Things Gemma Can Do

Some of these photos are a couple of weeks old. I've just been too busy taking care of somebody to blog much . . .

wear a bow in her hair

ride in the Moby wrap

(She takes most of her day-time naps there, to Mama's delight! In fact, she's sleeping there right now, which is why I'm blogging!)

put her hand in her mouth
(usually when she's being changed, if you can tell!)

root for Duke!

and generally look adorable . . .
even when she's just had a poo-explosion. Mama had to snap a quick photo at church mid-change before putting her back in her pajamas.

Making Squirt Squirt

When I married John, I had cleaning products galore . . . some that were his, some that were left in the house by the previous owners, and some that were gifts. I think I still have three partial cans of Comet around! Oh, and then last April John helped one of his buddies move, and inherited all his left-behind cleaning products. It's been pretty nice. :-)

I'm [finally] just about through all the all-purpose stuff that we had, so I knew it was time to call Mom and get the recipe for "Squirt Squirt." It came to us from another friend at church, I believe, under the title "Glass Cleaner that cleans just about anything." Sweet, but a bit long for those of us who like to name things either after their looks or the sounds they make. ;-) I bought the necessary ingredients and made up my first batch last week. Here's that recipe:

"Squirt Squirt"

1/2 cup sudsy ammonia
1 pint rubbing alcohol
1 tsp. dish soap

Combine in plastic milk jug and fill with water to make 1 gallon.

I think it works great, and since a pint of rubbing alcohol is about 50 cents and a big jug of ammonia is around a dollar, it's quite cheap as well. :-) I filled up an empty squirt bottle from one of the products I finished up and still have the better part of a gallon of solution under my sink.

Another thing I inherited when I married John was a Swiffer WetJet. I learned to mop by watching my mother on her hands and knees with a rag, so it's not something I would have purchased for myself. But since we have it, I may as well use it, right? I used it until I ran out of the disposable pads, then bought more pads since there was still liquid, then bought more liquid since there were still pads . . . repeat this cycle. It's a trap! I finally decided that enough is enough. It certainly is convenient (especially when I was pregnant and really tired!), but it doesn't even mop that well.

So, I determined to fill the bottle with squirt squirt, despite the warning on the back, "do not attempt to refill . . . " I think they just want us to keep buying $5 refills! But, it's well nigh impossible to take the cap off those things. I tried using a plastic syringe to go through the rubbery top, but that didn't work, either. Enter John with a hack saw. He cut open the bottle, filled it up and attempted to reseal it with duct tape. Did it work? Nope.

So, John googles something about refilling Swiffer WetJet bottles and runs to the kitchen before I can pour the boiling water off the pasta I'm making him for lunch. Someone has shared that immersing the top of the bottle in boiling water for about a minute enables you to screw it right off. We save the pasta water, try it, and it works!

That bottle is ruined, thanks to the hack saw. But another $5 later, I think I'll try again . . .

P.S. I'm sure there are lots of recipes for homemade cleaning products! Anyone have one to share?

How Our Baby Got Her Name

wearing one of our outfits from Miss Sarah!

We love Gemma's name, and thought you might like to know where it came from. :-)

I've loved the name Grace since college. Oddly, more than one person there got my name wrong and called me Grace instead; apparently there was a Grace Reidy who graduated shortly before I came, and my maiden name is Gretchen Reid. :-) I liked it, painted it as my nickname on my intramural basketball shirt (go flying squirrels!), and mentally filed it away as a favorite baby name for someday. And what better thing to to name a child after than God's beautiful, abundant, saving grace in Christ, which He lavished on even me?

Then, I re-met and married John, and now I have a dear mom-in-law whose middle name is Grace! We both liked that we'd be naming our daughter after her, too.

One of my best friends in college was a foreign exchange student from Northern Ireland. Of course she missed home and the person she most often spoke of missing was her sister, Gemma. Gemma was the only other Christian in her family, and the one who had led her to Christ. I was endeared to Gemma through Jenni, and when my brother and I visited Northern Ireland about a year later, we learned first-hand that she's just the sweet, godly woman we expected to find.

I love the name because it's not strange but not common and because it's more common in the UK than it is here (and I love, love Northern Ireland!). Our little daughter now has two godly women for her name-sakes, and how earnestly I pray that she will early receive the grace of her grandmother and the grace of Gemma from Ireland.

We Made Soap

A few months back, Mom and a friend and I made this soap. Its high oil content makes it beautiful for cleaning wood. :-)


And when we were visiting family for Christmas, Mom, a different friend and I made this soap. It's pure white and natural and perfectly lovely to bathe with!

If you ask nicely, Mom will probably share some soap with you. :-) She has a big vat of coconut oil in the basement and bigger dreams about what to do with it all . . .