Thank you SO much for joining in on our excitement about this new chapter and all your well wishes. It’s been so hard keeping it to myself over this year, but we had some details we needed to hammer out and being that we were burned twice in 2020, we wanted to make sure all of it was coming together before sharing the plan. I’m really looking forward to sharing more life stuff, as I feel like I’ve had to leave out a big chunk of what’s been going on offline. IG is certainly the easiest way to share day to day stuff, but for personal documentation and for y’all that have told me you don’t have ..read more

A New Adventure for the Dixon Family Oh, y’all, I am so excited to finally get to share this news with you this morning! The road to get here was winding, but now I can now officially share that we are MOVING. We’ve loved our current house and neighborhood, and above all, our dear friends we’ve made here. Full stop. However, the time has come for a new adventure. I’m not even 100% sure how all this came about, but somehow we found ourselves looking at a piece of property in a peaceful setting and with a beautiful view a couple years back and though we didn’t see the full plan at the time, we s ..read more

Happy Prime Days to those who celebrate! If this isn’t your jam, it’s a great time to take a social media break for two days, but circle back to the blog on Thursday for a fun announcement But back to Prime Day. I did some thinking on how best to cover it, as there are upwards of 44,000 items on deal during these two days. Here’s my approach: listed below are items I can personally vouch for; they are items I’ve bought and used and recommend. If you have questions on any of them, ask in the comments or on IG and I’m happy to share my experience with any of them. I hope you find it helpful! A ..read more

Hello! How’s your week been? We leaned into summer hard this week, including swimming, bowling (kids bowl free at so many places; check your local spot) and after dinner walks (as a family with H dribbling her basketball and the hoverboard for K). I had a fun and inspiring girls dinner last night with Julie, Lexi, Stefanie, and Caitlin. Oh! I also finished my 2021 family album and started on 2022. I use Mixbook. Tonight I am looking forward to making pizza with my crew and picking a family movie. I recently watched watched It Takes Two from 1995 with the kids and they loved it. Ah, nostalgia ..read more

This salad has been a favorite lunch option for me lately. It began with my desire to increase my fiber intake through vegetables and whole grains. Quinoa technically is a seed, but has more fiber content than white or brown rice (and is higher in protein), so I went that route. I paired it with fresh veggies, chickpeas, and crunchy toasted almond slivers, and there I had it- a delicious, satiating side dish that I’ve enjoyed enough to want to share with you here. I even calculated the macros and fiber with the help of My Fitness Pal in hopes that would be helpful. . This summer quinoa crun ..read more

It’s crazy to me to see much homeschooling has increased in popularity, even since we began 7 years ago. I understand it, though. It’s an appealing choice to many because of its flexibility, customized learning plans, and the ability it gives you to spend more time with your kids. If you want to homeschool kids, but are worried about getting overwhelmed, you’re not alone. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it will still happen now and then but I’ve gathered together a list of my favorite tips for homeschooling that will let you take advantage of the great opportunity to teach your child if that’s s ..read more

When I found out my brother was planning a full week at mom’s so he and Cara could work while my mom watched my nieces leading up to our family weekend, I knew the girls and I had to finagle an early arrival. Instead of arriving Thursday as planned, we pulled in Monday afternoon to an excited crew and the promise of more time for the girls to hang with their cousins. At ages 12, 11, 10, and 8, all four girls relish the time they get to spend together. We kicked things off Stathas style, with a Grey Goose martini, shaken by Kris, two olives and a twist. He certainly inherited Dad’s knack for m ..read more

This year I’ve really been trying to experiment more with fun drinks that don’t contain alcohol. I don’t ever anticipate going completely dry, but I like having the option of something tasty without a buzz or something to switch to after an initial adult beverage. I’ve tried simple drinks like sparkling water with cucumber and lime to more elaborate multiple juice based drinks to health-factor options like the sleep-well-mocktail. The taste of cocktails can make them enticing, but sometimes, I want that fancy feeling without a hangover the next day. And hangovers can be caused by alcohol, obv ..read more

Outlive by is a meaty, research-heavy book dotted with personal anecdotes to help bring home the points that Peter Attia believes are crucial to consider in our approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. From Amazon: For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr ..read more

I don’t think this post is going to propel me into creating a home design section of my blog. Not because of the results of the renovation (because those are beautiful!), but because I don’t capture it in a way that does it justice. I will stick with food pictures because I should have taken better pictures with the real camera instead of snaps on my iPhone. Convenience reigned supreme though, and here we are. I bet you can still get a good idea of the difference this renovation made. The kitchen felt like it doubled in size. The island is AMAZING. The appliance garage is so helpful. And I re ..read more