Spring may have sprung nearly a week ago, but here in Chicago it feels like winter.  I am seriously on the verge of a nervous breakdown – I want to take the kids to the park without spending 15 minutes bundling them up! The cold weather means cold weather meals.  The other night I made […]

Living in such a large city affords us the opportunity to walk just about everywhere, so we don’t drive many miles.  But when General Motors recently recognized me and this site as a “local influencer”, I was very honored.   GMC offered me a week in any vehicle – how could I turn that down?! I […]

We hosted a birthday party for Mack and Vivian the other night.  It was a large crowd, so I wasn’t able to serve an entirely homemade meal. But, I supplemented pizza delivery with a homemade chopped salad and some simple appetizers.  Perhaps the most popular dish was homemade beer cheese. The men in the family […]

Vivian and Mack celebrated birthdays this weekend, so last night we hosted what will hopefully be the first of many joint birthday parties for the two. Both are still too young to really care about sharing their special day with a sibling, but like all siblings there is a fair amount of rivalry in our […]

Several years ago I shared a post titled “The Cloth Diapering Manifesto” outlining my knowledge on cloth diapering.  It got a lot of parents thinking about cloth diapering, and I was happy to spread my love of cloth.  Now that I have successfully potty trained two kids by the age of 2, I thought I’d […]

Last week Evie came home from school with a homework assignment from her wonderful pre-school teachers: build a leprechaun trap. Chris had to work late every night last week, so the leprechaun trap gave the kids and I something fun to work on after dinner. I had never heard of a leprechaun trap before, but […]

As I wrote about a few months ago, I recently launched Terra Baby, a line of affordable and adorable cloth diapers.  So far business is going well – we’ve shipped all over the country from Connecticut to Washington and everywhere in between.  Its nice to know a few more babies are covered in cloth! I […]

I recently discovered Peeled, a juice shop here in Chicago.  Whenever I feel sick or tired, I stop in and after the first sip I start feeling better.  For a few years now I have been curious about trying a juice cleanse. I’ve heard promises that consuming only freshly squeezed organic fruit and vegetable juice […]

I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep lately. Later this month, Vivian and Mack will celebrate birthdays which means that another year has flown by. Life is going too fast. I could live to 150 and still not check off everything on my to-do list.  I want to stop time and live without distractions […]

With the exception of dishwasher soap and dish soap, I haven’t bought conventional cleaning products in years. I make homemade laundry detergent, and I rely on vinegar and elbow grease to clean just about everything else.  Choosing the homemade route saves us (lots of) money and reduces the amount of toxins washed down the drain.  […]