In 7 Minutes or Less

  Yesterday I had 7 minutes to spare.  Mary-Kate was napping, and Allison was content eating a snack at the table (very rare).  I decided to do a few things that I've been wanting to try for awhile.  I decided to make body scrub and blowing bubbles.
  The body scrub:
       1 Cup sugar
       Slightly more than a 1/3 Cup olive oil
      10-15 drop essential oil
    Mix all ingredients and store in a jar.
  The results were great!  I made 2 kinds, lavendar for nighttime and orange mint for morning.  My skin is so soft.  I will definitely be making this for gifts.  I just need to learn to make cute labels.

  Blowing bubbles:
    3/4 Cup water
    1/4 Cup Dish soap
    1/2 Tbs glycerin or corn syrup
   Mix ingredients and leave in an open container (left mine in the mixing cup) overnight.  It was super windy today, and the bubbles worked great.  The glycerin made the bubbles super strong and wind resistant.  Once we get done with the gallon of milk in the fridge, I'll be making a gallon of the solution to have on hand.  Plus, I'm trying to use the dish soap so that I can make my own dish soap. 
  There you have it, you can make simple things in very little time.  The only reason I know how long it took was because I was talking to my husband on the phone while doing all of it. :)

How I Spend Most of My Time

  If you look at my blog lately, you think I have all the time in the world to do all this stuff.  You couldn't be more wrong.  I have 10 mins here, 30 mins there.  I spend most of my time with my girls and taking care of them.  Here is a typical day with a 2.5 yr old and 10 month old:
   5/5:30--Allison wakes up and gets to watch tv while I get up and get ready, start laundry, make Brandon's lunch if he's home, clean, make breakfast, and whatever else I can think of
  7/7:30--MK wakes up, and Allison stops watching tv. I nurse her and when finished and if it's MWF, I vacuum and steam mop afterwards
  8--breakfast (usually Allison's snack by this point)
  9-11--MK naps.  Allison and I go outside and play or play inside depending on the weather, but we play the WHOLE 2 hours
 11--nurse MK again and then get lunch ready
 11:30/11:45--lunch
 Depending what time we get done with lunch, we will run a quick errand, but we have to be back before 1:30 for MK's afternoon nap.
  1:30/2--MK naps.  Allison gets to watch a movie on my bed, rest, and eat a snack (usually almonds).  During this time, I prep dinner, eat my lunch or juice, pay bills, return phone calls and e-mails, finish up laundry, and do whatever else I can think of
 3:00/3:30--MK wakes up, and I nurse again.  We then run errands but hurry back b/c the girls are ready for dinner between 4:30 and 5.
 5:30--bathtime
 6:30--girls go to bed.  I then eat dinner if I didn't have time to feed myself, clean the house, do any little DIY things, get my juicer ready for in the morning, stuff diapers if it's MWF, and then maybe get on the computer. 
  I try to get to bed between 8:30 and 9.  I'm goal is to get used to going to bed early so that I can get up before 5 and have some alone time when I have energy (I'm a big morning person).  It has yet to happen.  I guess my body needs all the sleep. 
  One thing I've decided to start doing during the day once a week with Allison is a craft, something more than coloring, painting, and play dough.  Those are daily things.  I am not a crafty person, but I'm ready to have some fun with my baby and watch her imagination explode.  Here is our 1st craft (stole the idea from MOPS):

  She liked it for a minute.  I did most of it.  Even though I would like to do this once a week, I know reality will hit.  I won't always make it to the store every week, but I'm looking forward to the projects we might potentially do.
  Man, I need to go to bed.  I can't focus.  Time for bed.  I'm up late.  It's 9:15. ;)

Bottomless Vanilla Extract!

  I bake a lot and use a lot of vanilla, so I was so excited to find this in the Farm Store the other day.  It's so easy that I might make into gifts someday.  It's a recipe for bottomless vanilla extract.  It takes a month for the extract to be ready, but it's worth it to have extra for years.  Here are the easy steps:
  1. Get a 10-12 oz bottle that seals tightly (I think a mason jar will work fine)
  2. Split 3 vanilla beans and then cut them in cross sections
  3.  Place beans into bottle
  4.  Fill bottle with light rum
  5.  Close bottle and shake
  6. Store bottle in a dark place
  7.  Shake bottle occasionally for 4 weeks
  8.  As you use the extract, replace volume with the rum.

Here is a picture of my extract just a 2 days after I started the process:

The Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth

  One I like is great teeth.  Seriously.  Back when Brandon and I were dating and he told me he had a fake tooth, I had to think about our relationship and if I could handle a flawed mouth.  Anyway, for a few years my teeth have been extremely sensitive, and it's all due to over brushing and brushing too hard.  I switched to super soft toothbrushes and sensitive toothpaste.  Recently, my teeth were even more sensitive with the sensitive toothpaste.  With all my DIY stuff, I decided to look into making my own toothpaste.
  Well, did you know fluoride is outlawed in most of Europe?  It's not good for your teeth at all.  There are so many natural ways to clean your teeth and make them strong and healthy.  One way is gargle pure cranberry juice, and another is way is tooth soap.
  Tooth soap?  It's exactly what it sounds like, and it is super easy to make. 

