Tag Archives: food

This Guide Will Help You To Create A Kid Friendly Kitchen

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If you have kids, allowing them to help you in the kitchen can have so many benefits. They’ll learn a ton of new skills, have fun, and you’ll both get to bond. However, if you’re going to do this, you need to make sure your kitchen is kid friendly. This guide will help you to create the perfect kid friendly kitchen:

Add A Bright Color: Adding a bright color to the kitchen will make it a lively and more fun place to be for kids. That doesn’t mean that they can’t have fun in a neutral kitchen. You could always use patterns and things to make it pop for them instead. Just remember, you can still have a classy kitchen suitable for adults while making it look fun for kids too. It doesn’t need to look like a play room!

Try Kid Sized Furniture: If you like, you could include a few pieces of child sized furniture. If you like having little helpers in the kitchen and they enjoy helping you, getting them a suitable work surface could actually be a great addition to your kitchen.

Consider Creating A ‘Kid’s Area’: If you do consider adding kid sized furniture, you could always think about making a complete ‘kid’s area’ if you have the room. This could include a blackboard and other accessories that they can use.

Include Fun Accessories: There are so many cool accessories that you can include in the kitchen to make it more fun for kids. How about bright coasters, chopping boards, and other chef kitchen decor? You could also include dress up aprons, tea towels, pastel colored utensils, and so much more!

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Keep Things Organized: Keeping things organized is key if you want to know where everything is, and this will teach your kids to be organized, too. There are lots of ways you can do this. Some people like to make extra use of their cabinets by sticking hooks and things to the inside of the door so that they can hang extra utensils. Not only will this help your kids to become more self sufficient in the kitchen, but it will also teach them the important skills of staying organized and putting things back where they belong.

Lock Away Dangerous Substances: Make sure that you lock away dangerous substances, either in a high up cabinet or with a sturdy lock. If they’re old enough, you should explain to them why they shouldn’t touch these products. It’s all too easy to mistake a colorful bleach bottle for a tasty drink when you’re a child. You should also make sure that it isn’t easy for them to get their hands on lighters, matches, sharp knives, and scissors.

Child Proof Sharp Corners: Make sure that you also take the steps to child proof any sharp corners in the room to avoid injuries. When kids are a certain height, they could very well cut their head open or damage their eyes on a sharp corner. Teach them not to climb up onto high surfaces either and that you don’t give them an easy way to do it!

Best Of My Holiday Haul

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Best Of My Holiday Haul

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday! I hope this holiday season brought you lots of fabulous goodies and some amazing quality time with your family and friends. This Christmas brought me a great big holiday haul thanks to celebrating with two families (mine and my boyfriend’s) and my best friend. I won’t bore you with featuring all of my prezzies but here are a few of my favorites from my holiday haul! Take a look:

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The Haul:

  • Arturo Chiang heels from my sister
  • Thug Kitchen cookbook from my sister’s boyfriend
  • Philosophy bubble bath, a stuffed bunny, and plaid gloves from my boyfriend

What I Like About You:

Arturo Chiang Heels: My sister spoiled me rotten with these shoes!! Kristen knows that I love all things footwear and I told her I needed one more pair for an empty space on my shoe wall. She took this need to heart and picked out a perfect pair for me in my favorite color – black! I was so excited about these because I was looking at a pair of perforated heels from TJMaxx and didn’t end up buying them but I like my gifted pair so much more! I am so happy to add my Arturo Chiang heels to my shoe wall arsenal and can’t wait to stomp it out in them once the weather warms up.

Thug Kitchen: Finally, someone sees me for the thug that I truly am! My sister’s boyfriend, Ramon, gave me this cookbook along with a Starbucks gift card and I thought that it was so thoughtful. Ramon is one of my best friends and I really appreciated that he picked out something that I actually really like – an all vegetarian cookbook doused in profanity! Thug Kitchen is filled with amazing vegetarian dishes and is freaking hysterical. Not that I would expect anything less from a cookbook that is subtitled “Eat Like You Give a Fuck”!!

