When we first discovered Ella was struggling in school, one of her teachers suggested giving her a healthy, protein packed start to her day. We had heard that foods such as milk, cheese, yogurt and other protein packed breakfast items, versus a carb laden breakfast, could help kids remain focused and stay fueled until lunchtime. I didn’t really give much thought as to how breakfast nutrition played a part in learning at school with my other kids, but that was before we had a child who wasn’t achieving as well as she could in school. If there was something as simple as changing her breakfast routine that could jumpstart her day and keep her rearing to go until lunch time, you can bet I was going to try it.  (more…)

I’m partnering with KRAFT on this wonderful brunch recipe, and chatting about my current obsession… farmhouse living. 

Friends, if you follow me on Instagram and Facebook, you know I’ve been doing a lot of dreaming lately… some may call it obsessing, but I’ll stick with dreaming.

You see, a house we have loved for the past 12 years recently went on the market. It’s a gorgeous little 1936 farmhouse with land and character and all kinds of wonderful features. The best part is, it’s still in town…just a few short blocks from where we live now. It’s one of those rare, best of both world scenarios. An old, charming house with land, still within just a short drive to Target and Starbucks and still with neighbors nearby. That’s my kind of living!

The thing is, the house is old… it has small bedrooms, a smaller kitchen, tiny closets… like you’d expect a 1936 farmhouse to have. But, we live in a very spacious 6 year old house right now. Moving to something like this would be a HUGE adjustment in lifestyle for our family. It would mean downsizing on stuff… simplifying our lives and getting rid of all the excess. The benefit though is what we’d lose for space on the inside, we’d gain 10xs on the outside, and something about that truly appeals to me. Gardens and outdoor movies on the lawn and pickup football games… tree houses and hide and seek and outdoor entertaining with white lights and long covered tables… it’s such a dream of ours. Would we be able to live smaller? Could we do it?  (more…)

Do you ever feel like your life has gone a bit vanilla?

I mean, I love vanilla, don’t get me wrong, but especially after a long winter I feel like things have been vanilla for far too long. I’m ready to add some spice! (more…)

You won’t find any spoilers in this post… just wanted to let you know that ahead of time!

Let me start by telling you, I was late to the Downton Abbey wagon. Because of that, I have had to avoid social media like the plague as it is quite the hot topic in my Twitter feed and on Facebook. With the recent Season 3 season finale, it has been even harder! Everywhere I look there are spoiler posts (and posts kindly marked as spoilers, thank you!)… I have had to avert my eyes so many times to not see something that would give it all away. Luckily, I’ve managed to not read anything… until today.  (more…)

Scroll down for an amazing doughnut recipe!

I remember a time in my life when I didn’t care for doughnuts. I was in college, and apparently I had the ability to turn off some little switch that kept me from liking things that were not so great for you. You know that switch? The one that seems to take over when you go out on a date with a new guy and even though they have scallops and steak and cheesecake and chocolate cake on the menu, you’ll just have “salad and water”. That crazy switch.

Well the switch is back on and has been for quite some time. What is it about doughnuts and their appeal? Even if someone just mentions the word doughnuts, I’m done for. I can’t get doughnuts off my mind until I head to the local doughnut shop or Krispy Kreme and cure my craving. (more…)

When someone asks me what my favorite tip is to simplify mealtime, besides menu planning, my answer would be to let breakfast save dinner.

Breakfast saves dinner around our house quite often. In fact, even though I’ve been trying my hardest to stick to a weekly menu plan, there are times in our real life where a meal I have planned isn’t going to get made. Either I’m too tired or not in the mood for what’s on the plan or I just don’t want to cook something complicated…whatever it is it is nights like that where breakfast saves dinner. (more…)

Mornings around our house are usually mass chaos. No matter what I do to try to be organized the night before, mornings don’t seem to change.

In fact, we have a little celebration in the car on the way to school on those rare days where I didn’t have to turn into “raging maniac mom” to get everyone in gear. I’ll say, those little celebrations don’t happen too often. That’s not something I’m necessarily proud of. (more…)

Holiday baking done? Check.

Wait, no check? You too? What are we doing, with less than a week until Christmas and the baking frenzy hasn’t even begun? Yeah, I don’t really know either, but I just haven’t felt that Christmas spirit push to spend all day in the kitchen baking up lovely treats for everyone. Hopefully it hits soon. I’ll hope so for you too, ok?

I did bake something so good this week. It’s actually a contender for a spot at Christmas morning brunch…Gingerbread Coffee Cake with Ginger Cream. Doesn’t that sound good? It was a soft coffee cake, with a delicious gingerbread flavor, and an indulgent ginger spiked cream to top it off. I’ll take this for breakfast any day, thank you very much!  (more…)

I have never been able to make good omelets. Even with the perfect omelet pan, I still couldn’t get omelets to turn out right. My omelets wouldn’t get done in the middle or they’d fall apart when I’d try to fold them over. They were never good, so I stopped making them, even though I loved to eat them.

This past summer I went to visit my friend Amy and her husband made us breakfast one morning. When I heard he was the “Omelet King” I decided I’d stick close by and watch what he did. Here’s what I learned from the master, himself. (more…)

There are things I do when no one is watching that I’m not so proud of. Today, I took a giant swig of my coffee creamer.. by itself… WITHOUT the coffee.

I couldn’t help it though. Have you tasted the International Delights Cold Stone Creamery Sweet Cream coffee creamer? Holy cow, that stuff is good. I mean really, really good.

I’ve also been known to take a nibble of KerryGold butter, by itself. We won’t get into that now though.

Back to the creamer, meant for coffee… (more…)