Kids + Oils Make and Take

Friday night I hosted a Kids + Oils Halloween Make & Take and it was so fun! What's a Make & Take, you ask? Well, you (usually) come to someone's home and make stuff with essential oils, then take it home with you! The items can range from DIY beauty/skin care stuff (think sugar scrubs, face toners, etc.), to cleaning items (dust spray, household cleaner), to immune boosting/overall wellness stuff. You name it, there is probably a recipe for it! That is the beauty of essential oils. You can replace most of the products in your home with things that you make with your oils, and most of the time you can make it at a fraction of the price of store bought stuff and 100% of the time it is better for you! 

Here is what we made:

"Along Came a Spider" Bug Spray
This bug spray is awesome because you can do away with DEET or other bug repellants that contain some really harmful ingredients that are actually toxic for us. 

Add the following oils to a 2 oz. spray bottle:

3-5 drops Purification
3-5 drops Thieves
3-5 drops Peppermint

Swirl the oils around. Top with 1 oz. of witch hazel and 1 oz. of distilled water. Swirl again to combine. Spray on body to enjoy the outdoors annoyance-free! Well, from bugs anyway. I can't make any promises about anything else! :)

"Monsters Away" Bedtime Spray
Add the following oils to a 2 oz. spray bottle:

10 drops Lavender
10 drops Cedarwood
5 drops Orange (optional)

Swirl the oils to combine. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water. Spray on blankets and pillows to promote a restful night's sleep. Can also spray under the bed or in closet, or anywhere else monsters may be hiding!

"Little Monsters" Body Wash
I LOVE the smell of lavender and lemongrass together. I love the smell of them alone too! This body wash is so great and it gives me such peace of mind knowing that all of the ingredients in it are safe and pure! 

1/8 cup baby castille soap
Tiny pour of grape seed oil
5 drops Lavender
3 drops Lemongrass (optional)

Add all ingredients to a 50 ml foaming pump bottle and top with distilled water. You can use this on your little monster's hair and body! (I got my bottles from Life Science Publishing, but you can definitely make a larger batch of this and put in a larger container. The 50 ml bottles are small so they are great for traveling! Comment below if you'd like the recipe for a larger container.)

And we added Orange and Cinnamon Bark essential oils to homemade play dough! It smells so good! My daughter likes me to sit with her while she plays with her play dough, and I find myself smelling it just because it smells delicious! It's important that if you make this one and add Orange EO to it that you keep it in a glass jar. (I find these in the dollar/Bullseye section at my local Target all the time.) Citrus oils will leach toxins out of plastic and we don't want to expose these toxins to our kids!  

The little ones had a BLAST running around and playing! A couple of them sat down to make stuff with their parents but most just had fun playing! I loved seeing them play together. Made my heart full!

Have you ever hosted or been to a Make and Take? What kind of items did you make? 

You may be wondering if essential oils are safe for kids. I use and recommend Young Living Essential Oils. When using them on kids or diffusing around them, you just want to make sure to go low and slow since their bodies are so much tinier than ours. Always dilute when applying topically! I use them for various things to support my daughter's health, and I was pleasantly surprised at how effective they were when I first started using them. I appreciate the fact that I can relieve any discomfort that she experiences, while not having to pump synthetics in her tiny perfect body. Essential oils support our body systems so that everything functions the way it is supposed to, thereby relieving symptoms, and I love this approach. I'd MUCH rather do this rather than mask symptoms the way that medication does. Plus there are no side effects like you get with medication. This is not to say we never use it, we just rarely (and I mean RARELY) have to now that we use oils! If you are interested in getting started with essential oils and using them to support your health or your children's health, please comment below! 

Road trip to Utah!

A couple of weeks ago, my husband, daughter and I took a road trip to Utah. We met some friends up there and stayed in cute little cabins right on Provo river. It was absolutely gorgeous! The mist on the water in the mornings was so cool. There's just something about being near the water. I wish we could have spent more time there! 

The view from our cabin. Just beautiful!

While we were there, we took the kids to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. There were jumpers, little wooden playhouses, slides galore, face painting, a little tractor-pulled train, and mining for treasures. We were there for hours and didn't even see the whole thing! It was 11.95 per person (Monday-Thursday, 14.95 Friday and Saturday), and so worth it! I definitely recommend it if you are in the area or are going to be passing through and have little ones. They had a blast!  

This girl lives for face painting!

We also visited the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum in SLC and I have to say, the children's museums around here don't even come close! In all fairness, we haven't been to Pretend City and some of the other museums in our area. But as far as our local children's museum goes, this one blew it out of the water! Nellie had a blast in just about every exhibit. Her favorite was the cute little retro home, the store, and she loved working on a truck as a mechanic! My grandpa would be proud!

My favorite was the YL Lavender Farm exhibit! I had no idea this was going to be there, but it was a nice surprise! Especially because we were going to visit the real Lavender Farm the next day!

I was really looking forward to visiting the YL Lavender Farm in Mona, and it did not disappoint. The farm was so beautiful and clean. Everywhere you looked, there was something fun to check out. My husband and daughter loved it too! The people there were so nice. We were given a tour of the distillery and got to see juniper being distilled. I think it is so cool that an essential oils company owns their own farms and distilleries and that they are open to the public. That kind of transparency really impresses me! We took our time there and really enjoyed the grounds. There was a cool little western town that my husband loved, and a play structure with swings and a slide so we let Nellie play for awhile. We all had a blast! Again, if you live in the area or are traveling through Utah, this place is a must-see. The farm is set against the beautiful Utah mountains, and the setting is so peaceful and pristine. My favorite part of the farm was the gift shop! Some things never change! 

About to get my NingXia Red slushie. I was a happy girl!

We'd all love to go back!