Boyfriend Presents: As always, my Kyle spoils me during gift giving occasions and this Christmas was no exception. Among a huge haul of gifts from him, my bath wash, bunny, and gloves are some of my favorites. I love Philosophy products but I would never buy them for myself so I am so excited to use my Vanilla Birthday Cake scented body wash, especially because my favorite fragrance is anything vanilla!

There is actually a cute little story behind my blushing pink stuffed bunny. I have been begging Kyle to get me a real rabbit for Christmas since the beginning of the year but unfortunately, my mom is not on board with the idea. So for now, the stuffie will do but it definitely doesn’t beat the real thing! And finally, I adore my new gloves. The gift shop at Kyle’s restaurant has new variations of these gloves every year and I loved the black and maroon pairs that he got me last Christmas. But I think that this plaid pair is even better! I love the colors and the bow that goes across the wrist is too cute. 🙂

This is just a tiny peek at my holiday haul and I am so thankful for everything that I received this year as well as the time spent with my loved ones. So special shout out to them for making my Christmas one of the best yet!

So there you have it, the Best Of My Holiday Haul! What did you guys score this holiday season? Did you receive anything that you were madly in love with or ehh not so much? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Tasty Recipes That Can Help You Stick To Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution

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Tasty Recipes That Can Help You Stick To Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution

Are you planning on getting fit and losing some weight as part of your new year’s resolution? If so, you might already be worried about being tempted by some of your favorite foods! So how exactly do you change your diet without feeling so hungry all the time? It’s easy really; you just need to start making homemade versions of your favorite dishes. Here are some super easy recipes that will show you healthy alternatives aren’t too hard at all:

Cauliflower-Topped Shepherd’s Pie: Do you love hearty comfort food during the winter, such as shepherd’s pie? Comfort food is the Achilles heel for many people when it comes to dieting. Thankfully, there is a way that you can enjoy a delicious shepherd’s pie without worrying about piling on lots of extra pounds. You just need to swap the potato topping for one made from cauliflower! That way, you are cutting down on a lot of carbs. This is very easy to do, you just need to boil the cauliflower until it is super soft. Then mash it up with an egg. It should now be the consistency of mashed potato! Top your shepherd’s pie with this, and you will forget that you didn’t make it the original way!

Spiralized Pasta: Spiralizers were a very big deal in 2016 and they are set to be even bigger next year! These cool contraptions allow you to make spaghetti and noodles out of hard vegetables, such as courgettes and sweet potatoes. You simply attach the vegetable to one end of the spiralizer, turn the handle, and watch the noodles and spaghetti form before your very eyes! This is a great low-carb alternative to regular pasta. Then all you need to do is boil the spaghetti or noodles much like you would regular pasta and serve it with your favorite pasta sauce!

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Spelt Bread: Are you thinking of going gluten-free next year? Well, one way to cut out so much gluten from your diet is to start eating spelt bread. This is a lot healthier than bread that is made from wheat. Spelt contains no gluten and is a carbohydrate that our body can easily digest. Unlike wheat! Spelt bread can be very expensive in the supermarket so you may prefer to make your own. This isn’t too difficult to do, even for beginners. If you want to make things even easier for yourself, you could treat yourself to a bread maker: breadmachinemom.com.

Avocado Chocolate Mousse: Did you think that eating healthy meant that you could no longer enjoy some of your favorite foods? Nope, that’s not the case! In fact, you can still tuck into chocolate mousse! Just make sure that it is made from avocado, though. Avocado is packed full of essential minerals, and you won’t be able to taste it once you add all the yummy chocolate!!!! There are plenty of recipes for this quirky dish online, including this one: chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2015/10/15/avocado-chocolate-mousse-vegan-healthy/

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 Looove avocado!

Looks like you will be able to have a delicious 2017 and still lose weight! Here’s to the New Year!

