Watching the Oscars is fun, but hosting an Oscar Watching Party is even better! Here are some easy tips to create your own award-winning party with little work and a lot of fun!  Prepare for Your Oscar Party To set the mood for your Oscar-watching party, consider decorating your space with movie-themed decorations. You can hang up posters of the nominated films, set up a red carpet, and provide props for your guests to take photos with. Star decor and all things gold will set the scene easy! You can also order this Oscar award trophy of your own. If you really want to go the extra mile ..read more

Take your favorite parts of Thanksgiving and give it a little twist for easier portions and better presentation with these delicious Sausage and Cranberry Stuffing Cups.  This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Hillshire Brands Company. All opinions are entirely my own. #joy2themeal Growing up having a large extended family had its advantages – especially during the holidays. Not just because I had four grandmas or double the amount of presents…but because I got to sit down for the holiday meal not just one time, but sometimes up to three or four times a season, per h ..read more

Looking for a few new choices to add to your menu for a healthy Thanksgiving table? Consider this easy Stuffed Acorn Squash made with mushrooms Minute® Multi-Grain Medley. There’s nothing like the feast served at Thanksgiving. While the food might be the centerpiece of the holiday, it’s actually meant to celebrate being thankful for family and friends by spending time together.  Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to spend days (and even weeks) planning, preparing and serving the “perfect holiday meal.” But nowadays time is too precious to spend all of it making the food and not enjoy ..read more

Your first turkey dinner doesn’t need to be THAT hard. Make a turkey touchdown this Thanksgiving with these three steps I learned my first Thanksgiving!   I received a Jennie-O Turkey to help me test-run my first Thanksgiving. I’m sharing my experience here with you to show how easy it is! Making Thanksgiving dinner seems to be a rite of passage that I had not passed — until this year. With scheduling issues making it impossible for a traditional Turkey Day dinner to be shared by my family, I decided not to just have the day come and go, but to go ahead and celebrate — a week in advance ..read more

I’m thrilled to be partnering with Market Street to highlight features, deals and more each month especially this recipe for Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole! #MarketStreetTX When I was growing up, Sunday dinner was always a special occasion with a big meal like roast, ham or meatloaf with all the fixings. Now as an adult, I try to still make sure Sundays are spent with the family.  And when possible, I try to make the dishes that also mean a lot to me with a few twists of my own.  One of those is this Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole.&nbs ..read more

Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin! There’s a ton of reasons to love pumpkin. From its health benefits to its amazing taste, here are several recipes including my famous pumpkin bread pudding with chocolate chips (and donuts!)  I’m not sure when a certain large chain of coffeehouses unofficially kicked off fall, but every year when the #PSL debuts on the menu, Pumpkin-poolza hits. Everything from granola to gelato gets pumpkified and for someone like me that’s obsessed with the flavor du jour, it’s my happy time. And just in case you need a little convincing, here are more reas ..read more

Manners? Even if the rest of the world has forgotten them, you shouldn’t. Here are Five Table Manners Every Kid Should Know (and we should be teaching.)   Thanks to Terra Mediterranean for providing the perfect dinner experience for this post. “I’m never having children,” I remember telling my date (now husband) as we dined at a restaurant one Friday night full of loud, thankless, and rude children.  I didn’t want to be “those people” with ill-behaved children that couldn’t handle what I considered basic manners like not burping at the table, saying thank you, and eati ..read more

What’s better than truffles? Healthy truffles! With 5 ingredients you can make healthy avocado cappuccino truffles with a secret ingredient – AVOCADOS! It doesn’t take much for me to stop for coffee…especially ICED COFFEE. However, when you’re trying to lose weight,  you don’t give up those calories easily for coffee.  But with the new Skinny Cow Iced Coffee, you can have your coffee and eat it, too. However, who wants to eat cake by yourself? So I called some of my best gal pals over to catch up after the holidays for a fun and easy “Coffee Break” party to try the three Skinny Cow ..read more

Have you been so busy you haven’t had time to do the Christmas stuff? Get in all the holiday fun with our guide to SO MUCH Christmas at the Gaylord Texan. It’s ironic that the more at home we are, the less time it seems we have to do anything? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the days get longer and so does my to do list. So if you’re working hard to get in all in the Christmas – the music, the lights, the pictures, the fun, the movies – the everything – then book a stay at the Gaylord Texan now. Why? Because there’s SO.MUCH.FUN. (And SO.MANY.Photos to go through – exactly 421 in less tha ..read more

Need an escape this Christmas? Why not the North Pole? Head to Santa and his village by way of Dallas for Holidays at the Hilton Anatole. Our family needed an escape for the holidays and there’s no better place than the North Pole…but since travel isn’t on the list for us lately, we packed up our family Christmas pjs and headed to Dallas to the Hilton Anatole. We’ve always enjoyed years of their Breakfast with Santa. And while this year there’s no Peppermint Park, we were so excited Santa wasn’t just hosting his holiday breakfast, but he also added some fun new surprises like holiday decorate ..read more