I have just one quick thing to share with you today! I wrote a post for Babble this week called 9 Crazy Ways Parents Get Kids to Eat Their Veggies and it is pretty darn funny. I polled my friends for stories and got some great stuff. Be sure to click through and check it out! Also, how awesome is Owen’s “I Hate Veggies” face? He’s a natural! (As in, he really, truly hates veggies…little stinker.)

You know the drill…share your own stuff with us! Show and tell time!

I have very little to share today except that I am SO excited to go to the Lorde concert tonight! And I am going to see George Winston tomorrow night. It’s going to be a good music weekend.

One quick food link to share from Babble – making pumpkin rocks with my kids for all the neighbors. We had a blast!

It’s show and tell, your turn!

Time for Friday Show and Tell!

Do you have a comfort TV show? You know, TV that’s like eating a big plate of mashed potatoes and gravy? Gilmore Girls is mine. For sure. No question. I LOVE THAT SHOW. The only thing I asked for at Christmastime several years ago was the complete DVD box set, in all its low-def glory. (Nate thought I was nuts.) Even with the DVD box set, I can’t tell you how pumped I am that the show is finally on Netflix. YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!! By the way, whenever I meet someone who loves Gilmore Girls as much as I do, we are instantly bonded. Family. I don’t know what it is about that show. If you are a fellow Gilmore Girls addict, you know what I mean. Okay, so today, you have to tell me if you are also a Gilmore Girls fan. And, if for some ungodly reason you are not, tell us what YOUR comfort TV show is! (Also, is it bad or impressive that I knew pretty much all 293 of these references?)

Just one quick food link from me this week on Babble, which includes a SUPER cute story about my 6-year-old Anna that totally makes me crack up: Copycat Recipe: Starbucks’ Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.

Feel free to share other stuff, but mostly I just want to know if you love Rory and Lorelai. 😉

Happy Friday. Prepare yourself for the best cooking video ever. (Owen’s made us watch it about 10 times already this morning. He also informed me that he wants a hamster now.)

Two fun food links for this week!

• On Babble: 3 Kids, a Mom and a Kitchen: Inside-Out Caramel Apples
• On Cosmo: 6 Ways to Stuff a Cookie

It’s Show & Tell, which means the whole class gets to share – show us what you’ve got!

It’s Friday! Yay!

I’m going to be super quick with my sharing today, just a couple Babble links!

• A Simple yet Scrumptious Snack: Milk and Berries
• Cheers to Surviving Summer with this Autumn Apple Cider Sangria

You know the drill…show and tell means everyone in the class gets to share! Share your stuff!

Happy Friday!

When I started this blog nearly 8 years ago, I was constantly sharing my favorite Trader Joe’s finds, much to the chagrin of those readers who didn’t have a Trader Joe’s near their home. I backed off a lot over the years, but I recently found an item that I am loving and have to tell you about. If you don’t have a TJs, my apologies. The Half-Baked Panini Rustic Rolls are AWESOME. We’ve used the rolls for pesto chicken salad sandwiches and for a variation on our caprese paninis. The bread is perfect for sandwiches, with a nice crisp exterior and chewy interior. The big bonus is that, magically, the sandwich fixings don’t squeeze out as you eat the sandwich. We LOVE this bread!

On to food links!

• On Babble: Easy and Delicious Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken
• On Cosmo: 7 Ways to Turn Whipped Cream Into the Best Dessert Ever

That’s all from me today…what do you have to share?

Happy Friday! Today for show and tell I have a lot of movie and tv talk. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

First, Cate and I went to see The Giver this week and it was so good. The movie doesn’t have high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and I don’t understand why, it was great! The book really is one of the best books ever, so Cate and I were worried about how it would be adapted to film. We didn’t need to worry – the film was beautiful. There were a few changes to the story but the changes made sense, and the visual interpretation was lovely. Plus, Cate and I were both sobbing at the end, which earns the movie extra points for sure. Definitely a great movie, go see it! (If you haven’t read the book, do that first!)

Second, Netflix is starting to overwhelm me! I was super excited about the final season of The Killing coming on the service this month and totally liked it. Since the series is now done, I kind of figured I was sort of all caught up on my Netflix originals viewing. And then I heard about Bojack Horseman and Happy Valley and had to add them to our list. Then Nate and I watched the first episode of An Idiot Abroad, which was hilarious and necessitated another addition to our list. Make it stop! My playlist is too long! Sidenote: I will be forever bitter that Ricky Gervais didn’t win the Emmy this week for his acting on Derek. Don’t even get me started on Jim Parsons…for crying out loud.

One fun food link this week on Babble: 12 Clever, Tasty Recipe Hacks for the Dorm Room.

You know the drill…share your stuff!

