Substitutions for Over the Counter Drugs:

Frankincense: Neosporin, Tylenol, Motrin, Wrinkle creams, calming and stress drugs

Lavender: Neosporin, Motrin, Aleve, Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, Imodium A-D, Solarcaine, ear drops, Desitin, Claritin, Unisom, Simply Sleep

Lemon: Tylenol, Motrin, Children's Motrin, Children's Tylenol, Tums, ear drops, Imodium A-D, Pepto-Bismol, Mylanta

Melaleuca: ear drops, dandruff shampoo, Denorex, acne scrubs, Chloraseptic, DayQuil, NyQuil, Ricola, Neosporin, Denenex

Oregano: Freeze Away, NyQuil, DayQuil, Tums, Tylenol, Aleve, Pepto-Bismol, Mylanta, Desenex

Peppermint: Pepto-Bismol, Imodium A-D, Tums, Motrin, Aleve, DayQuil, NyQuil, Mentholatum, Tylenol, Shower Soothers, Tylenol Cold, Claritin, NoDoz, Preparation H

Breathe: NyQuil, Benadryl, vaporizer refills, Mentholatum, Sudafed, DayQuil, inhalers, Shower Soothers

Deep Blue: Ben Gay, Aleve, Excedrin, Tylenol, Motrin, Sportscreme, Celebrex, Humira

DigestZen: Imodium A-D, Pepto-Bismol, Tums, Mylanta, Alka-Seltzer, Mentholatum, Sudafed

On Guard: Listerine, Scope, Cepacol, Germ-X, Purell, Sani Hands, TheraFlu, Ricola, Desenex, NicoDerm CQ, Habitrol

Weight Loss and Maintenance!

Last Tuesday we went to a doTERRA retreat where we learned about their new weight loss program. The amazing thing about this program is that not only will you lose weight and feel amazing you will also be able to maintain your weight loss! Trent and I are both starting this program and will posting pictures and keeping everybody up to date with our progress and what we are doing.

Ants

This last summer we had an ant problem. Every morning we would wake up to 20-30 ants crawling around on our kitchen floor. I tried and tried to figure out where they were coming from, but had no luck. I also set up little ant traps around the kitchen and did not have any success there either. They just kept coming. Now I usually look in my "Modern Essentials" book to figure out which oils to use and I know that they do have an oil for bugs, but I found my solution on my own. I was sick at the time and had a really bad sore throat so every few hours I would put a drop of Onguard on my tongue. It was in the middle of the night and because I was half awake I dropped the bottle on my kitchen floor right where the ants usually were and the bottle broke spilling the Onguard everywhere. After a few days I noticed that the ants had stopped showing up and I have not seen a single ant since then! I definitely wouldn't recommend breaking a bottle to get rid of a bug problem, but what I thought was really cool about this is I went into doTERRA's corporate office here in Orem, Utah and told them what happened and they gave me a whole new bottle of Onguard for free!

Shots

Today I took Lily to the Doctor for her 9 month check up. She is doing very well, tall and skinny. Luckily she only needed one shot today, but still that's one shot. She got her flu booster and the nurse told me that this would probably be more painful than the usual immunizations and she would most likely get a fever. I remember Adalynn would always be cranky for days following her shots and she always got a fever as well. I would usually give her Tylenol and suffer through. It was such a pain trying to figure out how much Tylenol I could give her and having to wait until I could give her another dose even though she was already in pain again. I even remember when Lily was really tiny and before I was introduced to the oils I went to the store following the dr. to pick up some medicine only to be told that most of the infant medicine had been pulled off the shelves. That was not a good day. And it is really scary to think you give your little baby something that has been pulled of the shelf? Today has been a lot different. Right now I am typing this as Lily takes a nap in her crib. When we got home she was already feeling a little warm so I rubbed a tiny bit of peppermint oil on her feet and the back of her neck and some lavender oil on her thigh where she received her shot to help with the stiffness and help her relax. When Lily wakes up I won't have to wait a certain amount of time until I can put some more oil on her. If she is warm I will just rub on some more peppermint because you can't overdose on these oils like you can with medications. Now as a mom which would you choose?

Teething

My poor Lily is teething. She is now nine months and is getting 4 teeth on top, the poor little thing! She is also VERY VERY CRANKY! So I have been using Lavender. I just rub a tiny bit on her gums and some on her feet and spine to help her relax and calm down.

Oh Puke!

One month ago both of my little girls got the stomach flu. My 8 month old Lily was the first victim. She woke up more mellow than usual and was just sitting on the floor instead
of her usual crawling all over the place. Then she threw up. Now it is normal for babies to spit up, but this was full out throwing up. I went to my modern essentials book and saw that the recommendations for throwing up were Peppermint and ginger. I did not have ginger at the time, but knew that the blend Digestzen did, so that what I used. I rubbed Peppermint and Digestzen on the bottoms of her feet and Digestzen on her tummy. She did not throw up again. I was amazed and so thankful! Two days later my toddler Adalynn was having a hard night and was crying in her room. Around midnight I went into her room and could tell that she had been throwing up and it was everywhere because she had been moving all around (The joys of motherhood!). I got the same oils that I had used on Lily and did the same thing again: bottoms of feet and stomach. Adalynn was sicker than Lily had been and it took about 3 hours for her to stop throwing up, but I just kept rubbing the oils on. Three hours was wonderful to me because the last time Adalynn had the flu she threw up every 20 minutes for hours to the point where she had thrown up over 30 times and it was terrible. As a mom it was great to be able to help her so quickly and I only wish I had known about the oils the first time. I also diffused a third oil around the clock: OnGuard which is one of my favorites. It has the power to kill all airborne bacteria and VIRUSES.

Oh vetiver, I sure do love you!!!!

My two year old Adalynn is a very busy and energetic girl to say the least. She also has an extremely stubborn personality. There have been many nights that it has taken HOURS to get her to go to sleep. She would throw huge tantrums that would involve a lot of kicking, screaming, hitting etc. The most common oil recommended for calming is Lavender and it worked great for my baby, but Adalynn? No! It didn't even seem to phase her at all. So I was on a quest to find something that would work for her. Somebody finally suggested that I try Vetiver. I had never heard of that before, but I bought it. It has a very woodsy and earthy smell. The first time I used it was a Sunday night and Adalynn had gone to sleep good because she had not had a nap that day, but she woke up screaming. We now know that she was having a night terror because she was overly tired, but at the time we had no idea. We would try to comfort her, but that only seemed to make it worse. This was worse than any tantrum she had ever had. She just kept screaming like she didn't know who we were or where she was. I was crying at this point because she seemed terrified of us and I didn't know what to do to help comfort her and calm her down. After an hour I finally remembered that I had the oils (Duh!). We rubbed some Vetiver on the bottoms of her feet and along her spine. And this is when I fell in love with Vetiver. Within a minute we finally saw Adalynn relax and she stopped screaming. She went and climbed on the couch and fell asleep and we were able to take her back to bed. It is now a regular routine to rub Vetiver on her feet and back and Adalynn loves to put some on her finger and rub it on her belly. No, the Vetiver doesn't always work as well as it did that night. She is still a two year old who hates going to bed and is still as stubborn as ever, but her tantrums are NOTHING like they used to be. (Note to anybody who tries this oil: It is very thick like syrup so you would need to take the stopper at the top off or it won't come out).