Baby Countdown

40 weeks is a looooong time!  There is so much to do & prepare so the long amount of time is nice but waiting is just not something I'm very good at! So I decided to make the waiting a little bit more fun by creating a countdown jar.

I took a vase/candle holder and re-purposed it for the next few weeks.  I only used materials I had on hand and wanted to make sure the end result would blend in with our decor since it would be on our mantle for quite some time!

I placed a piece of burlap in the bottom of the jar then used twine to accent the shape of the jar near the top.

I painted a square piece of wood black and used a silver sharpie to write the words.  It was fun to create and did not take long at all!

The next step was filling the jar.  I counted out the number of days that were left till the baby's due date.  At the time is was 195.  So I placed 195 Hershey kisses into the jar.  Each day we remove one of the kisses.  As of now we can't see the top of the kisses, but once it gets down further it will be fun to watch them disappear as we get closer to giving real kisses to our little baby!

Homemade Dog Shampoo

As much as I hate the summer heat, Sanka hates it even more!  Her thick coat just sheds and sheds - huge clumps!  And yes, those huge clumps then cause me to vacuum everyday!  (not fun in the heat!)  To help end this vicious cycle we decided to give her a bath, hoping it would cause a lot of the loose hair to come out.

I have always used store bought dog shampoo but recently saw a variety of  homemade shampoos on pinterest so I thought I'd give it a try! I read what several other people had done, took inventory of my own supplies and created our very first homemade dog shampoo!

The ingredients are simple and cheap! 

I used equal parts vinegar and Dawn dish detergent.  (I didn't have a full bottle of one scent so in addition to original scent she got some pomegranate, which ended up being quite nice!) I added approximately 1/2C of coconut oil.  

The next step was getting Sanka prepared.  She is not a fan of outside baths with a hose so she was not happy about this situation! 

Once Sanka was wet poured the soap into our hands and onto her fur and scrubbed away.  

The hair just came off in clumps.  

As you can see Sanka's favorite part of a bath is getting toweled off!  

We were very pleased with this shampoo.  She still needed some good brushing for the next few days but the clumps around the house were much less!  She smelled and felt great too!  At first she did have that wet doggie smell, but that went away and she just smelled clean! We always joke after she gets a bath that we forgot she had white fur until we see it clean again!