Happy Friday! I didn’t publish any blog posts this week – that might be the first time ever! It was the last week of summer and we are dealing with a plumbing mystery that has taken hours (days?) of our time and is resulting in the need to repipe our house. Yes, totally sucky. But, I have a house to repipe, so who am I to complain? As a result of my non-posting this week, I’m bubbling over with things to share with you, so today’s Show and Tell is chock full of good stuff!

I had a post publish on Babble this week entitled Kick It Old-School with this Milk Toast Breakfast Recipe. I’ve been excited for this post to go live so I could share it with you. The recipe is seriously delicious. As wonderful as the recipe is, I have a little something else about milk toast that I have to tell you about.

Milk toast is considered a “vintage” recipe, one that I’ve found many people haven’t even heard of. While I was researching milk toast for my article, I came across a comment on a random website by a reader named “Grumpy” that absolutely captured my heart. “I have tried to make [milk toast] from memories of my mother making it when we were children. We had more milk than we could use from the cow I milked, and fresh home churned butter mixed into the hot milk. Mine is not near as good as I remember it was back then. I am 85 and have to cook now, after all these years. I do miss my darling wife’s cooking.” Seriously, this might win best comment on the internet ever. I can’t even.

Moving on to less cute, more depressing things…how’s that for a segue? Aren’t you excited to keep reading? I thought so! Remember my annual New Year’s Resolution to Use Less Plastic? We haven’t talked about it since the beginning of the year, so I thought I’d touch base real quick. I found an article on Medium this week that you should absolutely read, Gyres: The Terrifying True Story of the Garbage That Could Kill the Human Race. I had a similar reaction when reading this article as I did when I saw the documentary Bag It and the short video The Story of Stuff – basically a horrified, “we have to do something” reaction. The article about gyres is loooooonnnng and, honestly, the writing is super flowery and kind of hard to get through, BUT you still need to read it. I had pulled a bunch of quotes to share in this post but realized I had pulled paragraphs of quotes, so it’s probably better for you to just go to the source. And then let’s use less plastic together! I think about this goal every day and our family has definitely made progress, little by little. As Gandhi so eloquently said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” We can do it! (Sorry for the cheerleading, preachy portion of today’s program…sometimes I can’t help myself.)

Here are my other food links for the week!

• On Babble: Luscious Lemon Chicken”¦with Just 4 Ingredients (this is an adaptation of a recipe I got from a friend when we got married…it’s so simple and truly luscious!)
• On Cosmo: 16 Refreshing Lemonade Recipes You Need This Summer

Phew! I’m done! Your turn to share whatever you like! Also, if you’ve joined me on the Use Less Plastic train, tell us how it’s going!

Happy Friday! I’m currently sitting in Pacific City, Oregon looking out my hotel window at the ocean, where there is a HUGE rock poking through the fog to say good morning. My visit to Tillamook has been amazing and I’ll definitely share more next week! For now you can go look at all my pictures from the trip so far on Instagram and I need to go get gussied up to meet some Tillamook cows!

Here are my food posts on Babble and Cosmo this week!

• Why Cooking with Kids Is Worth the Effort
• 3 Kids, a Mom & a Kitchen: Sofia’s Tea Sandwiches and Lettuce Cups
• 16 Strawberry Shortcake Recipes That Are Totally to Die For

Everyone gets a turn during show and tell, so please share your own stuff!

Happy Friday! Happy August!

I don’t have anything particularly awesome to share today because I just spent three hours getting new tires on my car. Because I drove over a construction tool on the way home from the beach on Wednesday. And, you know what? As much as it all was completely inconvenient and expensive, I never freaked out. I remained surprisingly calm. On a related note, a few nights ago I got pulled over for not stopping completely at a stop sign and, again, was calm and collected. My friend Barbara said I was “cool as a cucumber.” (In the end no ticket, luckily!) So, I guess my big share today is that maybe I’m getting a little more zen than I used to be. Maybe. I am trying. Because, honestly, even when the crappy stuff happens, what do I have to complain about? I got to hang out with my kids this week, work at jobs I love, go to the beach, look at stuffed animals (literally) at the natural history museum with little people who for some reason just really love taxidermy. It’s all good, popped tires and all.

Okay, time for some fun food links!

On Babble, my kids and I tried another one of the Dishes by Disney recipes:

• 3 Kids, a Mom & a Kitchen: Spicy Veggie Chips and Popcorn Party Mix

And all kinds of yumminess on Cosmo:

• 10 Amazing Ice Cream Sandwiches You Must Try This Summer
• 21 Charming Ways to Use Cinnamon
• 13 Genius Spiked Popsicles
• 12 Flawless Ice Cream Cakes You Need to Make This Summer

Please share your own thoughts/links/blog posts/accomplishments/anything!