THE READ: How to Host a Fun, Stress-Free Holiday Dinner 🥧 🦃 🍂

Okay, listen: If you’re hosting family and friends this weekend, you get a medal. Getting ready for guests is so much work (especially with kiddos underfoot!). It’s important to remember, though, that the point of the holidays is to come together and enjoy each other’s company—not to stress out about how clean the house is or if there are lumps in the gravy. With this in mind, we’ve got nine great tips for how to actually enjoy the occasion. Get a sneak peek below and click the button for the whole story.

• When guests ask “What can I bring?”, be specific. If you leave it up to your company, you’re going to end up with seven bottles of wine when you would have killed for someone else to make the green bean casserole.

• Set the table the night before. This is a big task—especially if you have to put an extender in your table and track down extra chairs. Get it over with well before the doorbell rings.

• Involve your children. Even little ones can fold napkins. Get them to make place cards or count cutlery. You’ll keep them busy and cross something else off of your list.

SPONSORED

Popovers With Honey Butter

A timeless popover recipe that’s airy, buttery and utterly delicious. With a crispy outer shell and a hollow inviting centre, they are perfect to serve for breakfast or as a delicious side to your dinner!

THE RECIPES: Awesome Side Dishes to Make This Weekend 🌽 🍚 🥦 🥕

Most people have food traditions for their family’s major holidays. We all have memories of the meals we ate on special occasions as kids, and typically, these dishes are passed down through generations. But to our mind, the sides are where there’s room to shake things up. If you’re looking to try something different alongside your entrée, we’ve got the goods. Check out the five options below.

🔶 Make-Ahead Scalloped Potatoes

🔶 Popovers with Honey Butter (see above!)

🔶 Roasted Cauliflower with Charred Lemon-Herb Pesto

🔶 Maple-Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

🔶 One-Pot Macaroni and Cheese

For more new recipes to try this long weekend, from brunch dishes to sweet treats, hit the link below.

THE LIST: 7 Adorable Fall Crafts to Do With Your Kids 🖍 🎃 🎨

In life BK (Before Kids), long weekends probably meant road trips, evenings out, hosting dinner parties, sleeping in. In life AK (After Kids), they mean trying to keep kids entertained for an extra day. They mean extra snuggles and family movie nights and board game afternoons, too, but the days can feel really long if you don’t have enough planned to keep the brood occupied. We know this better than anyone (we’re a parenting brand, after all) so we’ve rounded up some cute craft ideas perfect for the season:

🍁 Leaf Scrapbook: This one’s great because it combines a nature walk with a craft. Go for a stroll and collect leaves of different colours. Then tape them into a book and research the different kinds of trees together so each leaf can be labelled. You can also add faces to each leaf, and write stories about the characters. If you want to add a science-y twist, collect leaves from the same tree over a few weeks and watch as the colours slowly change!

🍁 Pumpkin Candle Holders: Pumpkins offer lots of creative opportunities. It’s probably a little early to carve your jack-o-lantern for Halloween, but carving smaller pumpkins to hold tea lights can make for the perfect table centrepiece.

🍁 Paper Cornstalks: Cut an elongated oval out of yellow construction paper for the corn. Then cut out two long leaves to overlap as the husk. Decorate the centre with crayons, tissue paper or buttons for an authentic look and feel. You can even make smaller versions to use as place cards for the table.

For more cute fall craft ideas, tap the button below.

shawnathemom

View more on Instagram

THE REEL DEAL:
Sharing is Caring, Right?! Not Necessarily 🛝 🙃 🧸

Most of us have had this happen during a play date or in the playground (and if this hasn’t happened to you yet, it probably will). Picture this: Your child is pitching a fit over someone else playing with a toy they had absolutely no interest in two minutes before. You want to use it as an opportunity to teach some social graces, so you try to encourage your kid to share. The other parent, however, wants to ease the tension, and suggests that giving back the toy is no big deal—undermining the lesson you’re trying to teach. So, what do you do? Weigh in by tapping your preferred answer below!

Last week’s poll results:

THE MESS QUESTION?
How do you feel about trying to keep a clean house when you have kids?
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ I try to be reasonable—they're kids, after all
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I've given up—I'll clean when they move out
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I can't stand the mess—my kids know they have to pick up after themselves