Family

For my daughter’s birthday this year, we threw a zoo-themed birthday party. Her love of animals and trips to the zoo made it an obvious choice. I decided to try my hand at cake decorating, so I created zoo animal cupcakes — zebras, lions and tigers — to celebrate her big day.

Gigi loves animals. She consistently asks us to read her the same animal book over and over. When we were deciding on a theme for her 2nd birthday, it was a pretty easy decision to choose a zoo birthday party as the theme.

My baby girl just turned two (more on that next week!) and Rocco is already three. I can’t believe I’ve been a parent for three years already! There are times when I miss my life before kids, but most times, I can’t imagine my life without them. Parenting taught me many things, and I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process.

February 14th is right around the corner so I came up with this quick and easy Valentine’s Day manicure I could do at home.

“Mommy, my legs hurt,” Rocco whined. It was a Monday evening after the long holiday break away from school. I didn’t think much of it, until he continued to complain throughout the evening, and woke up crying, complaining of leg pain, several times in the middle of the night. Since I was awake anyway, I Google searched “toddler leg pain” and was bombarded with articles about toddler growing pains.

I can’t believe my baby girl is turning two next month! Time really does fly by. I’m still deciding what theme to try for her second birthday, so I’ve been searching all over for girl birthday party ideas.

My mom posted this cute DIY handprint Christmas ornament on her Facebook page and I thought it seemed like a really fun activity to do with the kids. So last weekend, we set out to try this DIY baking soda clay to create handprint ornaments the kids could hang on our tree. I used this recipe as the basis for my baking soda clay DIY Christmas ornaments.

Finding cool gifts for my husband is usually my biggest Christmas shopping challenge. I tend to give him sweaters or other clothes, which is just so boring. To find some inspiration, I searched all over to find unique gifts for men under $50. The list I developed has a wide range of options including things for outdoorsy, handy, or techy guys. When I showed it to my husband, he got really excited about the mini – drone.

I love the holidays for many reasons — spending time with family, decorating our tree, finding the perfect gifts for my loved-ones — but one of my absolutely favorite parts is finding and trying new Christmas cookie recipes.