Caramelized Chicken Kaiser Roll Sandwiches

Thank you to Foster Farms® Simply Raised, locally grown in the Pacific Northwest, for sponsoring this post!

These days lately dinner is on the go at least half of the time – so I’ve been cooking up things that we can eat on the go together as a family or bring with us to whatever event we are attending (usually soccer right now!). Even though we aren’t actually sitting down at the dinner table every night like it should be in an ideal world, at least we are still eating together, and it’s homemade.

The Wine Bloggers Conference: Day 4

Oh my goodness, how has it been nearly two months since this fabulous adventure? Today I'm sharing my final day at the Wine Bloggers Conference that was held in Corning, NY. To read about my first three days, check out my initial post here.

Sunday morning’s sessions began with a lively blogging panel which included Madeline from WineFolly.com, and Jana from MerlotMommy.com Their wittiness and sense of blunt humor made for a very entertaining hour, where they discussed questions from the audience. After one last panel, we all headed outside for the final lunch, and I learned a new food: spiedies. Here in Oregon I had never heard of them before, but they are chicken prepared on a skewer, then you take the chicken off of the skewer and place it on a bun, then from what I heard you scoop up more sauce on the bun.

BOO'tiful Stuffed Brownies + A BOO It Forward Surprise

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser.  All opinions are mine alone.  #BOOItForward #CollectiveBias

This past weekend Wayne was gone camping with a friend, so it was just the kids and I. We had a bunch of fun and went to the movies, traveled to soccer games, and went shopping for a special project that I had never done before.

This year, I’m making a #BOOItForward kit and sharing it with someone. I’ve seen people do it before in years past, but wasn’t sure exactly what it was all about, so, I looked it up. There’s a fun little card that you can print (found here) and the whole concept is to anonymously surprise a friend or neighbor with a cute Halloween gift basket and then it’s their turn to “BOO  it forward” to someone else. It's super easy all you need to do is:

Personal Greek Yogurt Pumpkin Pies

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #EffortlessPies #CollectiveBias

Hello my friends! I’m finally beginning to get used to having a few hours every day to actually get things done, and I really like it. The evenings though, well they’ve been pretty hectic. Yesterday Emma had her first horse riding lesson right after school, then Noah had his soccer practice after that. We still got home at a reasonable time (6:15) but there was no way I had the energy to bust out a meal...luckily I had already prepared it though. :) We had homemade chicken noodle soup, and a dessert that literally took  thirty seconds for me to make - and it was SO delicious!

The Heroes Around Us

I generally keep the daily news topics far away from this little space I’ve created on the Internet. So often they are filled with tragedy; sad things that I choose not to dwell on because focusing on them only brings me down and quite frankly scares the living daylights out of me because I begin thinking of all of the “what ifs” and “what could happen” scenarios and when you have children, it’s the worst feeling in the world that instantaneously makes you nauseous and want to cry.

But with that being said, this time I can’t get Roseburg out of my mind. I grew up in Grants Pass which is a little over an hour’s drive from Roseburg. I’ve been in Roseburg many times, have friends that live close and grew up there, and my Dad currently lives 30 minutes from there now.  I refuse to write or dwell on the perpetrator or gun topic issues, because right now is not the time for people to argue and debate such things. I will however, grasp on to any tiny amount of positivity that I can in this grave event that has left many people brokenhearted.