Laundry.

Laundry. Often, or always, a dirty word to a Mom, depending on how you look at it.

There will always be laundry to do.  Even when I work extra hard to get it all cycled through the washer...before long the evening comes, everyone gets ready for bed...& BAM - there is another heap of dirty clothing awaiting attention.

That little truth is one of the major reasons I stopped trying to have one dedicated "laundry day"during the week.  It became too discouraging, not to mention a lot of hard work and restless hours on the washer and dryer (by far the hardest working appliances in our home).  Now, I pace myself and pretty much do a load or two every day. Sure, this way there is never rest from it, but it seems easier to attack. I have tried other techniques and new habits to try to improve on this area of domesticated life. Some have worked. Some haven't.  Bottom line is it is a big job, and somebody has to do it. Little by little I am trying to make that "somebody" be more than only me.

Sometimes, when I am the good, patient Mom, I encourage these boys to sort, switch loads, and even try to fold. But I struggle with consistency. And all that work of folding and then seeing the neatly folded t-shirts topple out of their little hands to the floor, or be dumped upside down into the drawer....ahhhhhh.

Instead, I took the more fun approach to involve the boys in laundry: making homemade soap! I recently made my first attempt at it. My blogging friend, Devin, claims it as a good thing - and she shared her recipe & step by step picture process so me and my little ones took a stab at it.  This post is dedicated to Devin & Lola with thanks for their inspiration for a fun morning of mixing and stirring and load after load of clean clothing to come!

Hudson LOVED stirring.

Can you tell? Ha!

Pierce thought it looked a little like puke :)

Mixing it all together.

Happy helpers.

Carefully adding water.

So far so good!  Clothes are coming out nice & clean! Can't complain when you save money and have fun doing it all at the same time. My only critique is that this wonderful homemade laundry soap still does not result in automatically folded clothes falling out of the dryer and into the appropriate closet- with each and every sock paired up and every t-shirt in the correct pile.

Any chance you could tweak that Devin??  :)