Everyone knows we go all out for Halloween at this house. Last year I shared how we decorate the outside of the house and use technology side effects to scare little children. This year I thought I would share the inside of the house and how, while you are tricking the kids outside, you can treat the kids inside. Click the picture below to see ideas for stepping up the tricks outside. This year, inside, we are going for anything but scary. We are setting up treats inside with these Halloween bar accessories for the grownups with things I found at Gordmans. I finally found the perfect cauldron and I am going to whip up a batch of easy Chicken Chili from my latest Wildtree Frozen Meal Workshop to put in it. This does have a pumpkin cutout on the other side but it is the perfect size for holding my whole crockpot insert and just turning it around. PS-I love, love, love the green creepy hand in the above picture and it was on sale for $2.99!! Slow Cooker Chicken Chili 1-1½ lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ cubes 1 medium onion, finely chopped 15 oz can black beans, drained & rinsed 15 oz can white beans, drained & rinsed 1 cup frozen ...
How To Help Your Kid Transition in College
It's been just about a month since most college kids have headed off. And its just about the time for them to start missing home, if they haven't already. I'm finding while the first month is hardest on the family left at home, the second is hardest on the one who left. What can you do to support your kid away from home? Here are some strategies my friends and I are finding successful. How To Help Your Kid Transition in College 1. Send them an amazing memory. This summer my son got into hiking and had several gorgeous photos he took of 14'ers. I teamed up with Picture It On Canvas to turn one of those photos of Grey's Peak into an amazing canvas art piece for his dorm room, earning me a "Mom, it's AMAZING. Thank you so much" text. Any mom of an 18 year old knows, that is huge! Not sure what to have put on canvas for your kiddo? Spend some time looking through his or her Instagram account. I love that they can import a picture directly from Instagram! I chose to have this mounted thin-bar on a 16*24 canvas. It is the perfect size for over most dorm style desks. The thin bar makes it light enough to hang with Command poster hanging strips which I left there on move in day. ...
Jet-setter Update
After just returning from Texas, I am setting off for a weekend in Detroit. While both trips have very different goals-Texas was for Carter's health and Detroit is for work, they have one thing in common-I am pulling my hair out trying to stay organized in the air, on the road and inside my suitcase. Which is good news for you. I have picked up a few more tips and tricks that may help make your upcoming holiday travel a little bit easier. While I am not really jet-setting, I do feel like I am hitting the road hard lately and from how sick I keep getting, it is hitting back. My Phone Holy Moly y'all (my new Texas word) I did it. I cut the iCord. Verizon sent me the new LG G2 and I fell in love. Of course the love may have been helped by my new loathe of iOS 7. I'm sorry, but ever since Steve Jobs has passed Apple just cannot stay competitive in my mind. Where they were once an innovator, nowadays it seems like all they are doing is playing catch up to the Android market. The G2 uses Snapdragon technology (don't worry, its just a fancy word for fast) to make everything load so much faster and multitask between all my social networking. Google Talk makes Siri sound like my ...
Camping at Snow Mountain Ranch
This summer was sort of lame in that we didn't get to travel too much due to Carter healing from the surgery he had in May. That is OK. We still had a great summer with tons of family time AND we still were able to go on our annual trip camping at Snow Mountain Ranch. I love this camping trip. Each year we go with 9-10 families to Snow Mountain Ranch right outside of Winter Park, Colorado. Of course, we stay in a lodge, Indian Peaks to be exact, in a wheelchair accessible room. What? It's camping! There is no TV for goodness sake. We have to bring our iPad's and stream our home cable apps over their wi-fi just to watch Iron Chef! That's as primitive as I get people. What's great about camping at Snow Mountain Ranch though is that our friends that do choose to rough it in a tent have that option in the Hopi Campground area, or you can rent a yurt, or a cabin. Really, there are a ton of options for where to lay your head at night so it works out perfectly for a large group of diverse families. But I love staying at Indian Peaks because right outside our room is this: To the right of that is a huge playground for the kids. During the day, all the families ...
Summer Is California
We made the decision not to travel far this summer due to the surgery Carter needed to have. It was, obviously, the right decision and things going forward are going to be so much better for him and us as a family. But it's depressing giving up your summer to a hospital. It's also one of the first summers in a long time we haven't made it to California. To me, summer IS California. As a kid I would pack up and head to northern California to spend time each summer with my cousins in Marin County. My cousin Jenny and I would visit Santa Cruz to Fisherman's Wharf. Float down the Russian River and catch tadpoles at Lake Elizabeth. I'd spend a few days touring the big city (San Francisco) with my Uncles Guy and Stan and always always had to ride the trolleys and go to Ghiradelli Square. As I got older, summers meant Southern California beaches-La Jolla and Mission Beach seemed to be the two hot spots our friends split their time between as we were all what is unaffectionately called "zonies"-people from AZ that take over So. Cal in the summer. I think Bob and I are maybe 17 in this picture taken in La Jolla. As we got a bit older we would do silly things like fly to San ...