Holiday Update & Homemade Laundry

This year Christmas with Aldon was a complete 180 from his first & it was So. Much. Fun!! Peanut was actually aware of what was going on (& managed not to sleep through the whole thing this time!); it was amazing to see his excitement & share in it with him- it brought back the giddy joy in us that children experience around the holidays. Of course, Santa spoiled him & he received a boat load of gifts ;) 

The Hartman Family Christmas 2011, including the monster puppy.

 For NYE, we planned to celebrate early with Aldon and have his own New Year's countdown just before his bed time at 7 pm. I crafted him his own silver, glittery ball to be 'dropped' at 6:30 or so so he wouldn't miss out on the celebration. Of course, there was confetti & noise makers to go along with everything :) However, Aldon fell asleep at about 6:15 lol- being a baby with two grandparents houses full of new toys can really wear a boy out, ya know? Since he fell asleep so early (& actually stayed asleep!), hubs & I were able to actually go out with friends & have a night to ourselves! It was pretty much the first time I went out since being pregnant & having Aldon 14 months ago.

He was so dead asleep that he actually didn't care if I cradled & snuggled him! And of course snuck in a ton of kisses!

This year we actually sorta-kinda made a New Year's Resolution, too. I've never made one before in my life- I figure, what's point when I know I won't be able to keep it past January anyway? haha. 

As a family, we decided to make a change & begin to live more 'green.' 

This whole idea started when I dove deeper into cloth diapering and began looking for the right laundry detergent to wash our dipes in. Cloth diapers cannot be washed in anything with optical brighteners, fragrance, dyes, softeners, enzymes, chlorine bleach, etc, which basically all detergents have. My search for a diaper-friendly option that was both affordable & easy to use led me to a ton of research & articles on what exactly is in detergents & softeners & how horrible most of the components can be for your long-term health. For example, I discovered my favorite fabric softener dryer sheets have phthalates as an ingredient- a known carcinogen & endocrine disruptor. 

Obviously, we needed to change something. 

'Rome wasn't built in a day', and we knew that we would never succeed if we tried to completely overhaul our lives overnight. So we're starting small, and making about one new change a month (or so), to hopefully live a safe, healthy, & more 'eco-friendly' life by 2013. 

Our first small change occurred in the laundry room. To tackle my quest for laundry detergent that poses no health risks, we decided to make our own!  It sounded so daunting at first, and I found a ton of different 'recipes' online, but it was actually super easy, and only took about 5-7 minutes to do. The detergent is even safe to use on our cloth diapers! I was wary at first about how good it would actually be (I've been a Tide & Downy girl my whole life), but it tackles even the toughest baby stains (think ground in, smashed blueberries & pomegranate seeds into real light yellow sheets, courtesy of Aldon- without a pre soak or stain fighting treatment!). The best part?? The ingredients cost about $35-40 dollars, and it makes a 5 gallon tub full that will probably last us about two years. That breaks down to .73- .83 cents per month spent on laundry detergent. 
 
Using our homemade laundry detergent, we also can make a DIY laundry stain pre-treater.
When Aldon was a newborn, it seemed like we went through a bottle of the strongest stuff we could find on the shelf every other day to get out all of those baby stains- now I feel a little guilty thinking about what harmful stuff could have been in that & where all of those plastic bottles will wind up.  

So far Keegan has humored me & gone along with accepting the changes I plan to make- even if he doesn't agree. I can tell it's going to be a slow process; most of the information can be so overwhelming & it's hard to know where to start 'greening' your life. SafeMama.com has been the main source where I'm getting my information on how to make some changes, along with The EFF.   


Our changes are slow & it's a long process, but I'll be sure to update along with way with how we're doing!