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Small Things You Can Do To Be Healthier In The New Year

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It’s not long until the New Year now. That usually means thinking about all of the things that we’d like to change and improve. The problem is, is that if we always choose massive goals, then they can become overwhelming to complete. Instead, it’s a much better idea to choose small achievable things like the ones below:

Eat More Fruit and Veggies: Most people’s diets take a bit of a bashing over Christmas. There is so much delicious party food and nibbles around that it can take a will of iron to resist. That is often countered with the start of a strict diet come the first of January. Unfortunately, strict diets are hard to keep up and can cause you to fall back into your old ways defeated and sad by January 14th.

Instead of setting yourself up for failure in this way, focus on the types of foods that you are eating. Increasing fibrous food and fruits and vegetables in our diets provide more nutrients and are more filling. This, then squeezes out the opportunity to eat too much junk food. If you are struggling to get more fruit and veggies into your diet, then you might want to consider getting a kitchen gadget or two like a spiralizer or a juicer. If you are unsure about the type of juicer to get, you can check out the ones selected by Juicer Cruiser to help you make your decision.

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 SO. ORANGE.

Exercise Daily: Exercising daily might not sound like a small activity, but we are not talking about running marathons or spending hours at the gym here. Instead, we are talking 5-10 minutes sessions. The idea here is to get used to building movement into your daily routine until it becomes normal.

It can be any sort of movement you like – you can dance, jog, or lift weights. You can clean the house or run around the garden with the kids. It’s not really what you are doing that matters, it’s that you’re doing it daily. This will help you lay the foundation for a healthy habit to be built into your everyday life.

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Practice Being Mindful: Mindfulness is a very popular concept at the moment. It is about being aware of where you are internally at any given moment. It is about being present in your own body and mind and observing what is going on in there. This might sound like an activity that entails hours and hours of silent meditation. But it can be broken down into small periods throughout the day, repeatedly.

In fact, it suits intermittent periods of practice throughout the day best. Our minds have a tendency to wander off into the past or future, and you have to practice bringing you focus back to the here and now. That means the aim is to not have a streak of being mindful, but to rapidly bring your presence back to now again and again. To do this, you can set a timer on your watch, or you can get smartphone and watch apps that remind you throughout the day.

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 Mind your mindfulness!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hello everyone and happy happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! I’ll keep this post short and sweet because I am sure all of you have some driving, cooking, and HELLA eating to do! I just wanted to wish everyone the happiest of Thanksgivings today and a most wonderful holiday season. All of my readers and blogging friends already know how thankful I am for each and every one of you but I will say it again: I’M THANKFUL FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. Thank you for always offering me your support, kind words, and friendship!

Have an amazing day and don’t get too down on yourself if you have to unbutton your pants button or add a few more notches to your belt! As always, I plan on going hard this Thanksgiving and hope everyone does the same! What is your favorite Thanksgiving food? What is your favorite holiday tradition? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

The Advanced Guide To Christmas – Let’s Get It Right This Year!

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For most people, Christmas is a magical and wonderful time, full of celebration, presents, and good will. Unless you are the one that has to organize and pay for it all! Then, it can be a bit of a nightmare. But with a little careful planning, you too can have a perfect Christmas with a minimum amount of stress. Just read on to find out how:

Parties: One of the great joys of Christmas is sharing a drink and holiday treats with your friends and neighbors – unless it is your house that they are coming to this time. In which case, it is very easy to reach panic stations pretty quickly. Avoid the hassle and stress of entertaining at Christmas, not by hiding behind the curtains with the lights out but by being as prepared as possible.

A week or two before the party, make a list of everything that needs doing. The last thing on your list should be the decorations that you need to finish putting up on the day. If possible, get in food that is ready prepared so you just have to warm it up. Or, if you are cooking for the party yourself, make things that can be baked well ahead of time and frozen or stored until they are needed.

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YUM!!!

