Silent Sunday

126 Days, No Shampoo!

It has been exactly 126 days since I last washed my hair with shampoo. 

I started this experiment on a whim, I saw a blog post on the subject of 'no poo' and thought, that could be interesting, I'm gonna give that it a go and here I am 126 days later and I still haven't washed my hair with shampoo!

It's been quite difficult really as you have to find an alternative to shampoo that works best with you own hair type. 

I started washing with an egg and lemon wash and it was working great. My hair was always lovely and soft afterwards and then about three weeks ago it all went wrong and I have no idea why? After I had used my egg and lemon wash my hair was heavy and almost waxy. It was very odd. 

So I decided to start using bicarbonate of soda and apple cyder vinegar instead. That worked really well and I now use that instead. 

The only problem with the cyder vinegar is that it smells, a lot! However once your hair is dry there is no smell at all, just don't get it wet again unless you are in your own shower. I took my kiddies swimming last week and forgot about the vinegar and got my hair wet, it was not good, I smelt like a mobile fish and chip van!

So aside from me going into major panic every time it rains and I have no umbrella, the new alternative to shampoo seems to be working well, for now!

Oh and I also finally caved and dyed my hair and yes it was with horrible toxin filled, really bad for you, bottled stuff. I searched for alternative dyes but there doesn't seem to be much out there (if you know of one please let me know) and a lot of products claim to be 'all natural' when in fact they are not, it's confusing! The plan was to wait until the sun came out and just put lemon on my hair to bleach it but the sun is still yet to make a proper apperance and I got fed up of waiting. I also thought that perhaps the cassia obovata that I have been using might of lightened it a bit. It didn't! 

So there you have it my 'no poo' experience so far.

  Previous posts on this subject

 To Wash or Not To Wash

Goodbye Shampoo 

Week Two of Social Suicide 

Week Three of Social Suicide

Week Four of Social Suicide 

50 Days and No Shampoo 

Teaching Your Child To Read

A while ago now we were sent a reading programme to try out and I thought I'd do an update as to how it's going.

Well it's fantastic, my son can now read some quite long sentances and he is only four! I have tried to make a few videos for you so that you can see for yourselves. They aren't great quality as they were filmed on my phone and there also only 1 minute each. (Sorry I will get better at all this tecnology stuff one day).

So here is the first video... 

 

We have been working through the programme every night just before bedtime story and he really enjoys it. 

We have been doing it with my daughter too but she doesn't really have a great attention span at the moment (she's only two) although she is definitley picking up bits as we go along. (I will try to get some videos of her, although she is a little camera shy).

 I really cannot rate this reading programme highly enough, it has been great for my son and I have no doubt that he will be reading fully by the time he goes to school in September.


 

If you have any questions about the programme I would be happy to answer them.

You can find the reading programme on their website 

  www.childrenlearningreading.com

Happy Easter

Thrifty Pirate Party

For my sons birthday this year we decided to have a pirate theme. He is just slightly obssessed with pirates at the moment thanks to Jake and the Neverland Pirates!

 As always I hate spending money so I needed to come up with some money saving ideas, as parties can be pretty expensive events these days. Once you've paid for all of the food, decoration, party bags and cake it all adds up. To try and save some money I always aim to make as many of the decorations as I can, like for example the cups...

I brought a massive pack of Tesco value plain white cups which cost pennies. I then printed off the above image from the web (I cannot find the original source for this, if it's you please shout). I then cut it out and stuck it onto all of the cups. It was quite time consuming but worth it I think. As cups with pre-printed design on can cost you around £2.00 for a pack of 8 where as I only paid 55p for a pack of 25!

 I also stuck some on some old beer bottles that we had lying around ready for recycling, just to add some more decoration to the table.

Like my daughters Enchanted Forest Party that we had last year I made up name labels for all of the food. This is the fun bit...

I made the labels myself by printing off images from the web and sticking them all together. The little flags I brought online and I believe they cost me about £2 for a pack of 50!

I also wanting to get some healthy food in there somewhere...

 The party food doesn't have to be expensive, if you shop around you can find some great deals. I personally like to use a lot of the value range party foods that you can find in most supermarkets. Kids don't care in the slightest about how much the food cost. Here's the party boy enjoying his value party snowballs...

I started to worry about finding my son a pirate outfit for the day. Every pirate outfit I found online seemed to cost between £15 - £25 which is way more than I was prepared to spend on an outfit that he would only wear once! Until luck would have it I went into our local charity shop on my weekly recky and came across a pirate outfit and it was only £1...

For the table decorations I was able to use the paper plates that we had left over from my daughters party and make it work with the new theme, from toadstools to pirates. I also brought a few bags of gold coins in advance at Christmas in our local pound shop to scatter across the tables. The gold on the table were rocks from the garden that I spray painted with gold spray, again form the pound shop...

For the party bags I brought the red and white striped paper bags online at very low cost. I printed the name labels off on my computer and stuck them on. I then just used some string I had at home to tie them off. I thought they turned out pretty good...

So there you have it, a thrifty pirate party. I think everyone enjoyed themselves...

I'm linking up with Faith, Hope and Charity Shopping's linky Ta Dah Tuesday

Teach a Two Year Old to Read - Update

I thought I'd do an update on how we are getting on with our 'Children Learning Reading Programme'.

  

We are now 5 weeks into the programme and I feel it is going really well. My son (who's 4) is now able to recognise quite a few different letters and can now read quite a few words completely on his own. (Which I think for a 4 year old is pretty good). We probably would have been further along with the programme if I had stuck to it religiously every day, which I admit I haven't (life gets in the way).

You are suppose to do each lesson (which don't take more than 5 minutes) at least twice a day, where as we have only being doing it once a day at the moment. Even so I feel my son is really starting to get to grips with it now and has finally mastered the art of 'blending'. (You can find out more about this on the website).

My daughter who's 2 can also now recognise quite a few different letters and everywhere we go now all I hear is the two of them shouting out letters whenever they see them on signs.

We are all really enjoying spending time together learning the letters and new words and at this rate I reckon my son will be able to read by the time he goes to school in September!

I will keep you updated with our progress and I will try and post up some videos so you can see for yourselves, (that is if first I can work out how to record it and second how to put it on here!)

If you like some more information on this reading programme then check out their website...

 www.childrenlearningreading.com

Thrifty Finds Of The Week

This week I have found some great thrifty finds in charity shops and also at a local jumble sale.

First off I found these gorgeous picture frames at a charity shop in Exeter, £3 each...

  

I brought them with the intention of putting my own pictures of the kids in them but when I got them home I realised that it wasn't very easy to get the pictures out, so I have left them in. I think the original pictures are growing on me though.

I also found this retro pot to go in my kitchen for only £1.00...

After I had finished raiding the charity shops I headed off to the jumble sale where I got a load of great bargains...

 All the adult clothes were 50p each and the childrens clothes were only 20p! So I stocked up...

My favourite item by far was this lovely knit jumper...

I also love this vintage style top for my daughter...

 So what about you, found any great bargains this week?

I'm linking up with Magpie Monday over at Me & My Shadow