close button
katy rexing white icon

GET IN TOUCH

Contact

SUBSCRIBE

Get on the list and let’s become friends. Join our community of like minded women, and get all my latest recipes, finds and personal stories. I’m so happy you’re here.

Thank you for subscribing!

Appetizer and Snacks

Smoky grilled pumpkin hummus

My best friend from Cleveland is coming to visit tomorrow with her kids and hubby. I live for having houseguests. I feel like our house is Grand Central Station, all the time, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Opening up my home and having friends and family over is why we bought this house. So it could house our life. Our full, big, messy, life. So I am over the moon excited to have our friends here for the weekend. It’s their first time seeing our new house and I’m so excited.

But one of my rules about hosting is that I don’t cook a lot. Which I know sounds backward since I was a chef. But the thing is, I want to be WITH them. Laughing on the couch, drinking coffee with my friend in our pajamas (maybe upstairs in the guest bedroom pretending we don’t hear the kids ;). I don’t want to be in the kitchen or doing dishes – and neither do they. So I make a few things in advance – and then the rest we either just order in or I make something super simple that requires little to no effort.

So in preparation for this weekend, I put a few quick things together that I can easily pullout – including this smoky grilled pumpkin hummus. Read More

Lifestyle

Practicing self-love

I had a different post planned for today, but something was weighing heavily on my mind yesterday and I felt it was important to say this.

I was out on an early morning walk yesterday listening to a podcast.  It was a conversation between Rachel Hollis (the author and speaker) and Jamie Kerna Lima (the founder of “It cosmetics”) and they were discussing the topic of body image (something you’ve heard me talk about on here many times before).

Rachel shared that at a recent conference she spoke to an auditorium filled with women about self-love. And when she asked that room of 820 women to anonymously share how they felt about their bodies, 800 of the 820 women responded that they HATE their bodies.

Let me repeat that, 800 of the 820 women in that room responded that they HATE their bodies.  Not just dislike, but hate.  Read More

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites 10.4.19

Another great week and another great group of finds for all of you.  So many things I love this week; a great new documentary I just watched, a new water bottle that’s helping keep me accountable with my hydration and my new make-up routine!

So without any further ado….here’s are this week’s “Friday Favorites”!

 

No 1. Read More

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites 9.27.19

Ok so first I just wanted to thank you all for your awesome excitement and enthusiasm around this series. It truly made my day.  I always want to share things on here that YOU want to see or that you find interesting – so I love it that so many of you were excited about Friday Favorites. 

This week’s round-up has a few of my ALL time favorites.  A dress from a crazy talented designer (who also happens to be a momma of four!), a Chicago artist you know I love, my kid’s favorite podcast, how I’ve simplified buying toiletries for our home (because let’s be honest, no one gets excited about buyting toilet paper ;), and lots more.  

Ok so let’s dig in.  Here are this week’s Friday Favorites!

 Read More

Sweet treats

Grain-free chocolate chip cookies

We had some friends over to our home the other weekend and they brought the most delicious grain-free chocolate chip cookies with them.  They were chewy, sweet and just happened to be “healthy” (well, “healthy-ish” at least).

My kids loved them.  We devoured them that night, so naturally, I asked her for the recipe.  When my friend sent it to me, it was handwritten on a post-it note, which made the recipe even that much more perfect.

I will fully admit that I’m guilty of getting most of my recipes from Pinterest or somewhere else online, so to get a handwritten recipe made my day.  It took me right back to my mom’s old recipe box when I first fell in love with cooking.  Anyone else relate?  The handwritten recipe cards that were stained from spills or dirty fingers.  They’re kind of the best.  I love the convenience of finding recipes online for sure – but recipes written out on a piece of crinkled up scrap paper will always have my heart.

Since then, we’ve made these cookies several times.  I love this recipe for a few reasons, but probably the first is just how easy they are.  You dump all the ingredients into a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.  That’s it.  Dump, Mix, Bake.  They couldn’t be easier – and a perfect recipe for kids.

 Read More

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites 9.20.19

Welcome to the first Friday Favorites, friends (look at that alliteration I just did there)! I am so excited about this series.  I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, so I’m feeling really proud that I finally got my act together and am pulling this round-up together (only took two years, but who’s counting ;).