  Here are the ingredients: 

    1 T Castile soap

    5 T coconut oil

    1 T olive oil

    Essential oil

    Clean dispenser

 Mix all the ingredients

 Put mixture in dispenser and use

    Ok, I have to admit these are my pictures of my 1st attempt.  I had to redo it.  I melted the coconut oil the 1st time around, and it didn't work.  2nd time, I warmed up the oil to soften it, and then mixed with the others.  I added quite a bit of peppermint and orange oils.  The verdict:  it tastes like flavorless soap.  But, my teeth feel super clean, and my breath doesn't seem to get bad as quickly even in the morning.  I'm giving it a month before I make my final decision on it, but so far no nerve pain.

Bribery with Fruit Snacks

  1st off, I'm not pushing Allison to potty train, but we have found some type of agreement.  Until now when I mentioned the potty, she would run away and act like a cat getting near water.  Now when I offer fruit snacks, she happily sit on the potty while eating them (and has the phone).  She has yet to pee in the potty, but sitting on it is a big improvement. 

  Since fruit snacks is her new thing, I thought I would make my own since the store bought ones are so bad, filled with corn syrup and artificial colors and flavors.  They were somewhat a success.  They are made out of fruit (strawberries in this case) applesauce, apple juice, and gelatin.  Allison likes them just fine, but I think I will tweak it a little.  More fruit of whatever kind I'm making, and instead of apple juice, I'll make juice from the fruit with my juicer. 

See I even make Lego shapes. (they are the only molds I have)

 I even separated them in 1 oz servings in little baggies.  It made 12 baggies. 

It's Greek to Me!

  I've been making my own yogurt for awhile now.  I use a crockpot recipe, and it's pretty good.  Since it's homemade, it's a little on the runny side.  Makes you wonder what they do to the store bought ones to make them thick.  A while back I read how to make Greek yogurt but just never did it.  It's super easy and yummy!  After making the yogurt, you just drain the yogurt in a cheesecloth for 8 hrs (do it for 24 hrs, and it becomes cream cheese!).  I didn't have a cheesecloth, so I cut an old pillowcase in half.  It worked well.

Here's my yogurt draining.

 Here is all the leftover whey:

  That's a lot of whey!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  It's good for months and full of nutrients.  I've done some research, and I can make soda, replace water in recipes, bathe with it.  Right now I just add some to my juices and drink it.  Tomorrow I'm going to soak some oats and then cook it.  Suppose to make oatmeal much more nutitrious.  I'm such there will be more posts on what I end up doing with it.

8 to 4 in 20

  In December, Brandon, the girls, and I took a road trip to Texas, and after all the traveling and fast food, I just felt yucky and ready to commit to the lifestyle I've been wanting for awhile.  For a long time, I've felt that people eat too much animal products, and when they eat animal products, it's full of hormones, drugs, and who knows what. 
  After all the yucky fast food, I really wanted to detox but knew I couldn't since I still breastfeed 4-5 times a day (I'm still burning 500+ calories a day), so I decided to go vegan for 3 weeks, http://www.21daykickstart.org/.  I got the free app for my phone, and it had great recipes and ideas.  After a week of it though, reality hit.  Having 2 babies and a husband, I did not have time to cook 3 different meals for mealtime (I make MK's baby food), but after doing the vegan diet for a week, I felt really good and dropped a pants' size.  I needed to find a compromise.
  During the vegan week, I watched a few documentaries that I had heard about but never watched, Food Inc. and Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead.  Both supported how I felt, and I convinced Brandon to watch Food Inc.  After watching that, he saw my point of view, well at least in buying organic local animal products.  Even though he didn't watch the 2nd one, he bought me a juicer (I've been wanting one for a few years now).  Also during this time, my friend Danell told me about the GAPS diet, http://www.gapsdiet.com/.  I don't feel like I need to do the full blown diet but did agree that I needed more probiotics and with some of its eating techniques, like juicing.
  After all this nutritional information I came up with my own diet/way of life, and I got the juicer last week.  I have basically cut out all dairy except for homemade yogurt made out of organic raw whole milk and few store bought probiotic drinks, Bio Salud (88 cents at Walmart!) and Lifeway's kefir.  I also try to limit my meat and other animal products to one serving a day.  The rest of the day is filled with fruit, veggies, whole grains, and homemade bread.  Here is a sample menu of my day:

1st thing in the morning, I juice all this and drink this and a probiotic.

 A few hours later, I eat either yogurt or oatmeal, both with local raw honey.

Then at lunch, I have this or with sandwich:

 For an afternoon snack, I juice something like this or something more veggie based:

 And this is my typical dinner.  See the small portion of meat!

 And my dessert if I need something sweet.

  For some reason if I'm still hungry in between all this, I eat nuts, more fruits or veggies, or homemade oatmeal cream pies (not healthy at all but oh, well) or other homemade treats.  If I'm thirsty, I drink water or almond milk.  Even though I've only done this for a week, I feel great (still tired after chasing babies all day) and dropped another pants size! 

  Now, I'm not becoming a food snob b/c if someone offers to cook for me, I'll eat what they serve but not too often.  Example, last night I went out with my MOPS group.  We had lasagna, cheesecake, and all sorts of bad stuff.  It was good, but honestly, I felt really bad.  I came home, drank a probiotic, and couldn't wait for my detox drink (apples and carrots) in the morning. 

 I hope I can keep up with new lifestyle and hope the rest of my family will willingly join me.