick, cute!

1. The first heart you make will be the stencil for all the other hearts. After you've crafted the perfect shaped heart, trace it onto the back of the paint chips.

2. Cut out all of the hearts. I stacked two at a time so the process went much faster.

3. Arrange the hearts in the order you'd like them to me when hung. I didn't want any particular order, so mine are just all random.

4. I spiced things up by using a zigzag stitch! Make sure that you have another heart ready to feed under the needle as soon as you come to the end of each heart. Also, remember to leave thread at each end to tie up when it's all finished.

Service With A GENUINE Smile

I rarely write posts with no pictures. But this is one of them. It's worth reading though!

Yesterday started off kind of crazy. It was hectic. I was frantic, and on a big time crunch. I was headed to visit my dear friend Jilland her tiny new baby, Langston, and more importantly (well, not MORE important, but pretty dang important) I wanted to bring her Mountain West Burrito. Who doesn't love that place? Well after what you're about to read, you'll have a crush on that joint and it's owner even more than you already do.

I was about 3 minutes away, with kids in tow. I frantically called in my order so that I could move along the process of getting on the road to Jill's. With kids, everything is a process.

We parked, and in the yucky, icy slush, I unbuckled child #1, got him out of the car, then unlatched child #2 and dragged them in so I could pick up my order. I have a paranoia of leaving kids in cars alone. Anyway, I walked in, told the man who I refer to as The Mountain West Burrito Guy (if you've been there you know who I'm talking about) that I was here for my order, and then I had a seat while they finished whipping up my order.

I watched. The restaurant was already filling up at 11:00am. There were businessmen, college-age kids, children, and a lovely elderly couple. MWBG (Mountain West Burrito Guy) served them their order. I could tell that the woman was contemplating how to go about the enormous, delicious burrito all wrapped up in foil. Seconds later MWBG quietly asked her if she'd like a plate, fork and knife. With a huge sigh of relief she said, "Yes! Please! Thank you so much!". That was nice. But my story gets lovelier.

My order comes. MWBG brings me my bag of goods. Herding child #1 with one arm, Child #2 + car seat in another arm, and my bag of food in the other (moms have three arms), I stood up to race to my car. MWBG stops me. He informs me that my chicken burrito is labeled, and that he had put extra salsa in the bag. "SO nice! I like that kind of service", I thought. But that was not all. MWBG then goes on to personally tell me that whenever I want to call in an order, when I drive up to park he will bring out my food to my car for me so that I don't have to get out with all the kids just to pick it up. WOW. I then told him that he was amazing. But that's not all. on my way out, I reached the exit and he was there holding the door open for my children and I because he he's just that kind of guy. He's that kind of business owner (He IS the owner, I assume).

Honestly. That kind of service is AMAZING! Unbelievable. He'll bring my food out to the car so I don't have to come in? Who is this guy?!

I go back to businesses for good customer service. I shop at Macey's Grocery store because there are friendly old men in the produce section handing out candy to make my kids happy, and I can count on other employees in just about every aisle asking me if I need help finding something. Even though The Flower Basket is overpriced, I still shop there for gifts because I like to see Macy's sweet, smiling face welcoming me at the door, and we chat like we've been friends forever. She makes me feel welcome. And now, when I want a burrito (that happens A LOT), I vow to go to Mountain West Burrito because of the MWBG and is unbelievable hospitality. He made my day.

Rings (and other jewelry) By Kent

I'll just cut to the chase. My uncle, Kent Christensen, is an AMAZING jeweler and a FANTASTIC man! He makes these unbelievable rings that are to die for (seriously though). I love that they have a raw, earthy feel to them. My cousin Ashley and her husband Carl have some amazing wide wedding bands that he made. Here is a little more about his jewelry:





My jewelry is symbolic of hard work and the universal need for art that lasts. Each design is unique and individualized. It doesn’t conform to the masses. It is art that spans generations. I revel in the beauty of natural materials. My jewelry is the work of my own hands, cast at the foot of the Sundance Wasatch mountains in the heart of the American West, Utah.

