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6 Steps to Winterize Your Sprinkler System and Avoid Freeze Damage

Getting the water out of your sprinkler system before the weather turns frigid avoids potential damage to your sprinkler heads and lines. It’s also a great way to wear out the kids as they run around seeing what sprinklers are hissing like dragons. As water freezes, it expands, creating pressure that can break plastic and metal. Here in the PacNW, the crisp October mornings bring yard crews with pamphlets announcing winterizing in the $75-125 range. And one of the things...

How to Make Kid Art Photo Books

My Littles are now 5 and 7 and they LOVE art. They love making it and have since they were babies. And I love looking at it and can’t bring myself to throw out the pretty pieces, including chalk drawings from my son when he was 18 months old that don’t really look like much. We keep an Ikea hack cork frame in our kitchen for kid art, which we proudly display on a rotating basis. It’s nice to keep...

How to Bake Mini Pumpkin Muffins the Family will Love

Continuing the pumpkin journey with delicious pumpkin chocolate chip mini muffins and mini loaves. This week, fall has arrived in the Pacific Northwest.  After enduring a week of really unhealthy air, due to fires throughout the west coast, rainy and fall-like weather has arrived in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s time to get the lightweight jackets, boots, and PUMPKINS out.  Pumpkins make everything better!!  Soon it will be time for a trip to the pumpkin patch.    I think this obsession with pumpkin may...

How to Improve Home WiFi by adding a WiFi Mesh System

Working and schooling from home has put major strain on our WiFi. A Mesh WiFi system solved our problems. The problem was too many devices for our router to handle. Thanks to the advice from some IT friends and a friendly CenturyLink technician, our NETGEAR Orbi Tri-band WiFi Mesh System has improved our lives. In the last couple of weeks we noticed a significant strain on our home system and occasionally we would lose WiFi, no matter where in the...

How to Bake Easy Delicious Pumpkin Donut Holes

I shared my yummy pumpkin waffle recipe, which we are still chowing down on as fall starts to rear its subtle signs of arrival.  Next up on my pumpkin tour are these delicious pumpkin donut holes, or mini muffins.  These are super easy to make, take only about 20 minutes to prep, and are Littles approved in our house.  Start out by preheating the oven, and spraying a mini muffin pan with nonstick pan.  I like this silicon one, and they are a really...

Make the best Sunday Pumpkin Spice Waffles

Every Sunday, we wake up, brew some coffee and make waffles for Waffle Sunday. It’s September, and I LOVE pumpkin – pumpkin curry, pumpkin spice creamer, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread. I’m sharing one of my favorite new recipes for Pumpkin Spice Waffles.   This recipe is super easy, and with our new upgraded waffle maker, we have waffles ready to eat (and mostly devoured) in 20 minutes. For most of my waffles, I use Krusteaz waffle mix. It’s fluffy with a great flavor....

Bold Front Door Colors to Make Your Exterior Pop

We repainted our house recently, and I was on the hunt for some inspiring, bold color choices for our front door. We live in a builder-boxed house neighborhood with an active HOA, so by “bold” I mean we wanted to avoid brick red, white or ivory. A friend had painted her front doors a plum shade of purple, kind of like this. While I love purple, I chickened out of going that route. We decided to go with a bold...

SPF Sunscreen I’m Loving

I feel like I’ve been on a constant quest for face sunscreen. I’m in the phase of trying to keep my face protected to prevent the inevitable wrinkles, and have been upping my game over the last few years. Here are some of the sunscreens I love. Tinted SunscreensI don’t typically wear face makeup, so I like a little tint on my sunscreen. For several years, Neutrogena’s BB face cream was my go to. Neutrogena discontinued the line I loved,...

Best Low Carb Coconut Cookies!

I did the Keto diet for a whole year, and one of my still favorite low carb recipes is my best Low Carb Chocolate Coconut Cookies. I’ve played around with a few combinations, and wanted to share my favorite chocolate chip coconut cookie recipe – Yum!  It’s pretty simple, and only requires 9 ingredients!  First, start with 1 stick of unsalted butter.  Soften in the microwave or at room temperature.  Using a hand or other mixer, with the Erythritol (I like this brand here). ...