My Favorite Crunchy Item of the Moment

One of the first things that brought me to greener pastures (this is where my husband would roll his eyes and tell me I'm not funny lol) was deodorant. My littlest guy co-sleeps and literally sleeps in my armpit almost. He's always shifting and grabbing and poking me. And I got to thinking one day, "He's touching my armpits and then putting his hands in his mouth," sweaty-ness aside, have you ever accidentally gotten deodorant in your mouth? It's nasty tasting, and I thought probably not good for babies. So, I looked into it, and deodorant is actually super bad for you! Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer's (which already runs in my family) and breast cancer. So I tried to go without. I think before kids, I might have been able to pull it off, but something changed hormonally after I had kids where I just seem to sweat and stink a lot more. One day hubby comes over to me (total overshare), and goes, "Well, you certainly smell a lot worse than I ever thought you would." Uhh, thanks honey.

So that night I was at the cloth diaper swap at Sonrise Diaper store where I met an awesome lady who would solve my stink issue. Erin from Earthly Remedies by Erin was there and she had her deodorant for sale. It is all natural, non-toxic made with organic coconut oil, cornstarch, baking soda, vitamin E oil, beeawax, and a blend of essential oils. I was skeptical, could this compete with the Degree Clinical I had been using? Yes! It works FABULOUSLY! Hubby even commented the next day how beautiful I smelled. And pretty much one of the kids could eat it and it wouldn't do much harm (probably just a tummy ache). Basically, I'm kinda obsessed and my friends and family have been forced in to smelling me a lot lately. But, hey, I smell pretty awesome now!

Oh, and it was cheaper than my regular deodorant! Check it out here.

So busy!

I really have been meaning to post, but things have been super crazy around here lately! We got involved with a couple of local moms' groups and have been out of the house almost all day everyday. To add to that, everyone is sick with the plague that is going around, and Jax has a diaper rash that I could not get to go away without switching back to disposables (ick) for a few days with some Buttpaste. Now I've got him back in cloth and we've got a bunch of samples from my favorite diaper store, Sonrise, to try out.  So far, CJ's BUTTer is my favorite, it's so smooth and smells great!

Quick updates on the crunch front: Hating prefolds for Benny, I just can't seem to get the bio-liners to stay in the right place and his dirty diapers are just too time consuming to swish in the toilet until they get clean. We've been taking it easy on the meat, which is a giant step for me because I am not the biggest veggie fan. I found an awesome recipe on a blog called Happy Healthy Mama for a layered vegetable crockpot casserole found here . The whole family loved it, although hubby as always was a tough sell and asked where the meat was. The only downside was that it took my potatoes 8 hours to cook instead of the 4 suggested, meaning we ate dinner at around 10 that night. But, the leftovers were amazing. Got some SKOY cloths, pretty impressed with them, more to come about those. And found a local store that sells local, organic products less than 15minutes from my house!

Clearly, I am still not really getting the hang of this blogging thing, but it will serve as an excellent reminder of this "journey" I've started for my babies and myself.

Let's Start at the very beginning

Hi, I'm Erika, a married, stay-at-home mom to two AMAZING little boys. My life is so full right now, that I want to capture as much of it as possible to remember later. My babies are Benjamin who's 2 1/2years old, and Jaxton who is 4months old (I said my life was full lol). So, let's get to explaining the title of my first blog: Adventures in Crunchdom. In addition to everything that is going on in our lives, I will be chronicling my journey to becoming a "crunchy" parent. Let me just say first that I NEVER EVER thought that I would, or would want to be a crunchy parent. It started with wanting to save money. With two in diapers it adds up quick every month, and I saw how much money we could save cloth diapering the boys. The more I looked into it, the more disgusted I was by all the chemicals in disposable diapers, and how much money we were LITERALLY throwing into the trash every day. So, the more I looked at what I was putting on, in, and around my babies, the more determined I became to make the switch to green/crunchy parenting. But being a single-income family, I can't just throw everything out and start from scratch, so I will also be doing all this on a budget. Be ready for the longest sentences you've probably ever read in your life, and an immense amount of prepositional phrases(according to my dear husband- B.A. in English).

My Goals:
1. Eliminate as many toxins from our lives as possible.

2. Get a budget implemented and followed.

3. Switch entirely to cloth (diapers, towels, nursing pads)

4. Try one new healthy food a week.

5. Turn the whole family into healthy eaters.

6. Blog with a picture once a day (how awesome to have a year documented with a picture a day!)

Vinegar

I must spend hundreds of dollars a year on cleaning products. Bottles and bottles of bleach cleaner, shower cleaner, carpet-fresh, windex and so on. And then I'm always worried about making sure the babies aren't around the toxic fumes that I'm filling our house with. So I decide to take the plunge and try a tip I'd heard about but never had the guts to try: white distilled vinegar. Dollar Store spray bottle, $1.50 bottle of vinegar, some water, and we're good to go.

I'm a big believer in "go big or go home". So I chose a gargantuan task for my little spray bottle of vinegar : the bathroom. Sticky, slimy toddler hands mixed with a husband who always seems to leave hair, toothpaste, shaving cream everywhere. I had no faith that anything but bleach and windex would get the bathroom the spanking clean that I was looking for. Boy, was I mistaken. My mirrors were shining, heck, everything was shining. And after a little googling(is this officially a word yet?) I also found that vinegar would kill mold, bacteria, and germs. Hallelujah, I think I ran out and called my mother immediately. I am simply amazed. It does everything. I can clean mirrors, the stove, counters, floors, the shower all with this one economical, environmentally safe product. The one down side I'm looking to fix is the smell that lingers for awhile. But, hey, are the lingering fumes of bleach any better? I can't wait to try new uses for my new best cleaning friend vinegar. I think tomorrow I'll try cleaning the microwave by boiling vinegar and water inside of it (courtesy of VinegarTips.com). Until then, it's bedtime for this tired lady.