Can you guys believe that tomorrow is the first day of October? It’s still so hot here that I don’t feel like it’s fall yet, but cooler temps are on the horizon and I’m so excited.

One of my favorite things about fall is pumpkin spice creamer. I’ve been perfecting my recipe for awhile now in an attempt to have a great pumpkin spice creamer without all the chemicals that you get from the creamers you get at the grocery store. This recipe is my favorite because it combines some of my favorite things: pumpkin and essential oils!

It’s so easy to make! Play around with it to make it your own.

1-Fill a pint jar 3/4 full with the dairy (or non-dairy) of your choice. You can use coconut milk, almond milk, milk, half-n-half, whipping cream, or a mixture of any of those. I like to fill the jar halfway with half-n-half, then fill it 1/4 of the way with whipping cream. The whipping cream gives it a frothy consistency.

2-Pour your milk into a blender, and add 1/4 cup canned pumpkin. You can add more for a stronger pumpkin flavor.

3-Add 1 drop each of clove, cinnamon bark, and ginger essential oils. Be sure to use only CPTG essential oils, like DoTERRA.

4-Add 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract.

5-Blend the ingredients together, then pour into your pint jar. Store in the fridge up to a week, but you’ll use it all before then! Shake it up before you pour it into your coffee.

What’s so great about this creamer is that you’re getting the immune boosting effects of these essential oils, just from enjoying a cup of coffee!

If you need these oils, you can purchase from me by going to http://mydoterra.com/laresawatkins or you can comment below with your email address and I’ll be in touch to help you!

Hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

I have been using DoTERRA essential oils in my home for over 2 years now.  I originally began using them only in my diffuser as a way to replace my love of scented candles, but along the way I have discovered many, many more ways to use them.  They have become my first go-to when dealing with any health issues in my family and have saved us lots of trips to the doctor.

My favorite thing about essential oils is their versatility.  I use them for cleaning products, skin care, bug repellent, in my garden, and the list goes on and on.  They have saved us money, and I know that they are good for our family.

I enjoy my oils so much that I can’t help but tell people about them or offer them my homemade things to try, so it was natural that I eventually became a DoTERRA wellness advocate.  I enjoy telling people about our products and helping them become healthier in a natural way, but my favorite thing to do is host make-and-takes in my home.  It’s a great excuse for my kids’ friends to come over to play while their moms and I have some fun, for me to share my love of a good DIY, and for my friends to experience the many uses of essential oils.  (It’s also a great excuse for Jason to play golf!)

I have been hosting a make-and-take once a month.  This month’s was a summer theme, and we made foaming hand soap, shaving cream, and an after-sun spray. I have found these things so helpful and have been using them so often, I decided to share them here.

If you’re going to try these recipes, make sure you’re using containers that are made to use with essential oils.  Glass and most metal containers are great, but if you’re going to use plastic you should make sure that  it is a #1 or #2 plastic.  Even when the oils are diluted like they are in these recipes, you want to choose a plastic that won’t break down when it comes in contact with the oils.

I get my supplies for all of my DIY’s using essential oils from Got Oil Supplies. I only recently learned about this company and started buying from them, and I have found that they have good prices and their products are very high quality.  They even sell Modern Essentials, a great book that I recommend to everyone interested in essential oils.

The first thing we made at my summer make-and-take was a foaming hand soap.  This is really simple to make, and I don’t see myself ever buying hand soap again. All you need is:

1 Foam Pump

Castile Soap

Aloe Vera Gel

Vegetable Glycerin

Fractionated Coconut Oil

20-25 drops of Essential Oil.

*For my citrus-spearmint soap, I used a mix of tangerine, grapefruit, wild orange, and spearmint.

This is a recipe that I usually eyeball:

1-You’ll fill the bottle about 1/4 full with the Castile Soap, then just add in a squirt of the remaining ingredients, along with your oils.  During winter when my hands get dry, I will add in more vegetable glycerin and coconut oil.

2-Put the lid on the bottle and shake it well to mix everything together.

3-Remove the lid and fill the bottle the remainder of the way with water (Be careful not to overfill-remember that the pump will take up some space in the bottle and you don’t want to waste any of your precious oils!)

4-Replace the lid, shake again, and you’re done!

This makes a great gift, as well.  You can use any mixture of your favorite essential oils to go along with whatever season you’re in. Keep in mind that citrus oils are photosensitive-this means that they will cause you to sunburn.  If you’re going to be out in the sun within 24 hours after using your oils topically (unless you wash them off, like in the hand soap), you need to stick to oils that aren’t in the citrus family. 

My other recipes came from One Essential Community.  This is a great blog full of ideas and DIY recipes.  I absolutely LOVE the homemade shaving cream we made, and like to put lots of eucalyptus in mine to give myself a spa-like feeling.  And I keep a bottle of after-sun spray in the refrigerator and another bottle in my pool bag all summer.  If you’re in the sun too long, or if you’re just feeling hot, it is perfect for a quick cool-off. You can click the links below for the recipes.

Homemade Shaving Cream {with essential oils}

After Sun Spray

Got Oil Supply’s amber spray bottles and cream jars were perfect for these DIY’s.  Emma thought so, too.  🙂

If you’re interested in buying any essential oils, you can click here to visit my DoTERRA page.  We have a great wholesale program, and you can either sign up on that page or send me a message if you would like for me to help you get signed up.

