I Scream…You Scream…We All Scream

For ice cream!

We eat a  lot of ice cream throughout the entire year but we really hit peak ice cream time during summer. No wonder it’s always one of the items on the bucket list that we do much more than once.

Some of our favorite places for ice cream are:

Kimmer’s

Kilwins

Bombobar

Bodega Imports

At Munchies

Where are your favorite places for ice cream?

Our bucket list thus far:

• Field Museum
• Museum of Science and Industry
• Adler Planetarium
• Shedd Aquarium
• Chicago Children’s Museum
• Splash pads
• Maggie Daley Playground
• Art Institute
• Head to the pool
• Have a pajama day
• Head to the library
• Go to the zoo
• Go to the beach
• Eat at Big Bowl
• Go to Morton Arboretum
• Eat at Labriola Cafe
• Eat at Rainforest Cafe
• Get ice cream
• Bake cookies
• Read books at home
• Make banana pudding
• Go on a hike
• Go on a picnic
• Go to Granny and Pa’s house
• Go to Mimi and Pa’s house
• Make lemonade
• Go bowling
• See a movie
• See a movie outside
• Family Festival downtown Chicago
• Ride the train at the mall
• Go to American Girl Place
• Go to Disney Store
• Go to Renaissance Faire
• Eat at Flat Top Grill
• Go to Chinatown

Finding All of the Green Food!

March means St. Patrick’s Day and the first signs of spring. (Also my baby sister’s birthday and my mom’s birthday!) The color green is everywhere! Green clothes worn on St. Patrick’s Day. The green leaves of tulips starting to come up. The Chicago River gets dyed green.

Seriously! Look at that river! Soooooooooo green!

St. Patrick’s Day may be over but we still have more March. And you can still celebrate with green.

Are you searching for some green food? Well, let me help you out on your search!

1). Culver’s – Mint Concrete

Get yourself a mint shake or concrete. This one pictured is a mint/Oreo concrete. Because, if you’re gonna have a concrete, adding Oreos is a pretty good plan.

2). McDonald’s – Shamrock Shake

It’s the classic, right? Sort of tastes like mint. Sort of tastes like vanilla. Sort of tastes like sugar. Very very very green.

3. Public House – March’s Seasonal Cake Shake

Yep. You want this. The cake shake has a piece of cake on top!!!!!! And has another whole piece of cake mixed into it. Plus – beer. Each month, Public House has a new crazy over-the-top cake shake. I’m looking forward to the April one because I’m guessing it’s going to be amazing.

4. Spunky Dunker’s – Easter Donut

So, it’s not a St. Patrick’s Day themed donut but it sure is green (they do have a chocolate mint donut for the month of March if you want a little more of a minty-St.Patricks-taste). I originally thought that the jelly beans were just sitting on top….nope. The donut is basically hollowed out and has a jelly bean core. Yep. Lots of jelly beans.

5. Epic Burger – Green River float

If you live in the Chicago area, you are probably already familiar with Green River soda. It’s green. Really green. And tastes kind of like lime jello (well, in may opinion it’s like lime jello). Well, for a very limited time, Epic Burger is turning it into a float. I actually like it better as a float – it kind of mellows out the lime flavor a bit. But, limited time means you need to get there soon! (Or Epic Burger, you could just offer it year round……just sayin’)

6. Labriola Cafe – Mint bar

This one is not seasonal. You can get it whenever you want (or at least whenever they have it in their pastry case.) It’s super minty. Like astonishingly minty! So if you don’t really love mint, this might not be for you. But if you are a mint fan, go for it! Also, it’s huge!!!! So, you could definitely share. Or not.

 

Where are your favorite places to get green treats? Remember, March isn’t over yet!

Marshmallow Taste Test

When baby girl was home with a fever, big girl and I had a little marshmallow adventure at XO Marshmallow! We each had a treat and then brought home some treats to share with baby girl and daddy.

Vanilla, salted caramel, and peppermint. Yummy!

And because we were going to try all three on the same night, we did a little taste test.

Although we agree that each flavor was yummy (except baby girl who doesn’t like mint flavors so did not like the peppermint), we were able to name a favorite.

Three of the four chose vanilla as the number one. I was the only one to choose something different, though. My fave is the salted caramel. But yea, all three flavors are yummy. And there are many other flavors available in the store and in their online store.

Have you had these? Which one is your favorite? Which one would you like to try?

Winning at Parenting

Now, I certainly don’t always feel this way but sometimes I really do feel like I’m winning at this parenting thing. Sometimes. Sometimes.

For example, sometimes, your girls find a new kind of mac ‘n cheese that they want to try and they help you make princess pudding for dessert. And the girls aren’t arguing while helping with the cooking. And they eat all of their dinner. And they clear their places after dinner without being reminded to.

Sometimes.

 

Peeps Taste Test – Last One

We had two more flavors to try: strawberry, and cherry limeade. Now the strawberry, I thought would be pretty good. The cherry limeade, I thought that that one would be pretty weird.

The strawberry ones were ok. They tasted very similar to strawberry Nestle Quik. So, as long as you are ready for that sort-of-strawberry flavor, it’s actually ok. I liked the dipped part, too. The girls were both big fans of this one.

