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!!

Gracie

I'm 23. I'm married to the best guy in town. I enjoy sunsets and long walks to the fridge. The gracious owner of The Busy Nothings, Heidi, has asked me to be a regular contributor on her blog, and I am so happy to be a part of such an amazing group! Bear with me as I grow into this 'writing' business. For now, you'll get a little laughter, a little wit, and a whole lot of heart from me.

TheBusyNothings Tweets

  • In Harrisburg for a few more days- learning a lot about eggs- I had no idea how much there was to learn about eggs!!!
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Sarea

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!

Country Living {At the Creek}

A couple weeks ago I woke up and thought, “I want to take the kids to the creek and let them swim for the first time this year.”  Since I homeschool, I had grand plans of getting school done early, packing a small lunch and heading out with them to the creek just down the road.

Upon their waking up I announced my grandiose idea and then stepped back waiting for the squeals of excitement followed by “WE LOVE YOU MOM, YOU’RE THE BEST!”  What I got was: “That would be fun.”, “Can we wait until Nate and Lexi get out of school so they can go too?”  I was a tad bit disappointed, but I was humbly reminded that it wasn’t about me…They wanted to bring cousins/friends.  I called my sister and asked if the kids had plans after school and if she thought that they would be interested in going.  She was like, “No, we don’t have plans, they will like that.”

About 3 hours later I got a call from her saying,”Okay, bring stuff for salad, Brian and I are coming and bringing Sonic ice, mom and dad are coming and bringing salad stuff too.  We are going to do dinner down there!”  I must interject that this is one of the reasons that I love living on the hill with my family close…we have a lot of unplanned outings together.  (As I am typing this, with all of the storms surrounding us, I just got a phone call that said we were all headed up to mom’s to hang out and keep an eye out on the storms!)

So we loaded up the truck and headed to the creek, twin bridges that is, swimming hole and gummy bears!

Creek Living

 

When we got there, we unloaded the chairs, the kids and set up the country salad spread.

tailgating at the creek

Now you may be wondering what the adorable little ‘Flat Stanley’ is doing in the photos. I am currently in possession of him as a favor to my best friends son.  He has been on several adventures with us already and was very excited to be a part of the creek outing!

After eating a bite, the kids got in the creek to swim, but that only lasted a short time, it was still a little chilly.  Soon they were all lined up and throwing rocks toward the bluff.

tossing rocks

They started throwing rocks into the water, then Dad started tossing up bigger rocks and the kids tried hitting it with smaller rocks before it splashed into the water. Then Harmony suggested that they throw with their left hands (Nate with his right), and we laughed SO hard!  It was like a bunch of little T-rexs trying to throw..so funny and very entertaining.  Things started winding down, but then these guys made an appearance. . .

gummy bears

You can get them at Sam’s Club for about $6 a bag, and totally worth every penny!  Brian started tossing them up and the kids were catching them in their mouths. Pretty soon Dad and I joined the fun…this video was the result: (apologies for not knowing how to get it embedded here so you don’t have to click the link to go there, but believe me, it’s worth it!)

Country Living {At the Creek}

Keep an eye out for my dad who is tossing up his OWN gummy bears after he rubs the dirt off them in the background. PRICELESS!

That about sums it up, a lot of gummy bears bit the dust, great memories were made and fun was had by all!

The Busy Nothings

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Living Life

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