Presents: One of the most essential parts of Christmas is the gift giving. But Christmas shopping is so time-consuming and expensive. To lighten the load why not buy a joint gift for the families or households that you know? Consider something like a Christmas hamper delivery as a gift for an entire family. Then you can add in items that you know that everyone will like. Or you could choose to do secret Santa? Then you only have to buy one gift so it can save you both time and money.

Food: What Christmas day is complete without the traditional Christmas lunch? If you are dreading waking up at 5.30 am to get the turkey stuffed and in the oven, then read on. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as all that! If you can get away with it, choose a turkey crown or a smaller bird like a duck or goose. These won’t take as long to cook, so you won’t have to get up at some ungodly hour to ensure that it is ready by 1 pm. You can also make your life a great deal easier by choosing ready prepared vegetables and trimmings. They taste delicious and who is to know that you didn’t wrap that pig in its blanket personally?

Entertainment: One of the most dire thing that can happen is that you put a lot of time and effort into making Christmas wonderful and then boredom kicks in. After the presents are open and the turkey has been eaten, everyone just sits around doing nothing and feeling blah as can be. Pop out for a walk, or dust off a board game or two to keep people interested and feeling festive well past lunch time.

How do you prepare for the holiday season? Who is done with their shopping already? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Snappy Cooking Is The Way To Make The Kitchen Fun Again

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Snappy Cooking Is The Way To Make The Kitchen Fun Again

If you love cooking, there’s probably one element of it you’re still never happy with. We’re talking, of course, about the amount of time it takes. Cooking a meal can be a joy, almost as good as eating it. But the amount of time it takes to set up, to clean up, and get things done can be a real pain. In this article, we’ll look at the improvements you can make to keep cooking prompt, fresh, and fun.

Keep Building Your Arsenal: They say poor workmen blame their tools. But in the kitchen, the best tools make a much better workman. Going electronic can be a very easy way to save a lot of time on processes that you’ve been doing by hand. For instance, you might have thought blenders were only for smoothies. Consider a proper hybrid blender featured on places like https://www.blenderfriend.com/hybrid// You’ll find they can do so much more. Sous vide tools can make it a lot easier to carefully prepare those dishes that need precisely controlled, low-temperature water. Updating your knives collection can make it a lot easier to tackle more ingredients, as well. If you really love cooking, it’s worth building up your collection of tools.

Keep Learning New Techniques: Naturally, that’s not to say that your tools are going to be able to do all the work for you. A lot of people will skip or substitute directions for the techniques they already know how to do. For example, instead of dicing onions, they’ll simply slice them instead. Not only is that pretty lazy, but it’s also going to have a different result. Dicing onions releases their flavor, so there is no substitute for them. The more you learn new techniques and practice them, the better you’ll get at them. The better you get at them, the less time they’re going to take you overall. There’s no substitute for practice, so keep it up.

Keep a Better Kitchen: A lot of time spent cooking isn’t actually spent cooking. A lot of it is spent looking for ingredients and equipment you’re sure you have. Then, there’s a lot of time spent on the process of cleaning up, as well. For that first point, you might want to consider adding some new storage options to your kitchen. Sites like http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/small-kitchen-storage-organization-213495  have some great ideas for even the smaller spaces.

A spice rack and a knife block are crucial for keeping order at your workstation. With ceiling hooks, you can hang some of the utensils you use most often just in reach. As for cleaning, the simple tip is to do it as you cook, not after. If you make a little mess, it’s a lot easier to clean it up right after. Don’t leave yourself a whole kitchen to clean at the end.

