Some books you read once and forget. Others rearrange something inside you, and you find yourself quoting them years later, handing them to friends, and returning to their pages whenever life asks a bigger question than you know how to answer. The teachers and books on this list are the ones that changed how I think, how I parent, how I run my businesses, and how I move through the world. Some of them found me in seasons of grief, others in seasons of reinvention, but every one of them left a mark I can still trace today. If you are looking for a place to begin your own personal development journey, I hope a few of these become the same kind of companions for you that they have been for me.
I am gathering all of my free crystal coloring pages here for you, with printable coloring sheets for every age and skill level. Whether you are a parent looking for a quiet afternoon activity, a teacher planning a rocks and minerals unit, or an adult who loves relaxing with mindfulness coloring pages and a cup of tea, there is something sparkly here for you.
f you’ve been around here for a minute, you know I’m always hunting for that magical middle ground—the stuff that gets my kids outside, curious, and off the couch, without me having to become the screen-time police. And friends, I found it. It’s called Merlin Bird ID, it’s completely free, and my second grader has spent hours collecting birds the way other kids collect Pokémon.
I’m not exaggerating. We got a wild turkey on our last glamping trip and you would have thought she’d caught a shiny Charizard.
Welcome to the Mommy Adventurer Kitchen! This is your one-stop page for one of our favorite warm-weather obsessions: frozen slushie drinks. 🍹
I make almost all of mine in my Ninja Slushi, but if you've got a different machine (or none at all!), don't worry—every recipe here can be adjusted to whatever frozen drink maker you have on hand.
There is a very specific kind of dinner that feels like a small miracle: it tastes like comfort food, looks pretty in a bowl, makes everyone feel like they ate something real, and does not require you to emotionally recover from cooking it.
This Sweet Tater Burger Bliss Bowl is exactly that kind of dinner.
It has all the cozy cheeseburger flavors — seasoned ground beef, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, avocado, and creamy burger sauce — but instead of a bun, everything gets piled over roasted sweet potatoes. The result is colorful, filling, a little bit viral, and honestly so much more satisfying than a sad “healthy dinner” that leaves you wandering around the kitchen an hour later looking for something crunchy.
Welcome to Mommy Adventurer Kitchen, where easy family recipes meet seasonal fun, cozy chaos, and the kind of meals that make real life feel just a little more pulled together.
There is something about the first cool morning, the first crunch of leaves underfoot, and the first sweater pulled from the back of the closet that makes you want to slow all the way down and soak it in. So that is exactly what we are doing. This page is our home base for the whole season: the apple picking and the pumpkin patches, the cozy crafts and the not-too-spooky Halloween fun, the free coloring pages, and the warm afternoons spent in the kitchen.
Bookmark it, pin it, and check back often. We will be adding new adventures all season long.
This year, we're making our summer epic… And every epic adventure needs a banner.
Yesterday, Sophie and I rolled a big turquoise tarp—seriously, the prettiest tarp ever—across the driveway, cracked open every bottle of paint we could find, and made ours.
It's like a giant vision board: all your hopes and dreams for the summer, painted in glitter and sparkles. And honestly? It's one of my favorite things we've made all year.
Here's how we did it—and why it might be the easiest, most-used craft of your whole summer.
Somewhere between the last day of school and the first “I’m bored,” summer starts asking a very important question:
What are we actually going to do with all this beautiful, messy, wide-open time?
I love a good summer bucket list, but I also know that a plain checklist can get lost on the counter, buried under snack wrappers, pool towels, sunscreen, library books, and whatever craft project is currently shedding glitter on the kitchen table.
So I made something a little more fun.
This free Summer Bucket List File Folder Game turns a simple summer activity list into a hands-on printable game kids can use again and again. It is part bucket list, part boredom buster, part homeschool printable, and part “please give me a cute screen-free idea before everyone starts melting into the couch.”
There is a morning every June when I walk downstairs, and my basement has been transformed into a magical world.
Where the couches used to be, there is a tunnel. Where the bookshelf full of board games used to be, there is a doorway with a snowman blanket hung up for a curtain (yes, a snowman blanket, in June, because when you are building something this big, every blanket in the house gets drafted). Every sheet I own is strung wall to wall, and some of them are tacked right up to the ceiling. There are little rooms with little doorways, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, a hammer and a half-empty box of nails sitting on the table like evidence.
That is the morning I know summer has officially begun.
If you want to have a summer that becomes part of your family's mythology, the type of summer your children carry inside their hearts for the rest of their lives, all it takes is a little planning and a little spontaneous magic. The magic happens not because you spent a lot of money or went somewhere impressive, but because you made something awesome happen (messy and imperfect still counts as awesome).
This list has fifty summer bucket list activities–some big, some small, some brave, some silly, some delicious, some quiet. Pick the ones that resonate with your family, make an epic bucket list poster, and then start crossing them off one by one. I like to actually put the items on my family calendar and preorder supplies the week before–if you plan ahead you are way more likely to actually do the thing (and this summer we are doing all the things).
You do not need an actual pool to make this work. You need a few kiddie pools, sprinklers, towels, sunscreen, snacks, and the willingness to look at your backyard and say, “Yes, this can become a magical summer lagoon.” The trick is to think in zones. Instead of one big pool, you create little areas the kids can move through: a pool lagoon, a sprinkler garden, a game zone, a snack station, a towel bar, and a cabana section for the grown-ups.
I love summer ideas that look simple from the outside but somehow become part of family mythology. A backyard Family Olympics Night is exactly that kind of idea. It turns an ordinary summer evening into a “family story” they will talk about for years.
There is a very specific kind of chaos that happens when dinner is technically ready, but nobody is eating at the same time.
One person is just getting home. One is halfway out the door on the way to marching band practice. Someone else is reheating a plate. The kitchen is warm, the counter is crowded, and somehow the meal is happening in shifts instead of all at once. That is the kind of real-life moment where my Elite Gourmet warming trays have become weirdly essential.
Peace unfurled in my chest for the first time in months. We left from our little grove of trees and began walking down our new path. I didn’t know exactly where it would lead, I knew the journey would be magic as long as we were together.
I wish I could say I stood up and went all the way to shore on the first try, but that didn’t happen. I rode that wave in in updog position looking like a baby seal riding a surfboard. I didn’t let go until the bottom of the board scraped sand.
