I love the snackle box trend, and think the Valentine snackle box is super cute. We found these at Target and they come in a few different designs. The “LOVE” and the “XOXO” styles were my personal favorite. We filled ours up with some colorful candy, but the sky is the limit on what you could add in here. Other ideas would be: pony and alphabet beads to make a friendship bracelet box, a container os slime on the side and fun sensory mix ins, or for that beauty product teen/tween you could fill the letters with those sample products that come in the flat pouches.

Tie everything up with a cute little bow – we picked this conversation heart ribbon right at our local Dollar Tree – and add a fun gift tag. Cute for kids, friends, teens/tweens and even teachers (make sure to throw a little gift card in too – punch a hole in the corner and tie it on to the bow!)

What would you fill your snackle box with?

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Valentine’s Day is coming up quickly. I wanted to show you some cute baskets that I put together for the kids last year to give you inspiration as you shop this year. The wire baskets are from Target, and I use them for a bunch of things year round. The acrylic tags were personalized with the kid’s names and I found them on Etsy. The seller is on a break, but I am sure that you could find something similar. I love these Kid Made Modern heart water color sets. You can find other brands on Amazon. The heart goggles aren’t available, but the same brand offers a heart style here. I picked up a fun note pad from TJ Maxx and one of those light spinners that my kid’s love. The big hit here was the unicorn chapstick and the jelly beans!

The boys are always a little harder to shop for, but I found these cute shirts at J.Crew saying “Heartbreaker”. They don’t have the same baseball shirt style this year, but here is a similar shirt. I love the Rey to Z hats, you can get them with lots of different things on them: letters, big bro, little bro, auntie, etc. You can’t have any gift basket in this house without Pokemon cards, and of course a little chocolate (and only the best, Gräem for the win!)

For the littlest, we picked up a fun art kit that the big kids could help her with, a hat – because we are into backwards hats these days, but also a few hair bows and clips that we had been saving for a while (we went though a period of not wanting to put anything in our hair) and are just getting into fun stuff now! Throw in some delicious chocolate from Gräem, a simple heart tee from target, and a fun necklace and she is one happy kid!

Are dessert boards a thing anymore? Asking for a friend. Either way, I still love them. Added in all of my favorite things and if they aren’t in anymore…well more for me I guess Homemade chocolate covered pretzel rods, macarons (and these days you can pick them up at Whole Foods if you’re in a pinch), my favorite cookies from Bisous Sweet (it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day for me to get these, frankly, any day that ends with a ‘y’ will do!) and some red candies to fill in the empty spaces.

Don’t forget to show your gal pals the love this Valentine’s day. I love single serve bottles of bubbly. Pop on a cute tag (these are my favorite – Little Notes from E. Frances Paper) and drop off as a little reminder of how fabulous you think they are!

One of my favorite bakeries made these cookies years ago and I had to reshare them because they are so cute! They have closed their doors for walk in retail, but you can still order cakes online!

Make sure to check out Love And Flour, their cakes are beautiful.

I love a good m&m cookie on Valentine’s Day, they make a bold pop of color!

I love a good sheet pan meal, pancakes are no exception. Use your favorite pancake recipe but make on a baking sheet. Cook at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes. They come out light and fluffy and you can cut them out into cute shapes with cookie cutters – and everyone gets warm pancakes at the same time!

Don’t want to make sheet pan pancakes, try making them in muffin tins. My second favorite way to make quick meals for the whole family – and everyone gets to eat a hot meal at the same time! My kids think that eating anything with a toothpick is more fun, so we found these cute heart food picks to use and we let them dip them in whipped cream and sprinkles! What is your favorite pancake topping?

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I think that when I had my first child I had these holiday visions of the perfect gingerbread house – beautiful icing, rainbow colors, gumdrop roof, peppermint walkway. And then I had my third child and reality set in that frosting ends up EVERYWHERE, its a sticky mess, there are globs and blobs, someone ends up crying (probably me) and the house ends up falling apart halfway through and the kids could care less after minute 5.

So here are my best tips for a clean (if that’s your thing) and stress free (if you even get stressed out about these things) or less stressful, holiday gingerbread experience. First, go ahead and buy that pre assembled gingerbread house. no one is looking and no one is judging. You can get it here. Sure, you can buy more expensive ones, but this is worth every penny. And if anyone is looking THAT closely, you don’t want to be their friend anyway. Another tip, go ahead and buy one that you have to assemble and HOT GLUE GUN that house together, because, let’s be honest, NO ONE eats a gingerbread house that their kids have decorated. I mean those kids have licked their fingers and probably sneezed on it one or six times, you’re putting that out on your holiday table and then throwing that baby out come January 1st.

