Spring Cleaning-Busy Busy!

Over a month. WOW, that's a long time. But I have to say that good things have happened over the past month.

To start, I haven't posted about in on here before but I run a work at home business. Yup, I'm the face behind Mommy Loves Maddy. I make cloth diapers and accessories, and other baby items like bibs, burp cloths and just started making some fun art things. I have more information about my products on my Facebook page. Things with my business have started to really take off! I've had a lot of custom orders, and am trying to keep my store stocked, but organic bamboo diapers are REALLY popular. Not that I'm complaining or anything!

It really is a good thing that the store is so busy because a few weeks ago my maternity leave ended (thank you Canadian government for giving us ONE YEAR!) and I made the difficult decision to quit my job. We had made changes in our budget so that things wouldn't be as tight, and with daycare being so expensive for two kids, it really was the right decision for our family. Since I've been so busy, I've had to find a balance between work, family and housecleaning and I'm not completely embarrassed to say that most of the time, my family comes before the house. We've had a few barbeques and gatherings over here, and that forces us to clean up the house, but the day to day maintaining has been put on the back burner. I try not to completely ignore my kids so I can get my work done, and most of it happens while baby K is asleep and M can come downstairs and watch Dora (who said Netflix couldn't be a business expense?). So if I can't tidy or do something quickly while the kids are awake, it doesn't get done as soon as it should.

 But I have found a few new cleaning techniques that I need to share with you guys!

The first one is for Diapers! While we do have a diaper sprayer downstairs in the utility sink in the laundry room, I've been using the removable shower head in the bathroom again. It's easier to spray the dirty diapers right away and not wait until I have a few minutes to run downstairs. I always spray with COLD water. But instead of throwing the sprayed diapers right into the diaper bin, I leave them in the tub. Then the next time I have a dirty diaper to rinse off, I re-spray the last one and that removes any leftovers that wouldn't rinse out before, and most of the time, any leftover color in the diaper. Enter no stains!

The next one is for a homemade air freshener, mostly due to those diapers! I found this on Pinterest! Take an empty bottle (the Pinterest link used a jar, but I didn't have any with a lid, so I used an old sport drink bottle). Poke holes in the lid. Fill the bottle/jar 1/4 to 1/3 full with Baking Soda and add a few drops of your favorite essential oil, I used Lemon. The baking soda will absorb the smell and the EO will lightly scent the room. IF you notice the smell is stronger, simply shake the bottle a bit. Super easy with items I already had, and smells great. And WORKS! I rarely notice any smell in the bathroom, where we keep the diaper pail. I also found a link where you can use this same Baking Soda and EO combination to freshen up your mattress. Simply shake over a kitchen sifter onto the mattress and leave for an hour or so before vacuuming up.

The baking soda helps draw up any moisture and deep dirtiness. It deodorizes and leaves the mattress smelling fresh and clean. I also love the faint scent of lavender left by the essential oil.

A few weeks ago I noticed a bunch of ants outside our front door. Ugh. I hate bugs inside the house and unfortunately I live in the boonies (ok, not QUITE the boonies, but we have green space next door where BEARS live, and bugs, EVERYWHERE! So I took M outside and we drew on the cement outside the front door with CHALK. Simple and FUN! And ants HATE it. I actually drew a circle around one ant and it would take a few steps onto the chalk and then move backwards, and strategically tried to find a way out without touching the chalk.

And finally, I found a new app. It was recommended to me by a fellow blogger mom, Jeni from Joy and Woe (Hi Jeni!) The app is called Home Routines. I haven't used it much yet, but so far I like it. It's linked with FlyLady and gives you the same zones that she uses. And it's very user friendly and you can set up your own lists, your own tasks, etc. Looking at it now, it has timers, routine reminders. I haven't looked at how to use those, but setting it up was super easy since you synch your phone with your account on the computer and typing on the computer is MUCH easier than setting it up on your phone.

Wow, I need to update more often, this got long! Ok, kids are done eating, time to go build some train tracks and make some chocolate chip cookies! YUMMM!

Coconut Oil-My new best friend

When I made the decision to use cloth diapers, I discovered that you can't use regular diaper rash creams, since the thick formula can ruin the diapers ability to absorb properly. SO I did some research and asking around and found that some people use coconut oil. But I thought you couldn't use oils with cloth diapers. Well coconut oil is different. So I bought a jar of it and have been amazed ever since. Especially recently, when I found countless more uses for this amazing product.

Coconut oil has a high melting point of around room temperature, so it is normally a solid product, and melts upon contact with skin. It literally turns to water. This makes it easy to apply to baby's bottom and also allows it to rinse clean out of diapers, as long as they're washed in hot water at some point during the wash routine. During the warmer months last summer, we kept our jar in the fridge, since it would melt quickly in the jar in baby K's room.

Now since coconut oil is so great on a diaper rash, that must make it pretty fantastic for all skin. I recently added some coconut oil to my face cleaning oil and it made it work even better. The few pimples that had started to form were gone almost instantly. So this made me do some more research into why coconut oil is so fantastic and here's what I found:

The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.

Quoted from Organic Facts.com

If you visit the above quoted website, there is detailed information into how coconut oil helps with hair and skin care, heart disease, weight loss, immunity and much more.

Now I'm sure you're thinking, well, WHERE can I get this amazing product?? You can find coconut oil in the cooking section or organic section of most grocery stores, or online, for example on Amazon.com or Well.ca. OR, you can enter my friend's giveaway, over at Captain Fussybuckets. Her giveaway ends on March 8th, so you have just over a week to enter. I know I'll be entering and even if I don't win, I'm going to buy more so I can start cooking with this stuff. Definitely not going to mix the diaper rash cream with my cooking stuff.

If you've used coconut oil, please share your favorite uses for it. I can't wait to try more things out!

Thirsties Giveaway ends tomorrow

A friend of mine, Adventures in Fluff, is hosting a thirsties duo diaper giveaway that ends tomorrow. If you love these diapers or would love to try one out, head over and enter! You can find her button on my blog, but just in case, CLICK HERE to be taken directly to the giveaway.

Good luck!

The Power of the Sun: Product Review

To someone who uses cloth diapers, stains are a big deal. Not only do you want your diapers to stay cute and adorable, but you want to be able to sell them for as close to what you paid for them as you can. So you want to keep stains away as best as you can. I've tried soaking in OxyClean and while it does work, it can take a long time. Another reason why someone would use cloth diapers is to be as nice to the environment as possible. So I've found a stain remover that doesn't hurt anyone at all, AND makes taking stains out of diapers super easy, which is something a cloth diaperer is always looking for. It's THE SUN!

Lately, we've had fantastic weather up here and I really want to reduce my OxyClean use as much as possible, even though I really love the stuff. So when I have diapers with stains, I've been sticking them on the patio. And I'm not even kidding, when I'm checking them, all stains are gone within a few minutes. The diaper is still soaking wet but the horrible yellow spots have vanished. It is really amazing. Sometimes I hope that there are a few horrible stains just so I can keep checking out this new stain remover and it never lets me down. Sometimes it isn't even that bright outside, or it's partially cloudy, but it still takes the stains out.

So, as someone who wants to reduce my impact on the environment (and my hydro bill) I'll just leave the diapers out there to dry completely and skip using the dryer. And yes, I do love my brand new, energy efficient, jumbo dryer, but who doesn't love some time in the sun? After being stuck on a baby bum containing all messes thrown at them, it's the least they deserve.