Kickin' the "Crud" that comes with Fall

It's my favorite time of year. The cool crisp weather change. Fall leaves that crunch under your boots. Warm soup simmering on the stove. The smell of pumpkin and cinnamon fills the air. Fresh air that makes you want to stay outside all day long. Beautiful early morning sunrises that take your breath away. A new perspective on life that makes you thankful that God is in complete control of everything. With all these wonderful things there is one thing that I do NOT like about this time of year: THE CRUD! You know what I'm talking about. That achy feeling, scratchy throat, runny nose, swollen eyes, and overall drain of energy.



Scratchy throat has been knocking at my door every morning for the past week. Stupid scratchy throat has never turned into anything else because I kick it down with essential oils every morning before it has a chance to turn into something yucky. However my poor Joy has come down with a bad case of the crud after being outside without a coat on one evening. She sounds so pitiful with her scratchy voice, runny nose, whimpers, and cough. Once again I am so thankful for essential oils. They continue to empower us as a family to take control of our own health. I wanted to share with you what we have been doing to kick this crud in the butt!

OnGuard - we use OnGuard on the bottoms of our feet about 2x a day right now to prevent the germs from spreading. While Joy is not feeling her best I have been applying OnGuard at every diaper change to help boost her immune system.

Breathe - doTERRA's Breathe Blend (respiratory blend) is great for opening up the respiratory system. I have been placing it on Riley's chest undiluted at every diaper change to help keep her lungs open and work through her congestion. I have also been diffusing Breathe and OnGuard in every room and makes sure she is sitting right next to it. She loves it and knows that it makes her feel better.

Eucalyptus - for Joy I have been putting 5 drops of Eucalyptus on a rag and placing it in the bottom of the shower then turning the water as hot as it will go to build up steam in our guest bathroom. I will take Joy in there for about 20 min and read with her while she breathes in the Eucalyptus. This has tremendously helped keep all the junk out of her lungs. I personally find it refreshing myself.

Peppermint - 1 drop of Peppermint undiluted on the bottoms of Joy's feet at every diaper change knocks her fever out. 

Serenity + Eucalyptus - I have been using one drop undulated of Serenity on the bottom of Joy's feet before every nap and before bedtime to help her sleep. I have also been diffusing 4 drops of Serenity and 4 drops of Eucalyptus in her diffuser at night to not only help her sleep through the night but also help her breathe well while she sleep. It has really made a difference. This is also my favorite combo to help me sleep. 

If you are interested in learning more about essential oils and how they work please join me for a Google Hangout Experience next Tuesday, November 18 from 7:30pm -9:30pm. The class will be live so you are able to see how oils are used in our house and you can ask any questions you might have. I will post a link on my blog and on my Facebook page on Tuesday evening at 7pm so you can join the class. If you would like more information please leave a comment or email me and I would be happy to talk to you more.

Laundry that is more than clothes

Today I decided I was going to tackle some laundry but not just any laundry...the cloth diapers. Yes, we cloth diaper in our house and I love it. So very easy, cheap, and wonderful for my little Joy. However, the past few weeks she has had this horrible rash on her little booty that we couldn't seem to get rid of no matter what we tried. While we were gone on a trip to Utah my parent watched our kids and Joy was in disposables the entire time. Her rash healed up beautifully. Of course once I came home we started cloth diapering again and the rash came back. Yikes! I sure don't want to see my baby hurt. So...for now we went back to disposables until I could do a massive overhaul laundry day on the cloth diapers. Today was that day. I located every single piece of cloth diapering in our house and washed them with my favorite OnGuard laundry detergent. I then proceeded to dry them all outside getting a good bleach from the sun. The next step was allowing them to sit in boiling hot water for a bit, then giving them a good spin in the wash. They are now back to drying on the rack outside. Whew! That actually really did take me ALL day to do. No exaggeration.

cloth diapers soaking in boiling water

The other fun part to my laundry day was opening the dryer door this morning to pull out the clothes from last night only to find that one of my amazing hand made wool dryer balls had completely unravelled during the cycle. Oh no!!! I'm talking massive knots around all the clothes. It took me about 20 minutes to cut string, untie knots, try not to stretch out shirts, and find all the pieces of wool in the dryer. I have started with 4 dryer balls and after this escapade I am now down to 3 but one is starting to come apart so I'm afraid to put that in the dryer so really I'm down 2. Guess I will be making some dryer balls this weekend. Yay, trip to craft supply store for wool yarn. Making dryer balls is so very easy and takes very little time or money. I love putting a few drops of essential oils on the balls before they go in the dryer to give the clothes a nice scent that isn't artificial or full of toxins. Lavender, Citrus Bliss, Lemongrass, and Purify are my favorite!

just a small portion of the mess

Tools in my toolbox

Mommy land has me often taking on the hats of doctor, therapist, and psychiatrist. When I was pregnant with Joy I was so very fearful I would loose her because her conception was such a miracle. I did everything I knew to do to stay as healthy as possible. With my other kids all in public school germs came through our house quite often and there was always someone sick. My older children have struggled a lot with depression, anxiety, and the inability to focus. We also deal with some sensory issues with one of them. Being a family who tries to do things naturally we struggled with putting any of our kids on medication. With being pregnant I also wanted to go through my entire pregnancy, labor and delivery naturally. We needed some tools in our toolbox to make both of these desires possible.

After a bad car wreck in November 2012 a friend shared with me my very first bottle of essential oil. She told me to put it on a few time a day to help with bringing my body back in balance and calming my nerves. I was so skeptic but I did it anyways. Wow, I couldn't believe how much that essential oil helped. It really got me thinking if essential oils could truly band e helpful for physical and emotional health. I spent the next several months reading all about essential oils and different essential oil companies. At that time people were just beginning to dabble into essential oils. Finally in late spring I went to a class a friend was having. Y'all, I sat on the edge of my seat the entire thing thinking "oh my goodness, this makes so much sense." I knew that essential oils would be a key tool for our family in both working through some emotional things with our adoptive kids and through my pregnancy. I truly believe it was a door God opened and we were obedient to walk through. At that class I made my very first order of essential oils and God has been using them in my life every day sense. 

The day my oils came in the mail I began putting them on every member of my family for any health or emotional concern I could think of. My personal favorite was to use on myself for sleep. I was almost in my 3rd trimester when I began using essential oils and I was hitting that uncomfortable stage in pregnancy. My stress level was through the roof dealing with my other kids and preparing for a new baby. Essential oils became my very best friend. They calmed my house down tremendously and brought some much needed peace for all. Once again I was praising God for these tools. 

We started noticing some changes in Brave-One within days of using essential oils. He was able to focus more and be "in the moment" so much more. Before he was a child with severe anger and fits of rages quite frequently. He began connecting, laughing, and not being so afraid. I felt like I was meeting my true son for the first time. It was beautiful. 

I was super excited to begging using these oils for all things pregnancy related. I remember sitting at dinner one night and could feel all the acid start to build up. One drop of peppermint oil under the tongue and that acid was gone! These oils started going with me everywhere.