Archive for 2015

top 10 viewed posts in 2015 on Gigglebox Tells it Like it is,

Can you believe that in two short days, 2015 will be gone and 2016 will be in full swing? I wanted to share with you the top 10 posts that you all, my readers, were extremely interested in. Here we go!

Review guidelines:

1 Fork = I would rather eat dog food.
2 Forks = I would eat there if I was starving.
3 Forks = Not bad; someplace I would occasionally consider eating.
4 Forks = A good place to eat; I will put it into my rotation of places I dine frequently.
5 Forks = One of my all time favorites!

One caveat to note – I am allergic to fish and seafood, so if you are looking for those recommendations, you will have to consult someone else.

Because I have a daughter-in-law with Celiac and a really good friend who is Vegetarian, I will try to point out whether those options are present when I review a restaurant.

Review guidelines:

delicious apple pie, what to do with the apples that you picked, desserts,

I love me some apple pie, but live with a husband who does not like pie at all and a preschooler who is still figuring out what he likes. Normally I don't get or make pies unless there will be people over to help eat it, but I had lots of apples from our apple picking we did (Apple Picking at Marker-Miller Orchards) that needed to be used.

weekly meal plans with links to recipes on a $50 weekly grocery budget, meal plans, grocery shopping on a budget

Another week has started and that means another grocery shopping trip as well as figuring out what to make for dinner. Here's the dinner plan for the week:

set out oats and glitter for the reindeers on Christmas Eve night with the kids, a fun way to help Santa and his reindeer find their way to your house, fun Christmas Eve activity to do with the kids,

Last year Michael's school gave all the kids in his class this bag of "magic reindeer food" before they went on their Christmas break. This is such a great idea to get the kids excited for Santa coming to the house.

decorating a dinning room chandelier for Christmas, simple and elegant way to decorate a chandelier for Christmas, simple Christmas decorating,

This Christmas I'm all about keeping the decorating as simple as possible. We've had this chandelier (I bought it for $35 through a Facebook yard sale group) for about two years now and have never decorated it. The chandelier we had before looked like it came from the 80's, but I tried to make it look nice at Christmas time - it never worked.

creating a simple and elegant Christmas dinning table centerpiece, how to create a Christmas centerpiece with items you may already have, Christmas decorations,

For the longest time our centerpiece at Christmas was a candle with a plastic ring of poinsettias on our kitchen table and chairs. Since then, we've received an antique dinning room set that just screamed something simple and elegant as a centerpiece.

counting down the days until Christmas with 24 Christmas books, an advent calendar alternative, fun Christmas countdown to do with the kids,

So, I'm a little late on getting this post done. I was almost late on getting the books wrapped. Yes, I was wrapping the books up until it was bedtime last night. This is our 4th year of doing this fun countdown to Christmas Day and we enjoy doing it every year.

dinner meal plans for the month of November 2015,

I cannot believe that today is December 1st! Where has the year flown to? Well, since it's December 1st, it is time for me to go over November's meal plans and how we did with keeping to it.

Even with the leftovers from Thanksgiving, we still needed to get groceries for this week. To be a little honest with you, I'm getting tired of turkey leftovers. Here's my dinner plans for the week:

list of 20 board game ideas for a 4 year old's Christmas gift or birthday gift,

It's only been within the past year that Michael has really gotten into actually wanting to sit down and play board games with us. I love that he's finally taken an interest in them, just we don't have many that are age appropriate for him. I've come up with a list of games (some we do have and play often) that I feel that any 4 year old would love to get as a gift.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I had already purchased my turkey weeks ago because I wasn't sure what our budget would like this week. Here's what's planned for this week:

four ingredient chicken meal that is delicious and moist, banch ranch chicken,

Ever get in one of those ruts where you're making the same meals over and over again? Yeah, I seem to get them all the time. That's when I head over to my ever growing food boards on Pinterest to find something that at least Jon and I will both eat. I ran across this recipe on my chicken board and was a little hesitant about it because of the fact that Jon does not like Ranch.

It's the middle of the month and I'm slowly getting tired of planning what to have for dinners. I wish I was good enough to make a plan at the beginning of the month and have already prepped dinners. Even though I'm a stay-at-home mom, I'm all about simplicity. Since that's not happening anytime soon, here's what I have planned for dinners this week:

Review guidelines:
1 Fork = I would rather eat dog food.
2 Forks = I would eat there if I was starving.
3 Forks = Not bad; someplace I would occasionally consider eating.
4 Forks = A good place to eat; I will put it into my rotation of places I dine frequently.
5 Forks = One of my all time favorites!

One caveat to note – I am allergic to fish and seafood, so if you are looking for those recommendations, you will have to consult someone else.

Because I have a daughter-in-law with Celiac and a really good friend who is Vegetarian, I will try to point out whether those options are present when I review a restaurant.

how to celebrate and not morn someone who's no longer with you on their birthday,

This year has been the crappiest year of my entire life. I think during the past 9 months, I have probably shed the same amount of, if not more, tears that I have shed during my whole 34 years on this Earth. Yesterday was my dad's birthday. The first birthday that I've not been able to call or text him to wish him a "Happy Birthday". The first birthday that I didn't go searching (even though I did) for a birthday card and then accidentally send it to Dad late. I wanted to be able to enjoy my dad's birthday and not morn it.

how to make a Peanuts theme for trunk-or-treat, creating the pumpkin patch from It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown for a trunk-or-treat theme,

Since last year everyone was impressed with my Toy Story trunk-or-treat theme, I had to up my game when it came to this year's trunk-or-treat at Michael's school. I knew that whatever I did, it wasn't going to work with my trunk. My brother was awesome enough and let me borrow his SUV. I knew that the theme had to be Peanuts. Here's how Jon and I pulled it off:

delicious crock pot/slow cooker apple pork loin recipe,

Several weeks ago we went and picked a half bushel of apples at one of our local orchards (Apple Picking at Marker-Miller Orchards). Once we got home I started looking for ideas of how to use the apples. One of my food blogger friends, Sissy over at The Busy Cooking Momma, had just the recipe that I needed!

filling a Christmas stocking for a 2 - 5 year old boy ideas, "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" Christmas stocking ideas for a 2 - 5 year old boy,

Is it me, or does Christmas just seem to come faster and faster each year? Well, it's fast approaching and that means filling stockings for the Loudoun County's Holiday Coalition, "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" through Michael's preschool.