Basically, the better a cook you become, the easier the whole process. You’ll learn the techniques that make it so much easier to reduce time. You’ll get the equipment that does the same thing you’ve been doing, only a lot quicker. You’ll even have a kitchen that’s better suited to your needs.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Three Techniques Every Home Cook Should Know

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Three Techniques Every Home Cook Should Know

All the best chefs in the world have their own unique style of doing things. From dicing an onion to roasting potatoes and making a popular sauce, there are always little nuances and tricks which set the pros aside from us amateurs. However, long before these masters found their own style, they were learning some of those basic techniques which are essential for countless dishes. Here are some of the big ones every cook should know:

Blanching Vegetables: This is a method of cooking veggies quickly in boiling water, then plunging them into ice cold water to halt the cooking process and lock in all that vibrant color. The trick to good blanching is using a lot of salty water in the first boiling pot. Use about one cup. If it smells like the ocean, that’s great. Don’t worry – it won’t taste like that!

To blanch, say, one pound of green beans to serve four, prepare a bowl of ice water, keep it near your cooker, and then bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add beans to the boiling water in small batches and cook them for three to four minutes. Then, using a slotted spoon, transfer them to the ice water bowl until all the beans are thoroughly cooked and cooled. Drain the beans, glaze with a little butter and olive oil, and dig in.

Sear a Steak: This is a method that happens in restaurants every day, all over the world. There’s a good reason for this, so try to bring it into your kitchen! If you know that your steak cooking game is a little below-par, you should start practicing using high heat under a pan. The pros sear their steaks in a heavy, scorching hot skillet over a high flame.

To serve two, you’ll need to start with about a pound of skirt steak. Slice it into sizes of your choice and cook them two at a time. Once they’re looking done, leave them for around 15 minutes to let the juices really soak through the meat. Then, slice the pieces again, this time against the grain, and serve in a good pan sauce. Searing may call for a good steak knife if your steaks have been coming out nearly black so far, so check out some reviews on a blog like Cut it Fine.

Dice an Onion: This is one of the basic steps in so many different recipes, so make sure you’re not stumped by it! After peeling the onion, halve it through the root and set the two halves flat-side down on a chopping board. Then, keeping the root end intact, make a series of cuts parallel to the root, roughly a quarter of an inch apart. After this, hold it by the root end, turn it ninety degrees, and make another series of cuts cross-hatching the cuts that you already made. You may not get it right the first time, but stick at it and soon you’ll be able to get those perfect little cubes on demand!

What is your favorite meal to cook at home? What are some of your cooking pro tips? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Joy Of Garlic

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Joy Of Garlic

I am sure that you guys gathered by now that I love food. I feel like I am constantly talking about cooking, baking, eating, or Taco Bell to someone! But one thing that I really love is garlic. I remember the first time that I had a super garlic-y food. My mom made my brother a snack of spaghetti and pesto when he came home from work about ten years ago and after trying a taste of the garlic filled sauce, I was hooked.

After my revelation of how freaking amazing garlic is, I began seeking out foods and recipes that would be filled with the stuff. When I cook, I use no less than an entire bulb of garlic in my meals despite the recipes only calling for about three cloves! When it comes to garlic, I mean bid-ness so when I was at a farmers market in Asheville, North Carolina at the beginning of summer and discovered the Joy Of Garlic stand, I truly believe that I died and went to heaven.

The Joy Of Garlic boasts, sauces, dressings, salsas, and spreads that are all dedicated to giving you the biggest blast of garlic imaginable. Their salsa is superb but after taste testing their Chipotle and sun dried tomato spread, I had discovered what it means to be alive – they are that good. Take a look on their website and you’ll see what I mean!

Upon returning to Asheville in October, my family bought three of each of our favorite spread flavors which will probably last about a month at most considering we put it on everything! Sandwiches, pizza, French bread, crackers, pretzels, you name it. The reason why it dawned on me to even write this post to begin with is because I had some for lunch today over top a microwave pizza! This spread literally transforms everything that you put on it and it turned my somewhat crappy pizza into instant deliciousness.

I also did promise the lovely woman who sold my family our garlic spreads both times that I would write a post about it on my blog. So if you’re reading this: THANK YOU!!