Thanks again to everyone who came to my make-and-take.  It was fun, as always! I hope that you guys who read this will love these recipes as much as I do.

The saga with our Christmas tree continues.  We have redecorated it for New Years and hung on to it as long as I can stand it.  When I told Charlie yesterday that it was going outside, he started to protest, until I told him we were turning it into a home for the birds and squirrels.

I’m not sure what people who live in a city do with their trees, but here we have tons of options.  We can throw them in the woods, tie a weight of some sort on them and throw them into a pond to make a little home for the fish, or just set them on fire.  We even have a nearby tiger refuge that accepts the trees as donations.  Apparently, the tigers love to play with them.

After talking with my mom and mother-in-law, I learned that my latest idea wasn’t a new one, but I still think it’s pretty cute.   It satisfied Charlie’s need to keep our tree forever, and it will give us something to do for the rest of the winter.

To make our Christmas Tree for the Birds, we strung popcorn (leftover from our Christmas popcorn tin) into garland.  We hung it on the tree (which Jason stood up on the fence in front of our house), then smeared globs of peanut butter onto the branches.  The kids pressed more popcorn and bird food into the peanut butter.

 

 

We look forward to keeping our tree stocked with goodies for the animals that populate the woods, and to watching them from our front door!

What do you do with your Christmas tree?

So, here we are.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are over.  They flew by, didn’t they?

I wish I had tons of pictures to share with you, but we were grossly inadequate on the documentation front this year.  We videoed the Christmas play at church, then couldn’t quite get it together to record much more.  I couldn’t bring myself to spend time clearing off memory sticks and recharging batteries.  Our camera has been behaving badly, so we didn’t take many pictures, either.

So you can just take me on my word that it was a great one, okay?  (Aside from the terrible cold I have been suffering with, that is.)

Over the last couple of years, as children have been added to our families and we have lost our grandmothers, our Christmas traditions have gone through some changes.  While it is sad to let go of some traditions that we have had throughout our childhoods, it is also exciting to begin new things within our little family.

This Christmas Eve we opened up a Christmas Eve box here at the house.  Inside were matching PJ’s for the kids, Jason, and me, along with a tin of popcorn.  We put on our new jammies (thankfully the camera wasn’t working!:)) and ate popcorn while watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  It was a fun way to spend the night.

Since this Christmas (and the entire Holiday season) has been so great for us, I am trying to take the next few days slowly.  Usually I put up all of the decorations on December 26, ready to get the house cleaned up and uncluttered.  I am a lover of a new year and the feelings of starting over with the clean slate that it brings, so it has never been a problem for me to rush Christmas on so I can get started on new things.

Last year, however, Charlie dealt with a  little sadness after Christmas.  He was disappointed that it was over and protested when I did my usual December 26th cleansing.  I regretted rushing the season on.

This year I have done things differently, not just for Charlie, but for me.  I found myself experiencing a little sadness when I began taking our decorations down, so I decided to take it very slowly to make it a little easier on us all.  The kids and I have been taking down just a thing or two every day, in between time spent playing their new board games or watching new movies.  They have spent days in costumes, playing with their new toys.

Today, we turned our Christmas tree into a New Year’s Tree.  Isn’t it gorgeous?

We took off the Christmas ornaments and the colored lights, then added these beautiful large white lights and put some silver sprigs and ribbons at the top.  It’s simple and pretty, and when we’re ready to take the tree out (probably over the weekend) it won’t take long to take the decorations off.  We all love it, and we can enjoy the warm glow of Christmas lights a little longer.

Another thing I have been doing to try to draw out the Christmas cheer is discuss the idea of giving all year long with Charlie and Maddie.  John 3:16 teaches us “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him wouldn’t perish, but would have eternal life.”  This is the Christmas message, and one we are going to try to emphasize this year.

Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.”  God gave us the greatest gift when He gave us his Son, and we should spread that message of giving when we are given the opportunity.  When we do this, the spirit of Christmas will last the entire year through.

How do you keep the Christmas spirit alive in your home?

 

The kids and I have been working on our advent calendar this week.  I’ve been trying to include more than just candy in it, even thought they do love the candy!  At least once a week I try to include a little project for us to do or a random act of kindness for us to complete.

One day, the kids found two chocolate chips in the drawer they pulled out.  Of course they ate them, but we used the remainder of the bag to make these hot chocolate spoons for them to give as gifts to their friends.

When we saw some hot chocolate spoons (and their outrageous price tag) last week while out shopping, I knew that we could easily make them.  All you need are some plastic spoons, chocolate chips, and marshmallows.

Melt the chocolate chips, dip the spoons in the melted chocolate, then place a few marshmallows on each spoon.

Put them on some wax paper to harden.

The kids had a great time making these, and they love the hot chocolate that they can make with these hot chocolate spoons!  All you do is heat up some milk, then stir the spoon around in it to melt the chocolate milk and marshmallows.  They had a great time drinking hot chocolate while they were watching The Polar Express last night.

I think their friends will love this gift, too!