Same with decorating cookies. You can spend your time in the kitchen making the tasty home made cookies that are super cute and time consuming to cut out and frost, when really, all your kid wants to do it throw some candy on it, lick their fingers (maybe eat 2 cookies) and then you throw the rest out. Maybe your kids could eat more cookies, mine PROBABLY could, but I’m not sticking around or willing to find out.

I mean, do you really want to see their behavior after they eat all this candy?!?! hahaha. So maybe make. one good batch of cutout, frosted cookies, and fake the rest! It’s ok to take some short cuts during this crazy holiday season. And if a complete store bought cookie package is too much, but a pre made cookie dough and roll it out and cut those. Perfect compromise. What is your best holiday shortcut?

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Putting together Boo Baskets is one of my favorite fall activities. I love these baskets from Target, they came in cute shapes like this cat, a ghost and a pumpkin. They remind me of those jelly shoes I used to have as a kid. I filled this one with a bunch of fun things – a little crispy Halloween chocolate from Lake Champlain, ghost pajamas from Hanna Andersson (these were last years, but they have a similar style here), Meri Meri surprise balls, Michael’s bead kit, pen and notepad set from TJ Maxx, Gustavo the Shy Ghost and Bonaparte Falls Apart.

We picked up these craft/paper mache pumpkins at our local craft store and painted them in pastels- it took about two coats. We used these sparkle self adhesive letters to spell fun things like “spooky” and “boo” on them as an alternative to the orange color palette.

Another fun craft idea that the kids can help with is to get wooden pumpkins – we picked these up at Target for around $5 each (or wait until they go on sale for 50% off at the end of the season), and covered them in Mod Podge and stuck on these fun jewels. The Mod Podge dries clear, and you get these glam looking pumpkins. I put them up in my windows!

We like to put together boo baskets for our friends – last year we did these cute skull (and not pictured, pumpkin) waffle makers from Target, along with a fun spatula we found at TJ Maxx, and these fun pumpkin hot cocoa bombs to complete our breakfast themed basket!

Here’s a look at the pumpkin basket from Target, along with a cute ghost pillow from Bullseye’s playground, a paint your own ceramic pumpkin kit from Mondo Llama at Target, a pumpkin shaped notepad from TJ Maxx and for a little something sweet, some Halloween colored m&m’s in that cute viral coffin shaped box that we found at the Dollar Tree.

Target also makes a smaller sized wooden pumpkin, and we used the Mod Podge here again, but this time we used tissue paper squares and glitter, and put layered with a top coat of Mod Podge just to keep everything smooth and give it a nice glossy finish.

No fall season would be complete without a pumpkin stack. I have a little trick that keeps my pumpkins looking fresh and new for over a month – check back for a full blog post soon!

This trick even helps deter those pesky squirrels. But others swear by putting a grape vine wreath under pumpkin stacks. Either way – don’t put pumpkins directly on dirt or mulch, that’s a sure way for them to rot quickly.

I always love to stop at Ferjulian’s to check out their pumpkin patch. Their decorations are always top notch and their mums are stunning. If you do get mums, a good tip is to soak/submerge the bottom of them in a bucket of water for about 20 minutes before putting them into your planter. Also, make sure to deadhead them as the season goes on. Try to pick mums that are not fully bloomed or that still have closed buds on them so that they will last longer.

The pumpkin walkway gets me every time…

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Halloween is my favorite holiday, minus the dressing up part – so here are so fun ideas to make the holiday fun for kids. Boo baskets: big or small, make more significant ones for your own kids and make smaller ones for friends or children in your neighborhood. I put this one together for my kids last year. Skull shaped hot chocolate bombs, ghost light up necklace, glow in the dark Starbucks tumbler, bead kit from Michael’s and a fun pencil case filled with candy.

Here is a closer look at the monster pencil case I filled with candy. A link to a similar one can be found here.

Finny and Dot makes some of the cutest bracelets, and I love supporting small businesses. I picked up this cute Halloween bracelet, check out her Etsy shop here.

I’ve also purchased some cute necklaces from her as well.

Fall is in full swing and is my favorite season. You can find me checking out every single apple cider donut sundae I can find.