The cherry limeade one was, well, weird. It was sour and just….well, it was weird. The girls liked it (big girl asked if it was watermelon because it looked like a watermelon and kept referring to it as watermelon even though it definitely did not taste like watermelon). But, this one was just too weird tasting for me…..but it does look pretty cool.

Has Anyone Ever Been Excited to Eat a Salad?

I am fairly certain that no one has ever been excited to eat a salad. I know for sure that I never have. Well, let me specify. The only salad I’ve ever been excited to eat was the Waldorf salad that my grandpa made. Although, it wasn’t until I was much older that I learned that it was called a Waldorf salad. We always called it apple salad. His was not a typical Waldorf salad. That salad taught me that marshmallows could and should be a salad ingredient.

But…..I have been trying to eat better. Grad school and other stresses have led to some (or a lot) of stress eating so I’ve been trying to eat more veggies and more salad. I have found a salad that I don’t mind eating. Fresh Express bag salads (specifically the chopped kits) are pretty good.  There are greens but also extra crunchy things and the included dressings are pretty good.

But really…..the reason that I am trying to eat more salad? It’s so that I can eat more of the stuff that I want to eat. I tell myself that if I eat some veggies, then I can have some dessert.

Why do I eat salad?

So that I can eat a donut.

 

Peeps Taste Test – Number 3

For this next round of Peeps taste testing, we had two of the more non-traditional flavors. Or at least one was really non-traditional (in my opinion).

First up was the vanilla one.

I like the way it looks. The sprinkles give it a bit of a funfetti look.

Now, in the last taste test, I mentioned that I was really beginning to enjoy the addition of the “dipped” element on the new Peeps. This one, however, I didn’t like very much. I thought that the dipped part had a weird taste to it. My girls, however, liked this one a lot. I think I was looking for a vanilla flavor and I didn’t really get it.

Next up, the raspberry one. I had high hopes for this one because I love all things raspberry.

This one wasn’t bad. Although, my girls and I were not in agreement on this one. I liked it, big girl liked it (I think…at least….she ate it), little girl didn’t like it so much.

The taste is a sort-of-raspberry-sort-of-berry taste. So, not full-on raspberry but still yummy.

Results: Mixed. Stay tuned for the final taste test to be posted soon……

Peeps Taste Test – Number 1

Spring is arriving and that means – Peeps! Peeps in every flavor!

Every possible flavor!

The girls were very excited to find Peeps that had been dipped in chocolate and Oreos that were Peeps flavored. Big girl was especially excited to see how many different flavors of Peeps there were this year. (That’s my kid alright!) So, we’ve decided to make this a year when we try to taste as many flavors as we can. I am not nearly as excited as the girls because I am a bigger fan of the regular ones, not necessarily the flavored ones. But, we shall see. I might just find one that I really like……and while we’re at it, the girls will eat a ton of sugar…..so that’ll be interesting too…..

We ate the chocolate covered ones and Peeps Oreos.

I will say, not all of my girls were that interested. Buddy only wanted to check them out for a few seconds and then was officially done with Peeps.

The verdict: Every loved the chocolate covered Peeps. This is actually one of my favorite non-plain Peeps. Mmmmm. Sugar with more sugar.

The Oreos?

They are pink. Really really pink. Really, really, really pink. There were reports that the Peeps Oreos had some, um, colorful side effects. (Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue in our house.)

They are sweet. Really, really, really sweet. As pink as they are? That’s how sweet they are. And, they don’t necessarily have a Peeps or marshmallow flavor, more like a generically sweet flavor. But, they are good. And we quickly finished off that package.

First Peeps Flavor Testing Experiment: Good stuff. 🙂

Stayed tuned for taste test #2…….

So. Much. Candy.

We are having an epidemic in our house. An epidemic of too much candy. We have Christmas candy. We have leftover Halloween candy. And soon, there will be Valentine candy. So. Much. Candy. Now, normally, I would say that that just isn’t a problem. However, there comes a point when it’s just too much and you know it won’t be eaten.

Here’s the bowl of candy. As you can see, there is an abundant amount of candy canes. Like a crazy amount of candy canes. Now, I like candy canes. They are fine. But I won’t sit down and snack on three or four of them at a time. Nope. Just not gonna happen. I will, however, sit down and snack on three or four pieces of peppermint bark…..

And that’s just what I did. Get rid of those candy canes by smashing them and them topping them with white chocolate.

Donut mind if I do

You know how every couple years there is some new food trend? You know how the trend now is donuts? Donuts! Yay! Donuts! One of our local restaurants (that we eat at at least once a week) has donuts on the weekends. Yep. If you want some of Stan’s Donuts you can pick them on on a Saturday even if you aren’t in the city. Yay!

So, because I have a hard time making choices about donuts, I got three and the girls and I had a taste test.  (That’s a lot better than me eating three donuts by myself!)

Our choices: Nutella (the one with an N on it), powdered sugar, and pastry creme filled.

Although, they were all yummy, there was a clear winner for the girls and I……

The pastry cream filled one was delicious! That one was the winner for us. The girls and I also agreed that the powdered sugar one was second place. I really thought that I was going to absolutely love the Nutella filled one but it was really, really, really rich. Probably…..too rich if you are eating other donuts as well……