You can shop online for all things garlic at the Joy Of Garlic’s website and you can also learn how to sell the products in your area! If there are any local farmers markets in your neck of the woods, I cannot recommend starting a stand enough because I one hundred and ten percent believe that it would be a hit!

Thank you so much to the Joy Of Garlic for introducing me to my new favorite topping for literally any food and for also helping me keep vampires away with my breath! What is your favorite topping to put on your meals? Is anyone else super obsessed with garlic like me? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

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Turn The TV Off And Spend Some Time As A Family

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Turn The TV Off And Spend Some Time As A Family

TV and movie time as a family is great but getting out and being active together is even better! Here are some tips for creating some fun new memories sans the telly!

Turn The TV Off And Spend Some Time As A Family:

There’s no point shying away from the fact that technology has had a big impact on ours’ and our children’s lives. Gone are the days when kids would spend their time bike riding, climbing trees, and playing outside. Nowadays, most children prefer to spend their time watching movies or playing computer games. Of course, technology is highly beneficial and has improved our lives in a lot of ways.

However, in many ways, it has impacted family time. Making it just a little bit harder to get the quality time that as families, we need. That being said, just because technology makes it harder to have quality family time, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just a case of coming up with ideas for spending time as a family that don’t include the TV or games consoles but are still fun and appealing to the kids.

Take a Camping Trip: One of the most exciting parts of any childhood is going on a camping trip. Kids love adventure, which is why taking a family camping trip is a great idea. The kids will be excited to spend some time out in the wilderness, a campsite, or even your own backyard; and you can look forward to spending some quality time together.

It doesn’t matter whether you go for one night or several nights, all that matters is that you’re doing something as a family. You can build campfires, roast marshmallows, and play games together. If you’re not keen on sleeping under the stars, how about going glamping instead? (My kind of camping!!) To keep the good times rolling, it is a smart idea to invest in Easy install kits for your camper so you can be connected in case of an emergency during your trip.

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 Cheese!

Start a New Family Hobby: Another way to spend some time together as a family is to start a new hobby together. This doesn’t have to be anything too time-consuming, just something that you can all do and enjoy together. Think about what yours’ and your children’s likes and dislikes are and then go from there.

Say, for example; your kids love treasure hunts and you love walking. If this is the case, Geocaching could be the ideal hobby to take up. Geocaching is where you use an app to direct you to the hidden treasure – AKA little things that other people have hidden. This may not be 100 percent technology-free but the app only acts as a map and gives you clues, it’s not the main part of the hobby. The fun part is trying to find the things that have been hidden. For kids, it’s a ton of fun and encourages them to get out of the house and be active.

Or maybe, you’re pretty handy at sewing. Why not make teaching your kids to sew your family hobby? Get your children a sewing book. Look online at the best beginner sewing machine for kids to ensure that you pick the right one. Spend some time teaching them how to sew. Sewing might be a slightly outdated hobby, but it can still be a lot of fun. Whether you’re making new clothes for dolls, Halloween costumes, or just putting some fun patches on a pair of jeans, the main idea is that you’re creating something together!

Cook Together: Reserving one night a week for a family cooking night is another possibility. Each week, spend one night cooking together as a family. This could be trying something new or it could be making simple things like pizza. It’s not about what you cook but about having some fun, getting a little messy, and teaching your kids some new culinary skills. To vamp up this idea even more, you could dedicate each week to creating a meal from a different culture. This will encourage your children to try new things as well as cultivate a sense of adventure when it comes to different foods.

Live Shows: For a change of pace in your entertainment, how about seeing a live show? From plays and musicals to concerts and magicians, it is so exciting to break away from the screen and see something in real life. Whether you are enjoying Christmas tunes like those performed in this Pigeon Forge Show or laughing away at a comedian, it is sure to create lasting memories. Perhaps every few months a member of your family could pick the entertainment outing so everyone gets a say in an event.

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What are some of your favorite TV free activities to do as a family? How about your favorite meal to cook together? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah