Homemade probiotics

I have been looking for a good vitamin for my kids, and for me.  Ones that only have the stuff I want in them none of this added extra sugar or weird ingredients that don't need to be in there.
I finally found a good recipie that the kids like and actually love.  They make sure to tell me to get them out in the morning. 
They are from the wellness mama of course. That is where I get all of my good tasting recipes.
This one has 4 simple basic ingredients.

• 1 cup pure juice.  So we have been using grape juice that we canned just a few weeks ago.  Or some apple juice.  
• 8 teaspoons gelatin powder.  I got the one she uses and its great. I bought one from the store before and it did not taste good and it left it gritty almost. This one has great ingredients and it gels up nicely. 
• 2 tablespoons honey if you want.
• Then you can add probiotics, vitamin c, magnesium.  Whatever vitamin you want.  We usually do a probiotic in one batch and a vitamin c in another.  I found somewhere that she said 2 teaspoons of which ever vitamin you are using per batch.  

The probiotic that I use comes in capsules so I have to emtpy them out and measure them out.  It is a great probiotic though so its worth it.  

Then you heat it up and add the vitamin after its cooled down a little bit.    

Then I got these silicone molds that I pour them into and each batch fills three of these trays.  

So we have a bunch to make it fun.  The kids love to choose the shapes. That is half the fun of the vitamins is what shape they get to choose.  

These are the ingredients for the probiotic ones 

These are the vitamin c ones. 

I have been really pleased with the results the kids love to take them and I feel like they are getting a better vitamin than any I could buy.  I know exactly what is in these.  They are quick and easy to make and very inexpensive.  

The kids also love to help poke them out of the molds once they have firmed up.  I put them in the fridge for probably 5-8 hours.  I line the molds with coconut oil so they wont stick and it works wonderful.

These are some of the fun shapes we have.  Dinosaurs, animals of course, stars,  seashells, robots, hearts, small hearts and gummy bear shaped one. 

I am really hoping these vitamins will help keep away all of those colds this winter along with other things we do.  

Here comes #4

Here is part of the reason I have been such a slacker for a few months.  

We are excited to be expecting baby #4 at our house.  The kids were so excited when we told them.  Lexi has been asking for a baby sister for a while, so we will see if we can make that happen.  We haven't been able to see it yet despite trying for the last two appointments.  I guess "it" wants to remain a mystery for a while more.   The suspense is killing me though. I just want to know.
I am lucky that I am never terribly sick with my pregnancies.  Usually if I just eat little snacks all day long I can feel pretty good.

It has been a great fun summer but I have been so exhausted and tired.  I don't ever remember being this tired when I was pregnant.   I don't know if it's just that I have 3 other kids running around needing my help or just that I"m older. haha or both.   Luckily I was able to take a few naps here and there.  The kids were nice enough to play nicely for a little bit some days.

Everything with baby appears healthy and good.  So that is good.  I plan on doing a natural birth again with the hypnobabies method. I loved it and thought it was so much better than the previous two births.  I have been listening and practicing my hypnobaby tracks and remembering how to relax and take time to dedicate that time to me and the baby.  Its always nice and relaxing just what I need these days.   I really look forward to seeing how this birth will be different and the same as some of the others.  I also REALLY look forward to snuggling that newborn baby they are so sweet and little.  Its seems like forever since Sawyer was a newborn.  I miss that stage.

I am excited to see how the kids will be with  a new baby.  Max is so sweet with his little neices and nephews it will be cute to see him with our own baby.  Sawyer is old enough to help out.  It will be nice to have  him be older than any of my others were when we have a newborn.  I know Lexi will be great and will be such a help.  I am excited.

So we found out that its a baby girl. Lexi was thrilled to say the least and so was I.  I wanted to use all of those cute girl clothes that Lexi wore and I have accumulated a few more since then.  I also have been hording some other girl things like blankets and cute leather shoes.  My sister has started a bow business and I'm excited to have girl things again.  It will be great.  We are all super excited to finally know the gender.