This week's grocery trip was rather simple since we had most of the items already. Here's the meal plans for dinner this week:

Packing an Operation Christmas Child shoe box for a 10-14 year old boy through Samaritans Purse, ideas for a 10-14 year old boy Operation Christmas Child box,

I was really debating on doing Operation Christmas Child this year just because of our money situation. Plus now that Michael is in school there's more spending with their Christmas project and different fundraisers. I decided that since this was a wonderful organization, I had to at least do one box this year. I chose to pack a box for the least packed group of kids, the 10 - 14 year old boys. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, just the boxes aren't exactly big enough to hold all of the items.

Fall time family fun at Pumpkin Village at Leesburg Animal Park in Leesburg VA, family fun in Northern Virginia,

A few weeks ago, we took Michael to the Pumpkin Village at Leesburg Animal Park to have some Fall time family fun. A few years after moving here, we were taking a drive and ran across the animal park and it all decorated for what they used to call Pumpkinville. I knew that once we had children, we would want to take them there. It took a few years, but we finally got around to go.

Last week I did go grocery shopping and did have a meal plan, but we unfortunately did not follow through with the laid out plan. I had gotten lost track of time every night due to working on getting the trunk-or-treat theme done (look for a post for that later). I didn't get around to going grocery shopping until today because of Michael being off from school and my mom visiting. So, here's the dinner plans for the rest of the week.

dinner meal plans for the month of October 2015,

Does anyone else seem to have a hard time trying to stick with the meal plans? I was hoping that this month would be different from September and that we would make almost all the meals planned. Here's what was planned for October.

Review guidelines:

Welcome to a new series that I will try to be doing on a weekly basis. My husband and I came up with this series idea over dinner while we were on vacation at Myrtle Beach. So, expect to have some posts written by the Handy Hubby aka Jon as well.

Review guidelines:

This week, fingers crossed, will be the week that we stick with the meal plan I came up with yesterday before going on my grocery shopping. I did, however, have a carry over from last week and we're making a meal over again. Here's what we have planned for dinners this week:

Fall time family fun picking apples at Marker-Miller Orchards in Winchester VA,

Last year on our way to pumpkin picking, we drove by an apple orchard that was booming. People were parking their cars on the side of the main road. We had decided that this year, we would try the place out before heading to pick pumpkins.

With the season finally changing to Fall and the leaves slowly falling from the trees, how about making this simple piece of art with your kids.

This week we are going to be trying out some new recipes and fingers crossed we like them. Here's what I have planned for dinners this week:

simple chicken crockpot/slowcooker recipe that has everything you need for a delicious comfort dinner,

I ran across this crock pot recipe several years ago on Going Jane via Pinterest. It had been awhile since I had made it and I thought that it would help with getting out of our dinner redundancy. Here's what you'll need to make this awesome Fall comfort meal.

Review guidelines:

many ways that a loved one who recently died has come to visit,

After dropping Michael off at school on Monday, I noticed this butterfly in our flowerbed in our front yard. I thought it was a little odd because I've never seen butterflies in our area before. I went into the house to figure out what I needed to get for the grocery store. When I came back out to leave, the butterfly was still flying around our front yard.

meal plans, grocery budget of $50.00 a week,

A new month and a new set of meal plans! I'm really going to try hard this month to make the meals that are planned and try out some new recipes as well. Here's what I decided we were going to have for dinner this week:

some ideas on how to dress up your doggie friends for Halloween, Halloween costumes, Halloween, Halloween custome ideas for dogs,

Don't forget about dressing up your four legged child for Halloween this year. Yes, your doggies want to get on the candy action too! Ok, no candy for the dogs, but they can still have fun walking with kids during trick-or-treat or help with the handing out of candy.

Review guidelines:

I decided that at the beginning of each month I would do a little run down of how the meal plans went for the month before. Here's how the month of September went:

Because of doing the snacks for this week of school, I couldn't wait to do the shopping on Monday like I have been doing. So, even though I was sick, we all went and did our shopping on Saturday. Here's the dinner plans for the week as well as what the kids got for their snacks:

After doing the grocery shopping on Monday, I got sick and am just now starting to somewhat feel better. Thankfully I had planned fairly simple and easy meals on Monday and Jon was able to make them when he came home from work.

My step-mom, Becki, is back at it and has posted another restaurant review. Are you enjoying having her reviews back? I know that even though I don't live in Central Kentucky, I enjoy reading about all the different places she tries out. I also know that when we go down to visit, if she's not cooking, that she'll take us somewhere good.

meal plans, grocery budget of $25.00 a week,

With my mom leaving on Monday and Michael being sick on Tuesday, I didn't get to my grocery shopping until yesterday (Wednesday). Luckily, we had everything we needed for our dinners the other two nights. Here's the meal plans I came up with on Monday:

packing for a Myrtle Beach SC vacation, premaking lunches for a beach vacation,

In hopes to save some money, we packed pretty much everything we could think of that we might need. I also wanted to make our vacation still a vacation and did as much prep work on the food for our meals as I could a head of time.