Chaos and Caffeine

Lifestyle

March Break Ideas (on a Budget)

March Break starts in less than a week (4 days to be exact). I have so many other things going on (painting my room, planning my daughter's 10th birthday party, getting ready for our trip to Las Vegas) that I haven't given much thought to what I'm going to do

Lifestyle

Spring Birthday Brunch

As my daughter's 10th birthday is approaching, it's time to start party planning. A few years ago, she wanted to do a birthday brunch for her party (totally my daughter - brunch is THE BEST!) This year, we're doing it again! She wants a Woodland theme this year so I'll

Food

Chocolate Hummus Snack Cakes

I'm not sure about your place, but when the kids come home from school here they are absolutely "starving". I've started running out of healthy after school snack ideas and wanted to try something new. I bought a bunch of organic chickpeas from Costco a while ago but I wasn't

Lifestyle

Christmas Eve Boxes

As much as we try and teach our children that this is the season of giving and that it's not all about gifts, they are kids and they do get excited for presents. I remember as a child, the excitement of December 24th and Christmas being the next day. I'm

Travel

My Tips for an Amazing Vegas Vacation

What can I say, I am a little bit obsessed with Las Vegas. I'd love to move my family there, that's how much I love it. The bright lights have me feeling like a moth going to the flame. But beyond all of the neon lights at night, during the

DIY

Affordable Homemade Table Costume

Having 4 kids, Halloween can get costly. Costumes these days just seem to be going up and up in price. And the thing is, if you shop at an affordable store, your kid will probably be one of about 20 Spidermans or Princesses. I wanted the kids to dress up

Recipes

Pumpkin Spice Cauliflower "Oatmeal"

Pumpkin Spice season is back in full swing. It's actually been "full swing" for me for the past month, which in turn has totally derailed my health and fitness goals. I have been eating all of the sugary, processed pumpkin spice treats I could get my hands on - and

Family

Making Time

The other night my oldest daughter wanted to bake one of the recipes from my blog for her class to try. I let her stay up after the other kids all went to bed so she could help me. After we finished and she was heading to bed, she turned

Recipes

Spinach Donuts

I have been doing a lot of meal planning and prepping around here lately. The kids and I usually spend one day of the weekend baking together. They love helping out and I am trying to let go of my control issues and let them. This can sometimes be a

Lifestyle

Back to School Questionnaire

I can't believe that another school year has begun. It feels like just yesterday that the kids were running out of school for summer break. Now we are already a week into the new school year (and one week closer to next summer break! - is it too soon to

Family

Home Alone

What are you going to do when all of the kids are in school? That is the question that I've been getting a lot lately (and have even been asking myself). My youngest starts school today and I've cried a lot lately because of it. My baby is leaving me.

Recipes

Healthy Chocolate Zucchini Bread

The other morning I was up earlier than I wanted to be because my boys decided that they didn't need to sleep anymore, which apparently meant neither did I. Since I had some extra time before I had to start the day, I decided to make the kids a little

Travel

Our First Camping Trip

I will start by letting you know that this was not supposed to be part of our vacation. Originally we had a cruise of the 1000 Islands and visit to Boldt castle booked (like I have on my bucket list) but somehow we ended up cancelling that to go camping

Family

Our New Family Members

A few weeks ago my oldest son turned 6. I don't know what it was about that number, but I was a wreck. I feel like 6 is so much older than 5. And with him being my second last baby, the reality that I only have one little one

Family

Our First Drive-In Movie

Well it is officially summer and we started it off right by crossing an item off of our Summer Bucket List [https://www.chaosandcaffeine.blog/summer-bucket-list/]. We decided to end our first day of summer with a trip to the drive-in theatre! Being a large family, movies can get quite

Keto

30-Day Keto Challenge (Week 1 Recap)

Well, I survived the first week of my 30-day Keto Challenge. It was not without some struggles though. I started this challenge after a weekend full of donuts, pasta, chocolate, and basically all the junk food that I could shove into my body. Because of that, the first few days

Travel

Tulsa Trip 2018

I'm going to start by being completely honest. As this trip grew closer, I seriously contemplated cancelling it. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe it was the fear that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, or maybe I was scared that I would love it too much and not

Lifestyle

Summer Bucket List

Can you believe that it's already June?! That means that school is out in less than a month and I need to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with these kids all summer. We have a cottage that we're renting for a week in August in Tobermory,

Food

30-Day Keto Challenge

Here we go again... After a 3-day weekend filled with donuts and all of the unhealthy American treats I could get my hands on, it's time to get back in control of my eating habits and my health. Today I am starting a 30-day Ketogenic diet challenge. For those who

Food

National Donut Day 2018

It's National Donut Day!!! Let's be real here dough, there is more than one "National Donut Day" in this house (ex. my birthday, Mother's Day, Saturdays) but this is actually an "official" day. This day is basically my "Christmas". This is my day to celebrate all things " holey". It's such

Food

Lifestyle Change

Ever since watching the Netflix documentary "The Magic Pill", I feel like all of my thoughts on food have changed. I've watched almost every "health" documentary that has come out, and most of them affect me a little bit and make me want to change our ways, but nothing has

Food

Breakfast for a Month

I'm all about trying to save time as well as money. Mornings are a little hectic around here trying to get 4 kids ready to go to 3 different schools. One thing that I've started doing this year is not only meal planning, but meal prepping. I've created a set

Health & Fitness

Top 10 Running Songs (Hanson Edition)

Mu

Lifestyle

Experience Gifts

Having 4 kids, the amount of "stuff" they get for birthdays and holidays gets a bit overwhelming. We're trying to declutter and live a simpler life, so we've started doing experience gifts instead of toys. For their main Christmas gift, we bought each of the kids a ticket to Medieval

Family

Easter Traditions

Growing up Slovenian, family and traditions have always been a huge part of my life. Easter is a special time where we decorate Easter eggs on Good Friday and have the best food for Easter Sunday breakfast. Even though we eat eggs and the meat at other times of the