We are a little over half way and I am still loving and enjoying every minute.  I am lucky to have pretty easy pregnancies overall.  I am glad that I can enjoy it.  I have started to really feel her kick and move around.  I love feeling that. I remember after Sawyer was born I really missed feeling that.  So I am glad to feel it again.

So here is to our next big adventure.  We are all excited and ready.

Bathroom make over

So now that the rest of the basement is done I can start on the bathroom down there. I painted the walls and  got some cute decorations for it.  We put up towel hooks for the kids.  

  I found this milk paint that is easy to paint over the cabinets without sanding and a lot of crazy work.  This you just have to clean them good and then paint.  So I tried it out on this bathroom first and I was amazed at how easy and forgiving this paint was.  It was pretty easy and you can still kind of see the wood grain so I like how it looks

Here is the before shot

It didn't take terribly long either Maybe 3-4 hours total.  I took off the knobs on the drawers and the doors off.  I put two coats on and it looks good.  I feel like its such an upgrade from the oak color.  

I love how it matches the rest of the decor.  Its great.  

I do need to put the top clear coat on.  That will just protect it from getting antiqued and chipped.  That should be a quick job too.  I really like just how easy it was.  I was worried it would look patchy or streaky.  It doesn't though I used a foam craft brush.  I have read that you can use a foam roller.  So maybe next time I will use that since I have one and i might as well try it.  

I liked it so much that I did it to the main bathroom upstairs as well.  It looks good too.  We already had gray in the color schemes up here so It was a perfect match with everyrhing else.   

My husband has liked how it looks too and he is a huge cabinet nazi. haha  He used to install cabinets for Lowes so he has a reason to be picky.  He said you should do it to the kitchen ones too.  So that is on the list of things to do but I want to perfect the painting before I attempt that HUGE project but I can just imagine how nice it would make the kitchen look.  It would take a few days since there are so many more cabinets in there.    It also makes me want to do our kitchen table because its a light oak color and with kids it has taken a toll.  There are so many crayon, pen, marker marks on there that I cannot scrub off no matter how hard i try.   So I want to do a dark brown top that would match the color of the cabinets and white legs.  I think it would look great.   Thanks to pintrest I have a good idea of how I can make it look.  

I love these kind of house projects. Its so fun to see the change and improvement.

Basement update!!!

We have been hard at work on the basement.  I have been painting the trim and doors lately.  Just do a set every day so when Jared has a day off or we have a weekend free it will all be ready for him to cut and put on.  I went out and picked out a carpet that will work its not quite as nice as we wanted but I can't afford the kind we really want.  Carpet is soooo expensive.  I just have to remember this is the last big expense to our house remodel till one day we are up for doing the kitchen and bathrooms up here.  (not for like 5 years at this point)  
I am so excited to get it done and have it all done.  We can have a somewhat empty garage again and the rooms and closets upstairs wont be overflowing with stuff that is supposed to go downstairs.  I will be able to get into our storage room again.  I know I have a lot more cleaning out to do when we move it all around again and that makes me excited.   I know exactly what  I want.... well I have an idea in my head anyways.

Fast foward a few weeks. 

Yay its done.... We finally got the carpet and everything done.  Its wonderful.  After a long time we are finally done and its feels great to not have the HUGE project hanging on us.  We love it the kids love it, everyone does.  I am doing the finishing touches on the bathroom down there. I just finished painting it saturday.  I am going to try out the milk paint on the cabinets and see how that works. I"ll do a post on that later, and let you know how that went.  I"m hoping for the best.  Pintrest makes it sound easy and quick so well see.

We still have a few random little things to do.  Like add the light covers on the can lights and a few door knobs.  But that is easy quick stuff.  It looks pretty good having it done.  We just almost doubled our house size haha.  Its nice. 
I have been trying to clean out and organize it while I am spreading our stuff around the house.  I have a whole back of my car full of DI stuff.  Its amazing how you can keep getting rid of stuff.  There is so much we try to hang on to for that one day.  We really don't need to so a lot of that stuff is going.  If we haven't used it since we moved over 2 years ago then I probably won't.


Have I said it feels GREAT yet?!?  haha