Gourmet McDonalds

posted on: Wednesday, December 19, 2012

So back in April I shot two episodes for the Travel Channel in Brazil. One is airing tonight the other in January. Here is clip. Yes I'll stick to writing and not T.V appearances :)


In other news I'm in Hawaii with the fam, all 17 grandkids and 13 adults. Major fun! See you next year. Happy Holidays!

Shopping Smarter with RedLaser

posted on: Friday, December 14, 2012



Last week Christian cooked breakfast for all his students, yes all 40 of them. Our house was invaded by college kids with a big appetite for crepes and homemade cinnamon rolls. When we're just cooking for our family we kind of have the drill down, but when we're cooking for a crowd we do a little extra research and planning.



I was recently introduced to the RedLaser app, which helps you shop smarter and faster. When we were planning this breakfast I used the app to search for berries and figure out which store around my area had the best price for berries.

And then I discovered the scanning feature of this app and now I'm a little obsessed scanning items so I can get a description of what's going in my shopping cart, from calories to allergens. I can find prices for things online as well as locally. My favorite is that I can shop from my phone and have the items I purchased waiting for me at the store, so I can walk in and walk out. My style of shopping.


You can download the app for free. Check it out and then start scanning things in your local supermarket, seriously addicting. Hope it helps you save some money specially during the Holiday season.



This post is brought to you by RedLaser. Get the free app at RedLaser.

Gingerbread House - Kiwi Crate

posted on: Tuesday, December 11, 2012


This year we're going to Hawaii for Christmas, I know so lucky right?! Consequently we're keeping low on the decorations around our house since we won't even be here on the 25th.

Kiwi Crate sent us their December box and it was perfect, just what we needed to get our home looking a little like Christmas. The kids and I spent Saturday pouring over our Kiwi Crate, making a cardboard gingerbread house and 3 ornaments. We'll have to take the ornaments to Hawaii to decorate the Palmer family Christmas tree when we're there.



If you haven't heard of Kiwi Crate do check them out. They deliver craft projects for kids to your doorstep. Pretty fun stuff, and a cool gift for Holidays for sure.

Glad to be A Good Cookie

posted on: Thursday, December 6, 2012

One of my favorite things to do during the Holidays is a cookie exchange. You bake a bunch of cookies and get together with friends who have also baked cookies and then you swap your treats. At the end you leave with a variety of cookies. It's that simple and that fun.



This year I've teamed up with Glad Product Company and Daily Buzz Food and stepped up my cookie exchange a notch to help the organization Cookies for Kid's Cancer.


Today Pediatric cancer is the number one cause of death by disease of children in the U.S, due in large part to the need for funding for research into new and improved therapies. Glad is proud to continue it's long-standing support of Cookies for Kid's Cancer and is calling on all of us to help by participating in their Glad Holiday Cookie Exchange.

When you register your cookie exchange Glad will donate $1 for every cookie exchanged. Yesterday we exchanged 144 cookies between 6 of us which means that not only did we get to girl talk, eat cookies, and share recipes, we were also able to raise money for a good cause. 

Thank you ladies for making yesterday so fun!

It was wonderful to come home to my kids and eat cookies with them during our afternoon snack time.

If you're planning on baking up a storm this Holiday season do consider hosting a cookie exchange and registering it with Cookies for Kid's Cancer so that for every cookie you swap Glad can donate $1 to an important cause.

If you don't have time to host a cookie exchange you can send a virtual cookie instead. It's fun and simple, and Glad will make a donation for every virtual cookie you send.

I hope you'll join in on the fun!


I have partnered with The Glad Products Company through DailyBuzz to help promote their Food Storage products. I have been compensated for my time commitment to work with this product. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. Thank you GLAD!

Still Thankful

posted on: Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Unfortunately my kids got the unphotogenic gene from me, but I promise he's happy in this picture.

Every Thanksgiving we drive up to Martinez to hang out with Christian's aunt Shelly, his uncle Steve, and a bunch of other awesome family who live in Northern California and the Bay Area. Christian has lots of cousins, and I swear I have to yet meet one that I don't like.

While the adults were busy getting food ready Enzo and Maria were keeping themselves entertained. During the evening Enzo found a piece of string he liked and was playing with it. When it was time to go home he couldn't find the string and was really upset. I wanted to just get everyone in the car and not deal with lost string drama. Christian's cousin Jake (father of 7 kids), could tell I was getting frustrated and turned to Enzo and promised him that he would look for the string. A couple days later Enzo received an envelope in the mail, inside was the string and a card signed by everyone who had stayed at Shelly and Steve's house, telling Enzo that they loved him. This is the kind of stuff Christian's family does. I mean, how can you not be Thankful for that?!

November was definitely a month of gratitude for our little family. On the first of the month we welcomed Baby Eliza to our fold. It has not been easy recovering from my emergency c-section, but I am alive! Eliza is alive! The more I read over the medical records of what happened that day and the more I talk to different professionals the more I realize that we were dang lucky. And then there were ALL the people who quickly jumped to our aid, too many to name, but to give you an idea I did not have to cook a single meal the entire month of November. We had dinners brought to us daily. We had friends picking up and dropping off our kids at school, and then taking them on play dates. We have been diligently cared for from our church community, our neighbors, our friends, and our family.

This Thanksgiving was an extra special one for us.
We had much to be thankful for, and the food was also mighty fine!

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