Our Journey into Essential Oils

Or more appropriately named, our field trip into essential oils!

If you're anything like me, you've heard your mom, your neighbor and your neighbor's four year old all talk about essential oils. How good they smell, how amazing they are for absolutely everything, and how they'll pretty much change your life. It all sounded good enough, but I'm one of those "I'll look into it more when I have time", and then when that minute of time comes up I usually spend it either hiding in the bathroom eating cake or sleeping. Priorities, am I right? As time went on, more and more people were talking about it, until friends were hosting classes on oils and setting up playdates to teach other mamas what EO are all about. 'I should really get in on that,' I thought while shoveling cake into my mouth in the sanctuary of my locked bathroom. But when DoTerra representative Barbara contacted me telling me she wanted to send me some essential oil samples, I knew it was time to do my research! We live a very healthy and natural lifestyle (besides said cake) and Barbara assured me that EO's would get me on an even healthier path. I excitedly started looking into how to use essential oils.

.. And can I just say here that you can use them for pretty much anything?! Barbara sent me an amazing list before her package arrived, 101 uses for DoTerra essential oils, and it kind of blew me away. I knew EOs were great for cleaning and had some healing properties but I didn't know much beyond that. Some of the uses that immediately caught my eyes were lemon oil to naturally remove gum from hair, as an energy booster and as a non-toxic furniture polish, lavender to help calm allergies and as a natural stress reliever, and peppermint as a natural way to relieve an upset stomach and a way to repel spiders. If you can relate as a mom, woman, or anyone who has a ridiculous fear of spiders, then like me you probably just said "yep I need all of that."

I was so stoked when our essential oils got here and they couldn't have arrived at a better time. Our entire household was sick and not sleeping well -- I couldn't even lay down without coughing! We immediately put the oils to use. We all got a bit of lavender on our pillows, and I applied peppermint oil directly to dad's chest. The next morning when we woke up, we'd not only slept well but felt like we could function! Even better, Emmy slept through the night without a peep (okay scratch that, we did hear her say "choo choo" in her sleep just once). It took us a few days but with the help of our new essential oils we were able to stay comfortable as we fought off our sickness without antibiotics or cold medicine, which has always been important to me but even more so now that I'm a mother.

Since then I'm pretty much a firm believer and have been using our oils in everything around the house. We've been making our own cleaning products for a few months and a few drops of lemon or lavender EO actually make cleaning enjoyable! One of my favorite things is being able to have an amazing smelling house without upsetting dad's allergies and the EOs do that for us and then some -- our neighbors popped by the other day with cookies and immediately asked us what kind of candle we were using. They were so surprised to find out that it was just a drop of peppermint oil when I had mopped the floors earlier! Being the mom of a toddler there's always those eternal messes you can never seem to get rid of, and although I'm seemingly always cleaning up it makes me proud that my home smells welcoming and lovely.

I still have a few uses left of our essential oils and I'm torn for what to use them for while my next order is on it's way to me in the mail! I'd love to know what you use EO's for during your and your little's days or if you have any magical ways to use these babies that I missed out on. Leave a comment and let me know, and don't forget to check out the awesome Barbara Ward's doTerra page at http://www.mydoterra.com/barbaraward1/. Thank you for the EO's Barbara, this obsession couldn't have been started without you!