This Mother’s Day was a tough one to get through without Mom around for the 5th year… but it turned into a nice day and I’d like to just try and keep remembering her as best I can… What a lovely mom she was!  She really always wanted to make sure my brother and I were having an awesome childhood.  I consider myself blessed that she was about to attend my college graduation and be there to call my whole family to tell them that I had been proposed to by an amazing guy.  I know she is still watching over <3

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Lately I’ve been under a lot of stress from a variety of sources.  Some is good, some is awful… but this evening, I am trying to tell myself that “this too shall pass” and that things will work out.  We’re taking a week off to go to Niagara Falls.. very exciting stuff happening here!  I’d like to thank those of you who are still visiting from time to time.. I love sharing my stuff here and hope you like reading, too.  Mike made a homemade cherry pie tonight, but sadly we gobbled that up (with some help) sooo that won’t be making it on the blog.  I promise we’ll share the next attempt!  DELISH.

In the meantime… here is what I’m loving Around the Web:

• This madeline recipe looks good!  I just got a pan.. so I’ll have to take this one for a whirl sometime.
• Raised garden beds!  Check out this tutorial.  Mike recently made his own.. but the pioneer woman one looks good.  I can’t wait to show you ours!
• SWOON.  I adore all of the upgrade’s in Jen’s studio.  I wish I had as much room as she!
• Buzzfeed funniness.

<3

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Longstreet Farm is a great place – they teach kids a lot about farming “back in the day.”  This weekend, they were having sheep herding and shearing!  The sheep didn’t like the shearing very much.. but here they are being herded (dog not pictured!):

Mike is pretty good with our camera!  Run, sheep, run!

Folks could also get a wagon ride around the farm and park… but we decided to walk around Holmdel Park instead and find a nice area to picnic.

I won’t lie, we were probably the only couple there who did NOT have a small child with them.  I was prepared to tell anyone who asked, that we either A) just really like sheep or B) were just scoping out future parental wins.  I guess we know where to go! I hope everyone in the area took advantage of the nice spring weather.  Looking through my weekend photos always makes the work days better!

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I knew before making this recipe that I may, indeed, be the only one in my household to eat this soup.  Well – you guessed it… it went just as I thought.  The good news is that my leftover soup is waiting eagerly for me in the refrigerator and freezer!  I knew I would love this soup just as soon as I read through the recipe (which is here).  

You must think I am the laziest blogger around.  I should re-type the recipe for you here… but honestly?!  I didn’t change it up!  OKAY – I did swap out regular sausage for turkey sausage (I just took it out of the casing).  And I added just a touch of red pepper to the broth.  AND I used only kale instead of kale AND spinach.

MAKE this soup!

I think this soup tastes like a BETTER version of Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana.  I love that it tastes creamy… but does’t have any cream!  The sweet potatoes make it delicious and noodles make it hearty.  I found those cute little noodles at ALDI – they are 100% semolina noodles.  Mmm.  Thanks to Tracy @ Shutterbean for a great recipe.  I couldn’t get this one out of my head until I made it!

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I’ve been accepted into the BlogHer Publishing Network! Check out of my profile here.

I’m still learning about it, but am generally pretty excited!  I found BlogHer through a variety of blogs I follow (Clean Mama, to name just one!) and really like the idea of a network of women blogging all together and supporting each other.  Very cool!  I hope to be able to contribute some nice comments and posts over there, as well as house the TV Influencer program here to see if anything comes of that  I’d also love to do some reviews in the future… so we’ll see where this leads!  I’m so happy that you’re here… thanks!

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Here they are… I’m super proud of them!

I made these for my Light the Night Team Kickoff Party and really fell in love with them.  The tutorial featured on The Inside Stitch was super easy!  I didn’t have a fancy paper punch for the design around the side, so I just used my decorative scissors to shape the outside.

These decorations take 2 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper, and another paper of the same color so you can punch out the circles for the center.  You’ll also need the circle punch and a hot glue gun.  To make the folding easier, I used a paper scorer.  Check out the instructions in this post.  Thanks to The TomKat Studio for teaching me a cool new way to make decorations with unlimited potential.  Who wants a party next?!

