Heidi

Hi! I'm the owner of TheBusyNothings.com. I've been married to my college sweetheart Ben for 10 years and I'm passionate about my 2 little boys- one of whom has special needs. I love being real about my life and struggles and seek to understand God and chase his beauty. I enjoy cooking healthy/gluten-free, fashion from thrift stores and exercise to keep my sanity. I work from home, freelance writing and social media consulting with bloggers and small businesses. I am slowly figuring out how to balance family life and work. I love connecting with people, contact me at TheBusyNothings@gmail.com

Sarea

Hi, I'm Sarea, contributor at the TheBusyNothings.com. I home-school my three kids, dabble in photography, quilt, know how to change the oil in my car and love baseball #GoNaturals. I volunteer at the local Arts Center. I am an instructor of Life-guarding/CPR/First Aid with the local Red Cross. I like finding new music. I have a love for records and have quite a collection, but currently no way to play them. I have a fetish for office supplies, I am a great listener, love roller coasters, I am WAY behind in scrapbooking and can't wait till my oldest turns 18 so we can skydive together for the first time! Follow Sarea below!

Sherry

Hi, I'm Sherry, a writer for at the TheBusyNothings.com. I am passionate about helping people with disabilities learn life skills and am fortunate enough to be able to do it full time! I love doing Wordless Wednesdays, capturing life at the Camp I work at as well as sharing bits of my life. I work a lot and come and post when I can!

Katy

Currently living "The Rockies Life" in Fort Collins, CO but a southern girl at heart! In love and married almost 5 years. No kids yet...just a few furry friends. I am a Social Worker who spends most of her days in jails, foster and group homes, connecting with and advocating for at risk kids. I love eating healthy but indulge way too often in my favorites -wine and cheese. I love spending time outdoors hiking, biking and just adventure-ing!!

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healthy living

Scott Paper Towels + VUDU = Gift for Baby and Gift for Me!

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I have been working along side Dr. Maggie for a couple years now.  She is technically one of my bosses, but has become a mentor and a friend over time.  I am so excited for her as she is about to embark on her journey as a mom in the next few weeks.  It is a tad bit bittersweet, because as soon as that precious boy arrives, that means she will not be working with us for some time, but I have no doubts that he will be cute enough that it just won’t matter!  I was trying to think ‘outside the box’ as far as baby gifts go…I knew that they already had been given a plethora of baby blankets, and an excited grandmother had purchased pretty much everything off the registry list.  Seeing as I know her quite well, I figured getting her ready with home made baby wipes would be right up her alley of all natural baby products!  I headed to Walmart and purchased the stuff that I needed (plus some extra goodies as well), you can see my shopping trip HERE.

Scott Paper Towels

I looked up several recipes and they were all basically the same with a few variations.  Since this was my first time doing this, I went with the easiest one:

Homemade Baby Wipes

1 1/2 cups of water

1 tsp of baby oil

1/2 tsp of baby wash or shampoo

1/2 roll of paper towel

1 container with tight sealing lid

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First you add all of the liquids into your container.  I started with the water.

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Then I added the baby oil.

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Lastly I added the baby wash.  It was already smelling so good…Some of the other options were to add lavender oil, or tea tree oil, but I honestly don’t think they need that.

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Gently ‘swish’ the liquids together.  You don’t want to stir them and make it all bubbly, so I just moved the container with my hand enough to mix them together.

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Now for the most difficult part (which really isn’t all that difficult at all)!  Cutting the Scott Paper Towel Roll in half!  Make sure you use a really sharp knife.  I ended up using my serrated knife because in my mind that made sense.  However, I am seriously wondering if using a regular knife would have worked better.

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Back and forth, back and forth…it also made just a little bit of a mess.

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Here is the roll after I split it.  I tore off a few of the loose ends and then placed half of the roll into the container with the mixture. I know for sure that you will want to use the heavier duty paper towels, the cheap ones will just fall apart.  The Scott Paper Towels fit the bill easily and are going to work great!

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It said to wait 10 minutes and then flip the roll in the container, but I found that it went a lot quicker than that!

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After about 3 minutes, I flipped the roll.  It had soaked up all of the liquid in the container and it only went part of the way up the roll.  No longer than 5 more minutes and the roll was completely soaked through.  I easily removed the cardboard center…

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I then had no problem whatsoever pulling up the first wipe from the center of the roll!  Start to finish it took about 10 minutes total.  Plus I felt SO accomplished and proud of myself!

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My daughter let me use one on her cheek…she said they smelled wonderful and then took it from me and proceeded to use it to wash her entire face!