I love me some Christmas crack, you know, the recipe with saltines, butter, brown sugar and chocolate chips? Line a baking sheet with saltine crackers, preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a saucepan heat 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar until bubbling. Pour over saltines and bake in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips. Spread. Let cool. Before breaking it into pieces I like to drizzle with colored melting chocolate and Halloween colored sprinkles – maybe throw on a few candy eyeballs, and have yourself a little Halloween crack instead!

Another idea for a “Boo Basket” would be picking up these cute pails, I think I bought these from Bullseye’s Playground area at Target, but you could also find some at the Dollar Store, and fill with the candy of your choice. I added some foil wrapped chocolate pumpkins from Vermont Nut Free Chocolates.

Candy eyeballs make everything cuter! Dress up store box brownies with candy eyeballs and melting chocolate for an instant party perfect dessert.

And how cute are these brownie bats? Follow the directions on the box for brownies, but make them in muffin tins. Break Oreos in half or use any round chocolate cookie to make the wings and use candy eyeballs to instantly dress up this dessert!

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“It’s Me, Hi, I’m The Birthday Girl!”. We are in our Taylor Swift era. So naturally, for her birthday, my daughter wanted all things Taylor. Sarah came through as usual, she does all of our cake toppers (isn’t she amazing?!?!). All I said was, Taylor Swift, sparkles, and FUN! Needless to say, this cake was a hit!

Summer birthdays are hard with friends on vacation and at camp, so we decided to hold off on a party until the fall, but for our family celebration, I made this fun cake with bright colors and fancy sprinkles.

Here is a close up of the awesome cake topper!

Topper: SHRH Designs https://www.shrhdesigns.com/

Cake sprinkles: Sprinkle Pop /https://sprinklepop.shop/

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With summer in full swing, and summer birthdays or bbq’s every other weekend, I love the idea of bringing a retro cooler filled with fun beverages as a gift. I picked up this fun Polarbox cooler and filled it with all kinds of fun drinks for the summer.

You could do alcoholic or non alcoholic versions of this – we did hard lemonades, rose and some “beach juice”. You could also add some fun snacks for a full on the go experience.

What would you throw in a cooler for the day?

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Summer time is my favorite. I love picking berries with my kids. Well, maybe the idea of picking berries with my kids. They usually get tired after picking three berries and I end up picking the rest of the tray while they run off into the field and I sweat off 800lbs in the 900 degree sun. Either way, one of our favorite places to pick berries is Autumn Hill Orchard. It is out in Groton, MA. They are not usually crowded, their berries are some of the best that we have tasted, and the people there are so friendly. They remember us from year to year, they are kind and super friendly. They have blueberries and raspberries, and new this year they have blackberries. They just started pick your own peaches and they have apricots and local honey for sale at their retail tent. In the fall they will have Concord grapes for sale. You will be able to pick your own apples in the fall and their views can’t be beat.

Autumn Hills Orchard

495 Chicopee Row, Groton, MA https://autumnhillsorchard.com/

And after picking, we always stop at Johnson’s Dairy Bar for a well deserved ice cream. My go to flavor is the peach raspberry.

Johnson’s Dairy Bar

164 Boston Road, Groton, MA https://www.johnsonsrestaurantanddairybar.com/

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Have a child that is heading to Kindergarten this fall? Check out these cute gifts that are sure to keep the kids prepared for anything!

Backpacks: Dollar Tree. Supplies, Target and Staples: Crayola crayons, glue sticks (because, you can never have enough glue sticks), composition note book, Crayola markers inside the green pencil case and Crayola colored pencils in the dinosaur hard pencil case.

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Welcome to the first annual Cider Donut Palooza! A few friends of mine got together and we hit up 10 local orchards for a battle of the cider donuts. Which one came out on top? You’ll just have to keep reading!

Who were the contenders? Honey Pot Hill Orchards, Berlin Orchards, Davidian Farm (not an orchard), Tougas Farm, Derby Ridge (not an orchard), Carver Hill, Bolton Orchards, Bolton Spring Farm, Carlson Orchards and Idylwilde Farms.

First stop on our list was Tougas Family Farm, located in Northborough. This is one of my top choices for picking fruit – we went countless times this summer. They have cherries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, apples and pumpkins. Not crowded if you go early on the weekdays. They have a tons of fruit and a huge playground for the kids to run around in afterwards. They have barn animals and a goat bridge. The farm store offers lunch and goods to take home, such as donuts, pies, cider and more. The have large indoor restrooms and portable restrooms as well. No dogs allowed.

