Easter Basket Ideas (for teens + older kids)

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Sharing some Easter basket ideas for teens and older kiddos! 

Hi friends! Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for all of your wonderful support on my last post. I’m feeling hopeful about things and looking forward to our homeschool journey.

For today’s post I wanted to share some Easter basket ideas! I have so much fun putting these together each year. It’s really tempting to let Easter turn into Christmas #2, but I try to keep things super simple. The kids usually get a new swimsuit, sandals, and a couple of other small goodies. Since we’re past the days of bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and slime, I thought I’d pass some other ideas along. Please share any ideas in the comments!

Easter Basket Ideas (for teens + older kids)

For teens:

A new swimsuit!

Here are some super cute ones:

This one piece – Liv has this one and it’s prob her favorite suit right now

This one piece

This two piece

This two piece

Sandals:

– Classic birks.

– Pool slides

Little fun things:

– This lipstick. Liv is obsessed with hers.

– Rare Beauty blush.

Laniege lip glosses

– Sunglasses.

– $5-10 gift cards for Starbucks, boba, bagels, etc.

Pura Vida bracelets or anklets

A bracelet

A new water bottle

Sheet masks

Organic lip balm

Mini bluetooth speaker

For older kids (3-5th grade):

A new swimsuit. For this age, I almost always buy Maaji suits. They’re the best quality, the have UPF protection, many patterns are reversible, and they LAST. They last through waterparks, cruises, beach days, and the prints are so fun. A heads up: the rash guard ones run small so I always size up. Athleta girl also makes amazing girls’ swimsuits.

Here are some ideas:

This one piece

This one piece

This two piece

Sandals:

The Best St. Patrick’s Day Cocktail

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Hi friends! Hope your morning is going well. I have a long post tomorrow about creating a healthy relationship with food, but today, I wanted to re-share this oldie but goodie in honor of the upcoming “all things green” holiday.

Not only is this is the best St. Patrick’s Day cocktail, it’s the best cocktail for anytime, really.

There’s not too much “Irish” about me. There’s a little bit on my great-grandmother’s side, the fact that I used to Irish Step dance (I had a mean slip jig), and I married an Irish man. He introduced me to wonderful things about his family’s culture -they actually own a bar in Ireland that we’d love to visit someday!- including this cocktail. It has a rich sweetness to it, a little goes a long way as it’s very rich, and is absolutely perfect for the upcoming holiday.

We’ve had some pretty memorable St. Patrick’s Days, like when we visited Savannah and the power went out in the entire city. (I was convinced it was aliens or an attack of some sort.) But with all of the ones we’ve spent together, my favorite was the night we stayed home in Valdosta, watched movies and drank copious amounts of this cocktail.

My version is with almond milk, and the Pilot’s is with heavy cream or regular milk:

St Patrick's Day cocktail ingredients

[One of these things is not like the others. Also, these are older pics but my go-to almond milk right now is the Malk brand]

As you guys know, I tend to stay away from dairy for health/skin/autoimmune reasons. I don’t stay away from Bailey’s Irish cream for any reason aaaaaand they now make a dairy-free version that’s pretty good 😉 I also have added back some dairy with success after healing my gut!

Here’s the recipe for my favorite cocktail, which I’ve dubbed “The Lucky Irish Girl.” Even though I’m mostly Irish by association, St. Paddy’s is one of my favorite holidays. Hope you enjoy this drink as much as we do!

The best St. Patrick's Day cocktail

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Looking back on 2024 and my goals for 2025

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Sharing a lil recap from the year and what I’m working towards in 2025. 

Hi friends! Happy NYE! Any plans tonight? We’re eating Indian food and setting off fireworks in our pajamas. No crazy plans and I’m so glad lol. I’m excited to call it an early night and head out on a family hike in the am!

It’s funny because I thought the last year of the Pilot’s military career would be the LONGEST year of my life. I thought it would be a painfully slow drag to the finish line. The reality is that this year flew.by. I can’t believe that he’s wrapping things up, he changed command, and we’re getting ready for his retirement ceremony at the end of the month. Lots of huge changes ahead.

This year was a year of glorious travel, fun moments with the kids (who are growing up way too dang quickly. Liv will be 13 next week!!!), friend time, events, family time at home, time in nature, and a huge year for my healing journey. I celebrated one year symptom-free last year from eye issues and auotimmune symptoms and feel so thankful to have had a year where I really dialed in my routine and have felt the absolute best I have in years (decades???). I created a free ebook here about my auotimmune journey and things that helped me if you’d like to check it out!

Looking back on 2024 and my goals for 2025

Here’s a recap of some of the big moments from the year:

Personal and travel:

We went to the annual Fighter Wing awards banquet

to San Diego for Jeremy’s 50th!

I finished the CBO protocol!

to Vegas for a blast with friends

dance competition season with Liv,

singing with the symphony

back to San Diego and Disneyland with the fam

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12.27 Friday Faves

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Hi friends! Happy Friday! How’s your week going? Friends who are celebrating this week: how have your holidays been?

Before we head into today’s post, a HUGE congrats to the winner of this year’s Favorite Things giveaway: Mary Anne C. Stay tuned for more giveaways coming up in the new year!

It’s been an amazing week. We spent a couple of nights at the Scottsdale Princess, which is one of our favorite winter traditions. They have so many gorgeous light displays, Santa, ice skating, rides, and the atmosphere is so festive and fun.

(They also have a ridiculous hot cocoa cocktail called the Nutcracker that is SO good.) We met up with friends and enjoyed all of the activities on property, and also had dinner at the new Toca Madera.

We were blown away by the food and the service. Everything was cooked perfectly – we shared guacamole, chips, oysters, and the Pilot and I enjoyed margaritas. For entrees, the kids got truffle mac and cheese and a chopped salad with chicken, while the Pilot and I enjoyed steaks and sides. We ordered three desserts (we want to try everything when we go out to eat lol) and the presentation was so unique – everything was on a board adorned with a lit sparkler.

While we were in Scottsdale we also saw the Ballet Arizona Nutcracker; one of my all-time faves!

Annual Favorite Things Giveaway

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Read on for this year’s Favorite Things giveaway and how to enter to win these amazing prizes!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year….

Favorite Things is here!

Annual favorite things giveaway!

I’ve been doing this type of giveaway for years now as a way to share gratitude with you all. You make this little corner of the internet the amazing space it’s become and I’m so grateful for all of your support and connection.

I created this blog when I was feeling extremely alone. We’d just moved to Valdosta, I was a new military wife, and I hadn’t yet met any local friends. I would have never guessed that it would turn into what it is today, and this little blog has enabled me to support our family while staying home with the kids (this is huge because of the Pilot’s travel schedule and unpredictable hours), chatting with you all about wellness and health things. I feel like I *know* so many of you after all of these years! I wake up every day excited to write and connect with you all, and I hope you know that I never take it for granted.

Every click, comment, follow, product purchase, and page view directly helps our family and I am beyond thankful to you all.

Let’s celebrate with a little giveaway, shall we??

Here are the prizes that are up for grabs:

1 grand prize winner will receive the following prizes:

– A HigherDOSE red light face mask, sauna blanket, or PEMF Go Mat

A Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis test and coaching call

Organifi goodies

A OneSkin holiday gift set

A Cleary Filtered pitcher

30 days of Lifewave X39 patches

A Canopy humidifier and

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