Living
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Gingerbread Houses
With many of the fun Christmas activities shut down this year, we are making the most out of festive activities at home… like gingerbread houses! It’s an easy activity the kids love and it takes relatively low effort on my part especially because I buy the houses pre-built. Just about every store carries some sort of gingerbread house kit these days so just keep your eyes open. This Gingerbread mansion that Costco carried is my personal fav but we tried to get a few more and they seem to be sold out everywhere now! Target also carries a cute prebuilt gingerbread house but be warned it does not come with…
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Favorite Holiday Trader Joe’s Buys
We love Trader Joe’s all year long but especially during the holidays. Its the best place to buy festive items for kids snacks and school lunches. A great place to pick up hostess or teacher thank you gifts. The only place we like to purchase greeting cards! And our favorite place to pick up items for a holiday cheese or charcuterie board back when communal serving was still a thing. In order to expedite your next shopping trip, below we have highlighted all of our favorite Trader Joe’s 2020 holiday purchases. Make sure to get to a Trader Joe’s location soon – the seasonal items have a tendency to sell…
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Holiday Traditions
The holidays are our favorite because of all of the fun traditions that come along with them! Our mom is the Queen of Christmas so we grew up doing all of the fun things and we have managed to keep a lot of it up for nearly 40 years. So if you by chance are looking for a fun tradition to add to your holiday itinerary, here are a few of our family favorites, including a pajama fashion show of Christmases past! Matching Pajamas on Christmas Eve One of my very favorite Christmas traditions is matching pajamas. I know matching family pjs are all the rage now, but our mother…
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Holiday Book Recommendations
The pile of holiday books on our coffee table in the family room gets taller and more precarious each year. Okay, if I am being honest, its at least three tall, lopsided piles. When the holidays are over, I pack up the books along with all our holiday decorations and put them away until the following year. Sam and Emma love when the holiday books get unpacked – they read and pour over the pages for hours – treating them like old friends they haven’t seen in quite awhile. Admittedly, I buy too many books for Sam & Emma, holiday and otherwise. (Yes, I was that kid that brought a…
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Gifts for your Father-In-Law (and all the men in your life)
All dads and men are hard to shop for in my opinion but I think these are some great ideas! Take advantage of the Black Friday Deals today! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! UW Freezer Beer Mug I would always drink my beer out of freezer beer mug if I could (or any drink for that matter!). Makes your drink icy cold and so much better. Tons of different college and professional teams to choose from but GO DAWGS :). Here is the Seahawks mug. Freezer Beer Mugs Or, if whomever you are gifting to isn’t a football fan, here is plain four pack too! Path Finder Lighted…
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Gift Guide for your MIL, Mom & You.
We don’t want to overwhelm (annoy) anyone with ALL the gift guides but we asked what type of holiday content everyone wanted to see and sure enough – it’s gift guides! Especially gift guides for the people who are tricky to shop for: read Mother-In-Laws! These are all gifts I personally love, and have gifted in the past or own myself. You will also notice, that just about ALL of them include the option to monogram. Clearly, I love monograms, but I also think they add a personal touch that shows who ever you are gifting to that you went that extra length, thought about them in advance and made…
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Turkey Potpie Soup and Thanksgiving Alternatives
Unfortunately with COVID-19 numbers skyrocketing, we all need to get creative this year on how we celebrate Thanksgiving safely. Our plan is to share a meal and give thanks outdoors at our parents’ home with the fireplace crackling and heaters running. Trying to keep a traditional turkey dinner warm outside and served COVID-safe, however, proved just too difficult. So, instead, we are having turkey soup (that can be kept warm in a slow cooker). And, because nobody wants to miss out on Thanksgiving leftovers, we are picking up ready-made Thanksgiving dinner from Delille Cellars that we can take home with us to enjoy the following day. Last year, the Seattle…
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Thanksgiving Bar (Cart) Ideas
Bar carts don’t always live up to their potential – but it’s so fun when they do! I think it’s one of the easiest places to make festive in your home. I try to decorate mine for each holiday season because why not – it makes me happy! This is the Target Bar Cart that I’ve had for years – it’s inexpensive but doesn’t look it. But, if you don’t have a bar cart, you can turn part of your kitchen counter into a fun bar area for dinners and holidays too. Here are the essentials you need to style your bar cart (or counter) into a fun little Thanksgiving…
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Toddler Bath Time Ideas
After a very rainy few days, Chris out of town for the week, and extra long baths for the boys everyday – I realized toddler bath time deserves a post! Bath time has a lot of potential… even more so during this pandemic! The water, bubbles, and contained kids make for a no mess, easy and fun activity! So here it is… all the items I’ve purchased and what we do to make bath time more fun and take up WAY more time (ESPECIALLY on rainy miserable days when there is nothing else to do). Bath Crayons – These are always a hit. Just draw on the tub and it…
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Favorite Things of 2020
Happy November! We had brunch with our cousin/dear friend Katie over the weekend and were chatting about what we were going to do for our Favorite Things Tea this year. Every holiday season the women in our family get together for a “Favorite Things Tea”. It’s an event I look forward to every holiday season where everyone brings some of their favorite things, gifts are exchanged, and everyone leaves with a number of gifts equal to what they brought! We still aren’t sure what our tea will look like this year given COVID, BUT it did get us thinking about all of our favorite things from 2020! So, if you…