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My son came in the kitchen as we were finishing up and was like, “Hey, what are you making that smells so good?”  I told him baby wipes and showed him.  He was very impressed and said, “We can totally use these if we eat something messy!  Make us some!”  I wrote the recipe right on the lid so that it would be easy for Dr. Maggie to make more when she ran out.  Due to the fact that there are no preservatives, I kept the ones that we soaked and wrapped up the container with a dry roll in it plus all of the stuff she needs to make more when she runs out.  I even cut two more rolls in half for her to save her having to do the ‘difficult’ part!   I am sweet like that…

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Baby Gift…CHECK!  Now for my gift!  The $4 credit on VUDU.  I went to the website that they stated to go to on the coupon… I was able to redeem TWO coupons because I also purchased Scott Toilet Paper!  Check out your local Walmart and look for the packages of Scott Brands with the $4 VUDU coupon on them!  You won’t be disappointed!

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I easily added an account by linking my Facebook (and just for signing up got 10 FREE rentals)!  How awesome was that?  Here is what I ended up putting in my proverbial cart…No judgments, I watch all kinds of stuff.  I am partial to the original “Red Dawn” however.

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I would love to stay and chat with you guys, but I have some movies to watch!  I am having dinner with Dr. Maggie tomorrow and will be giving her the gift…I will let you know what she thinks!  Oh, they also said that you could just use the liquid mixture as a diaper spray, OR even use cut up cloth diapers and have ‘reusable’ wipes!

The World’s Biggest Party Half Marathon

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Me and one of the prep students being silly at the mall

I have shared in many post that I work for Camp Barnabas which is a camp for kids and adults with special needs.  I love my job and I love this camp it is one of the most unique places on earth and also my home.  

 

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A camper at our fall barnabreak which is a weekend of camp before the summer begins.

Camp has been and will always be a home for me and for so many others.  I was having a conversation with a dear friend tonight and she has been talking with an adult camper who is going through a difficult time and as Sarah has been talking to her, the camper measures every year by camp years and not the typical calendar year.  This is the true story for so many of our campers, volunteers, and staff members.   Campers leave camp and begin talking the next year of camp in the car rides home from their current camp experience.

Barnabas is such an amazing place where everyone belongs and in light of that one of the things that Barnabas always desires that any camper who desires to come to camp can do just that, attend camp.

 However, camp cost money, and many of our families are not in financial places to be able to afford the cost that comes with any camp.  Barnabas has a scholarship fund to help truly ensure that each camper can come to camp and be celebrated regardless of their families financial situation.

However, to have money in a scholarship fund you have to some how raise money and this year Barnabas ran down a new road to fund raise. 

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The start of the race

We had the Worlds Biggest Party Half Marathon this year to bring in those funds. It was held in Springfield MO and we had people come from all over.  

People came from Kansas city, Fayetteville and the entire surrounding area of Springfield.  It was such an adventure.

We began planning in January and the race was in April…do any of you know how long you are “supposed” to spend planning a marathon?… a year… that’s right a year… and we did it in 4 months.  It was crazy and amazing!

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half way through the crowd of runners starting the race

 

We have such an amazing team but mostly two lovely ladies Kylie and Mindy are the ones who really made it all happen.  They worked so hard on something that they had no idea what they were really doing but they rocked it.

It was amazing how it all came together in such a short amount of time and how much it exceeded out expectations.  We were expecting around 300 hundred runners to sign up for the race and by the morning of the race we had 462 runners!  It was incredible!  

This marathon was exactly whats it’s title says.  It was incredible.  Every mile marker there was a party happening, bands, people dressed up as star wars characters fighting with light sabers and all.

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One of the bands at a mile marker

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A group of our summer staffers at a mile marker all dressed up in skit closet items to cheer on the runners

There were so many amazing volunteers who made up the party teams.  We are so thankful for them and it was such an encouragement to the runners as they reached each mile to have people cheering them on and being silly.

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A runner being encouraged by one of the party groups

 

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Another racer getting encouraged by a party team

When racers crossed the finish line they walked into a huge party in Jordan Valley park with a DJ, games, a photo booth and even complete with jugglers.

 

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A NWA family that came to run the race taking a picture at the photo booth in the park after the race.

It was beautiful to see all of the runners and their reasons for running the race for some it was simply another marathon to run that supported a good cause, and for others they were running for very specific reasons that were special to their own hearts. 

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This race was the weekend after the Boston Marathon, and many runners ran for those in Boston, and all the racers wore blue and yellow tape crosses to honor them.

This year’s race was such an incredible success not just for Barnabas but for the runners and most of all our campers that will be coming through our gates this summer and summers to come. 

It was a beautiful event and you can expect that I will be talking about it next April and promoting the next race, so if you are a runner look forward to running.  If you love to party you can come and be a part of our party teams.

 

Check out more race pics and Barnabas Foundation information on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/campbarnabas

Check out the Marathon website at www.bigpartymarathon.com

Check out Camp Barnabas information at: www.campbarnabas.org

Photos taken by: Kara Wells, Sara Romans and Sherry Kettner and are the property of Barnabas Foundation. 

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