Creamy Parmesan Scalloped Potatoes with Thyme

My mom first made this recipe over a decade ago. I had made it clear that mashed potatoes were not my favorite and so, she procured and mastered a delicious scalloped potato option for our holiday menu. Over the years these potatoes have become a family staple – for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and many other […]

The Holiday Gift Guide For Kids

With four littles I feel like I have a very strong pulse on the toy market. Someone in our family loves everything it seems! We tend to keep things real small around here for the holidays. I frequently remind the kids that their birthday is the time to focus on them and Christmas is a […]

The Holiday Gift Guide For Mamas

Merry almost Christmas! I’ve been curating this list of gift ideas for mamas for months now and I’m so excited to share! These are things I LOVE, things on my personal wish list, and things I know you’ll adore too! Before we get to it, a little disclaimer … some links are affiliates which mean […]

A Very Merry Christmas

It has been quite the December!  Packing, moving, unpacking, and then, Christmas! We managed to put up our tree on the 23rd and decorated as part of the Christmas celebration before opening gifts with family on the 24th. And now I’m going to leave it all up through January, because, why not! My sister baked […]

Holiday Gift Guide For Mamas

Ever since the want/need/wear/read philosophy for gift giving was born, I’ve tried to follow suite. It just makes sense! Especially for kids (and that gift guide is coming later this week!). Want/need/wear/read (with an extra category of “do” for experiences!) works well for mamas too, and in my case, just goes to show that I’m […]

The Star of Daddy’s Christmas Stocking

Raise your hand if your husband is the hardest person to buy gifts for. That’s me … raising both hands. Because, ya’ll, Dominic is THE hardest person to shop for. Christmas makes me cringe and birthdays and anniversaries aren’t any easier. And, I’m totally a gift giving person! I love giving gifts! He’s just a […]

Christmas Cards On My Mind + a Minted Giveaway

I’ve always believed that once you do something three times in a row, it becomes a tradition. And so, as of this year, ordering holiday cards from Minted is officially an annual tradition for us!  This isn’t our 4th year with Minted just because though. I return because their photo card options are totally my style (and truly get better […]

Mama’s Christmas Wish List

 one — two — three — four — five — six — seven — eight Is it too late to share my mama wish list this holiday season? That’s totally a rhetorical question. I know it’s not. Because Dominic and I run a cash system for Christmas, to help stay on budget, and “my” $50 […]

Breakfast With Santa

This weekend the kids and I rolled into Tacoma Mall bright and early for a very special event — BREAKFAST WITH SANTA! I didn’t tell them until the night before when we were settling into bed and you would have thought I told Max we were going to the moon! He was so excited to “weally […]

Finding The Good In Christmas

To be honest, Christmas, and December in general, isn’t always the greatest around here. It holds some sad anniversaries for our family – some decades old and some quite fresh; all of which offer a dull, throbbing pain while we smile and attempt to embrace the season’s activities, remember Christ’s birth and create traditions for […]