Located just at the bottom of the hill, before you go up to Tougas, is Davidian’s Farm Market. While you can’t pick apples here, they have a really nice assortment of their own fruits and vegetables: corn, peaches, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, squash, peppers and more! They have a HUGE bakery section and throw in a deli and you have one stop shopping. Pick up some mums outside or even choose a pumpkin to bring home.

The market is open daily, from 9am – 6:30pm. Also, worth noting, is that they offer a CSA. Their large share is $540 and their small share is $335.

Third stop is Berlin Orchards. They are open Monday – Friday from 10am-5pm. Saturday and Sundays they are open 9am -5pm. They offer WEEKDAY wagon rides from 11am-4pm. There is just a really nice feeling about this place – very family friendly. The farm store offers pre-picked fruit as well as delicious donuts – and the people working there couldn’t be nicer!

Ripening schedule is as follows: Ginger Gold & Paula Red:  Beginning August 28, Macs:  Beginning September 3, Gala, Cortland:  Beginning September 11, Honey Crisp, Golden Supreme:  September 13, Jonagold: Beginning September 25, Macoun:  Beginning September 25, Mutsu & Red Delicious:  Beginning October 2. No dogs allowed.

Fourth Stop is Honey Pot Hill Orchards. I have been going here since I was a kid. My best advice is go on a weekday if you can and if you have to go on the weekend, go early. The parking lot can get a little crazy on the weekend – but note that if you are just heading to the store and NOT picking apples, you can go to the parking lot right next to the store.

Plenty of family fun here. Hayrides 10am-4:30pm on the weekends and 12pm – 4pm on weekdays. There are three mazes for you to choose from: the big green monster maze, the little hedge maze and the tunnel maze. Don’t forget to say hello to the farm animals: the mini ponies, the rabbits, the goats, the chickens and of course the three little pigs! They offer a hard cider tent on the weekends for those that are 21+. Stop into the store for pre picked fruit, caramel apples, pies and more. Sorry, no dogs allowed.

If you aren’t looking, you might drive right past Carver Hill Orchards. It’s a great family run orchard located in Stow. I went mid morning on a Friday and it was very quiet there, like I had lucked out and had the place to myself! Carver Hill offers cherries, apples, peaches, raspberries, blueberries and much more for “pick your own”.

Stop in to their farm store for cider donuts (on the weekends only) or a light bite, think hot dogs and apple crisp. You are welcome to bring your own picnic lunch, tables are on a first come, first serve basis. Sorry, dogs are not allowed.

Just down the street from Carver Hill is Derby Ridge Farm. While this is not an orchard, they offer 30 varieties of their own apples, peaches, pears and plums. They carry local honey, jams, jelly and maple syrup. In the fall, they make their own fudge, cider donuts and other baked goods.

September Hours are Monday and Tuesday 12pm-6pm, Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm.

Located in Harvard, MA, Carlson Orchards offers blueberry, raspberry, peach and nectarine picking as well as pick your own apples. Their farm store sells their hard ciders as well as their sweet ciders, including their premium blend and their varietal blends (100% honeycrisp, 100% gala and 100% Fuji). Pick your own is open from 9am – 4pm daily and the retail store is open 9am – 5pm daily. Sorry, no dogs allowed.

Bolton Spring Farm offers pick your own apples from 9am- 4:30pm daily. Their store bakes hot apple dumplings daily, as well as apple crisp and old fashioned cider spiced donuts. Make sure to grab some of their cinnamon bread while you are there. The store is open from late May until the end of December, selling a variety of native peaches, pears, plums, nectarines and over 25 varieties of apples. Hayrides have been put on hold due to COVID.

Not pictured was Bolton Orchards and Idylwilde Farm, located in Acton. Bolton Orchards offers daily lunch specials, ice cream, fresh produce and locally produced specialty goods. They are open daily 9am – 5pm.

Idylwilde has their own grown beets, broccoli, tomatoes, corn, peas and so much more. They support other local farms and are fully stocked all year round. They’re open Monday 8am – 7pm, closed Tuesday, and open Wednesday – Sunday 8am-7pm.

Big shout out to Alex Schwartz, who made an interactive map of all the places to sample cider donuts in Massachusetts (he is up to 191 locations!!). He inspired us to do this Donut Palooza in the first place!

So where did we think had the best donuts? We chose Davidian’s Farm!

Where are you favorite cider donuts from?

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