My work is the product of many roads of experience. After studying fine art in college, I worked as an archeologist, where I came to understand the power of timeless mediums. I am a master ceramist in the dental technology field, which is where my hands grew accustomed to precision and perfect detail. I grew up with the sound of the ocean in my backyard, and later adopted the red sands and unparalleled mountains of Utah, which I’ve called home for over 25 years. My heritage and my family are the principles that guide me.

My pieces combine physical style with free flow design of natural materials. In addition to silver and gold, I work with a variety of other precious and semi-precious metals. Contact me for more details.

The end result is not just jewelry, but hand-crafted sculptural designs of wearable art.

I posted just a few of my favorite designs of Kent's, but he has dozens more. To see his full gallery, email:

Kent Christensen

tuthmaker@gmail.com

You can also contact me and I can give you more contact info!

And for all you hard-core's out there, he makes BIKER RINGS too!

Valentine's Day Gift Idea...For HIM

I got Matt and I these One Line A Day journals for Christmas. We're both terrible about writing in our journals, so this 5-year journal has a little spot for one line a day. It's perfect. We keep them on our night stands and every night right before our head hits the pillow we both take 30 seconds to jot down something that stuck out to each of us that day. I'm excited to swap journals and read what he's written!

It's an inexpensive, yet thoughtful gift that will last a long, long time! So far we haven't even missed a day!

I'm A Sucker For You! (Looking Back on Last Year)

Last year Cole and I were pretty excited about delivering valentines to all of his neighborhood girlfriends (and guy friends for that matter). I wanted to do something fairly simple, that the kids would love and that Cole would be excited about. We ended up getting discounted reject suckers (mis-shapen) from the local candy factory, and attached a simple tag that said "I'm a Sucker For You" on it. They seemed to be a big hit. You can see my original post about the valentines here. Now I have to think of something to do this year....I'll let you know what we end up doing!

Sunday Afternoon

We rearranged our basement furniture a few weeks ago. I like the new setup a lot, but I also blame it for not blogging for DAYS on end. The computer is out of sight, back in the playroom, which, consequently means the computer is out of mind as well. I WANT to blog more often, but I guess I just get caught up in the whole "mom" thing, so it doesn't occur to me that I haven't blogged until I'm laying in bed and the day is over. This cycle happens day after day after day. I'm going to try my hardest to post more now though. It's my outlet. It's my connection to the "outside world". I need to know what's hip, what's not. I have well over 300+ blogs to catch up on in my blog roll. What's a girl to do?

Aside from that, we have 9:00am church now, which means we have the whole day to do fun family things like drag my family out to the Utah Lake ice and make them let me take pictures. Let's be honest though, Matt secretly loved it. Cole certainly loved throwing dozens of rocks onto the ice, and Hawk loved me waking him up for the family self-timer portrait. I only was able to take two tries for the last picture, but luckily one turned out with no blinks!

It was a lovely day.

2011: Looking Back

It's weird looking back at all of the blog posts from the year and seeing all the things we've done, accomplished, not accomplished, and most importantly, how we've grown. Here is a compilation of the more important things that happened. I know it's cliche to say, but lately I've been realizing more and more how much I love my life!

Looking back, it may not seem like we did much, but oh we did! I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to. The most important things in my life happen at home :)

Attempted to beautify our new house and make it our own. Still a work in progress

Said goodbye to our dearest friend, and sweetest companion Wanda. We still talk about her often and Cole still asks where she is. See ya in a few, Wanda! xoxo

Made A LOT of messy art

Played with as many cousins as possible

Mades bestest friends with neighborhood families. Spent A LOT of outdoor time together (and indoor time, for that matter!)

Spent the majority of the year growing another human

Spent more and more time outside!

Had sweet baby Hawk! Became a mother of TWO!

And now we're a family of four, loving (almost) EVERY second of it!