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Turns out that these cookie bars continue to be a crowd pleaser, even when cut into delicate little stars.  I decided on cookie bar stars to celebrate Team Cindy’s Stars in our quest to fundraise to beat Leukemia and Lymphoma.  Woot!

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Ready for some lunch party menu inspiration?  I’d love to share it with you!  This particular lunch featured small sandwiches, lots of food that happened to be from ALDI, and $20 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables from my favorite farmer’s market (PS – $20 bought me 5 (FIVE) bags of awesome produce).

Appetizers/Snacks:

Gouda and Havarti cheeses with crackers

Chips, Pretzels, and Tortilla Chips with dips and salsa

Vegetable Crudite

Sandwich Selection:

We made tiny sandwiches with King’s Hawaiian rolls (3 packages of 24!)

Chicken Salad

Fancy Chicken Salad (with almonds and craisins)

Ham and Swiss

Italian (Ham, Provolone, Capicola, and Salami)

Turkey and Cheddar

We served our sandwiches with a selection of lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, olives, peppers, and pickles.

Side Dishes:

Fruit Salad (green grapes, strawberries, cantleope, pineapple)

Potato and Egg Salad

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Sauerkraut and Kielbasa

Baked Beans

I made my cookie bars for dessert – I did something a little special with them that I’ll show you some other time  We also really love ALDI’s mini eclairs for party desserts… oh man.  Delicious!

To drink we served lemonade, unsweetened iced tea, moscato punch, and sodas.

TIPS:

One of my best tips when planning a party of any kind is to do the prep work!  I loved being able to spend time with my friends instead of man the kitchen. I’m lucky because Mike always steps in in the kitchen when needed… but I really felt great about the spread we were able to put out for our guests.  I also had a lot of help from my brother before the party to keep the kitchen clean while we prepped… it takes a village, I tell ya!

I was able to keep costs down on this party by serving lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Do the chopping yourself!  The giant fruit salad I made could have easily set me back $30+ pre-cut at a supermarket.  The chicken salad I made involved using a whole chicken we threw in the crockpot two days before the party. I was able to make TONS of sandwiches with a $6 chicken instead of spending more money at the deli counter.  I was also able to give my guests variety!

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Our fundraising team, Team Cindy’s Stars, has fundraised over $11,000 toward the battle against blood cancers in the past four years we’ve fundraised.  I think that is an AMAZING accomplishment and I couldn’t be more proud.  We started with a little group of family which turned into about a troop of 20 with both family and friends.  I love it!

I decided to have a lunch party to introduce the fundraising events of the year. I was really lucky to be in touch with our LLS coordinator who came to the event and helped get all of the supplies together for our team.  I’m excited to share with you what foods we made for the event (coming soon!) and some of the special touches we made too.

Our lunch party included drinks, food, and desserts.  We had team supplies all ready  to go for our team members and we even recruited a couple friends to walk with us this year that haven’t before (ps.. we love you!).  We had a few raffles and raised $65 as an initial team donation!

I’ve volunteered for LLS in the past and am just really excited about everything this year.  If you aren’t sure about putting yourself out there for a worthy cause… just jump in!  There is nothing more rewarding.

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I selected an easy freezer-friendly dough recipe that I had been eyeing up from Money Saving Mom.  While I didn’t freeze this dough, I did want to test this particular dough because I think making your own dough and storing it for a day you NEED pizza is a wonderful idea.  However – the dough recipe moved along FAST and the work was minimal. Yum!

To make my pizza, I use a nonstick metal pizza pan (the type with holes on the bottom – mine was inexpensive at ALDI).  The dough I used allows regular or weight flour to be used, so I used about half of each in the recipe.  I really liked how the dough stretched out to fit the entire pan, instead of fighting with it over and over.  One batch will make two pizzas.

I par-baked my crust because I HATE dough-y crust.  After about 5-7 minutes, I pulled the dough out of the oven and topped with marinara, mozzarella, pepperoni, and pineapple (no one likes pineapple but me!  Haters!).  Next time, I will brust the outer crust with olive oil, add some more sugar to the dough, and maybe also add some italian seasonings to the dough as well.  One day, I will perfect this!

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