• Cooking - Food - Recipe

    This Amazing French Toast Bagel is a decadent breakfast treat that you’ll love!

    Transform your breakfast game with this delicious French Toast Bagel recipe. Start your holiday right with a perfect combination of classic bagels and sweet, custardy French toast. Give this recipe a try and elevate your whole holiday brunch experience! With butter and powdered sugar on top, it is the perfect indulgent holiday treat to make any holiday more jolly. Here’s how to do it: Festive French Toast Bagel Recipe Ingredients: Instructions: Prepare the Egg Mixture: In a shallow bowl or pie plate, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Mix until well it…

  • Celebrate - Holidays - Uncategorized

    Pineapp-O-Lantern: A Tropic’alloween Treat

    Who says you can only make a Jack-O-Lantern out of a pumpkin?  Not me!  Allow me to introduce you to a frightfully fun Halloween treat that makes a great presentation when serving a fruit plate, or fruit and cheese platter or even an awesome Halloween breakfast! I’m calling it a Pineapp-O-Lantern: A Tropic’alloween Treat! It’s basically the same process as carving a Jack-O-Lantern, so I wont bore you with an in-depth how-to, but I will share some tips. I went the traditional route – cutting the top to make the ‘lid’ of the Jack-O-Lantern and then scooping out the contents, but I’ll definitely be…

  • Celebrate

    Leprechaun Clips

    Top O’ the Mornin’ to ya on this fine March Day!  It’s almost St Patrick’s Day so I thought I would share a fun and free St. Patty’s Day activity. When I was a little girl, I made a paper leprechaun (to the left)in school for St. Patrick’s Day. The arms and legs are attached with paper fasteners so that they are movable, and you can make him leap and dance an Irish Jig. The only time I have ever used this type of paper fastener was in the construction this leprechaun.For my entire life I have always called those fasteners “Leprechaun…

  • Celebrate - Food

    Mardi Gras Celebration – Monte Cristo

    This is our biggest Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras celebration yet!  Though in all fairness, the most we did to celebrate in the past was eat on Mardi Gras paper plates! This year, aside from the decorating, and the King Cake and watching Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (set in New Orleans and gorgeous!) we also had a yummy Fat Tuesday dinner! Peggo made AMAZING Monte Cristo sandwiches, and we all loved them! She followed the recipe from the Blue Bayou restaurant in New Orleans Square in Disneyland (recipe below) and it was seriously dee-lish!  Though I wasn’t able to capture…

  • Celebrate - Decorating

    Mardi Gras Celebration – Decorating

    Happy Mardi Gras! This is our first year celebrating Mardi Gras, so we’ve been doing some research! Mardi Gras already has its own signature colors of Purple Green and Gold, so the color palette is already set as far as decorating, and each color has a special meaning.  – Purple for Justice – Green for Faith  – Gold for Power. Purple can be a difficult color to work with. Finding the right shade is quite a task, and it can be nearly impossible to find other items to match! One way to get around this is to find items made by the…

  • Celebrate - Holidays

    Holiday Candy Hacks

    Creative Holiday Candy hack! Catch the after Christmas sales for red and green mixed chocolates like M&M’s and Hershey Kisses.Sort the candies by color and store them away (so you won’t be tempted to eat them!).Now you have both Valentine’s Day AND St. Patrick’s day covered! You are covering two holidays at once, and your holiday chocolate needs through mid-March while getting deep discounts from after Christmas Sales. ‘True Love Kisses’ and red M&M’s for your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day. ‘Kiss-Me-I’m-Irish Kisses’ and green M&M’s for the leprechauns on St. Patrick’s Day.

  • Celebrate - Food

    Strawberry Valentine Hearts – Quick and Easy!

    Are you looking for a last minute idea for a Valentines Day treat?  Well here is an idea that is great for Valentines Day, or any day you want to show your loved ones that you love them.  It gets better – this idea is super quick, easy and healthy! Your strawberries are all just 3 simple slices away from being the perfect Valentines Day breakfast, dessert or healthy snack. Step by Step Guide to creating quick and easy strawberry hearts below. Have you ever seen a sweeter way to serve fresh strawberries? Step 1: Start with a nice fresh…

  • Celebrate - Holidays

    Valentines Day Celebration

      Wow, these winter holidays seem to be one after another with very little time between! We get to enjoy the Valentines decorations until the 14th but then Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year are right after – only days apart on February 17th and 19th! So little time to plan, prepare and decorate! Anyway, back to Valentines Day – the decorations are up and the house is looking a bit like a cupid sanctuary. We went with a white Battenburg lace tablecloth over a red tablecloth, so the red peeks through all the openwork in the lace. There are…

  • Decorating - Holidays

    Holiday Home Tour 2014 – Better Late than never!

    As I mentioned in a previous post, home renovations and stressful events had delayed the start of our holiday decorating until mid-to-late December.We’ve got our Evie Bird home now after a nearly 4 month hospital stay. Though most people have taken down their Christmas decorations by now, we’ve extended the season a bit so that she can enjoy that home-for-the-holidays feel a bit before we move on to the next holiday.So, though it’s late for a holiday home tour, we’re on our own holiday schedule this year and it’s still Christmas at our house!With the snow coming down for Winter Storm…

  • Decorating - DIY

    Last Minute Christmas Decorating and a Flooring Update!

    I promised frequent updates on the hardwood flooring restoration project, but unfortunately there have been no updates to report.  Due to some big-time stressful life events, we decided it would be best for all of us to put this project on hold and avoid adding to our stress. We had planned on finishing this project before Thanksgiving, and it is now rapidly approaching Christmas. Anyone who knows me knows, I LOVE decorating for Christmas. I look forward to it all year – I am always trying to extend the season by starting earlier and leaving the decorations up a little longer than…