I like to think of Grace in Crumbs as essentially a phone call between me and my sister or me and my best friend (only not on the phone and with thousands of people….but besides that, exactly the same ;).  Whatever I was going to tell them, I tell all of you.  It’s basically one big phone call and you’re all my best friends.

All joking aside though, there’s a lot of truth there.  Things I would normally share with my best friend; like what’s going on with my kids, my new favorite book or podcast, or that great lipstick I just found, or this black dress from Target that I’m wearing today with Frankie – I now tell all of you.  

So this series is sort of a culmination of all those little tidbits.  The little nuggets, of “oh I have to tell Lindsey (that’s my sister) about that moisturizer” – all gathered here for you once a week.  You know that feeling of “wait, why am I the last to know about….”?.  Well now you won’t be.  I’m sharing ALL of my finds each week with all of YOU.  So now none of us will be the last to know. 

NONE of this is sponsored, and ALL of it are things I truly love and use.  All just things I found this week and am currently loving and using on repeat.  

Ok so without further ado…here are this week’s Friday Favorites!

 

 Read More

Lifestyle

How to care for your fiddle leaf fig

If you’ve ever been to my house, you know I’m a big plant lady. I love having fresh plants everywhere in my house. But the plant that really has my heart is the fiddle leaf fig (sorry to my other green little babies – momma DOES have a favorite!). I know they’re a little “trendy” right now (and might not be cool anymore) but I am personally still loving them. Fiddle leaf figs aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, at least in this house.

I remember when I got my very first fiddle leaf fig. We had just moved to New York and I was determined to make our house look like the page of Architectural Digest (although….I’m not sure my vision ever came to fruition). I scoured everywhere to find my first fig tree, and when I did I was over the moon. It was beautiful, and huge and DIED six months later.

I was devastated. Everyone said that they’re such “easy” plants to take care of and that ANYONE could keep a fig alive. Well apparently not everyone. Read More

Design, Lifestyle

How to paint furniture like a boss

You’ve probably heard me say this a million times before on here; there is no easier, or cheaper, way to transform a space – or a piece of furniture – than with paint.

And friends, let me be the first to tell you that even YOU can paint. AND you can paint just about anything!

Over the years I’ve painted everything from bathrooms, and stairs to doors and floors (I’m dying to try our kitchen backsplash next) – but my favorite thing to paint is a great piece of furniture.  And this one did not disappoint.

This old dresser has been with us for years.  An old friend of mine found it for me at an antique store and bought it for me (thank you, Tiff).  Since then it’s moved with us across the country (and back again) and is FINALLY (after all of these years) getting the transformation I always dreamed of.

$60 worth of supplies, a little time, patience and a whole lot of elbow grease.  This old dresser went from this… Read More

Main Dish, Vegetarian

Quick summer vegetable curry

Ok, so since Labor Day was yesterday, is summer officially over? What’s the story here with this one? It’s still pretty warm here in Chicago, and I’m hoping it still will be for the next few weeks – so I’m just rolling with it. And let’s be honest, I meant to share this recipe weeks ago – so can we all just pretend it’s still the summer?  At least for a few more days, because this little bowl of yumminess is too good to wait until next June.

If you know me well, you know that curry dishes are seriously my weakness. I make curry at least once a week for lunch. At least once.  Whenever my poor kids and JP walk in the door from work or school, they immediately know what I’ve had for lunch. You either love the smell of curry or not so much. And I for one LOVE it.

 Read More

Lifestyle

To all the women who dream big

Lillian had her first day of 3rd grade yesterday.  It was such a magical day.  As I watched her run into school without even looking back (as she does every day) my mind raced with excitement of all the possibilities that await her.  All the dreams and hopes and big ideas that she’ll go after.  And how at each step of the way, I’ll be cheering her on.

And it got me thinking, maybe I need to do the same for myself.

I talk with Lillian a lot about how she can do or be anything she wants.  Maybe it’s because she’s my only girl. And while I feel the same for my boys, I feel an extra call of duty to reinforce this idea with Lillian (any other girl mommas out there feel the same?).

I say to her; you can be anything you want.  But in reality, my words only go so far.  I need to show her.  Lead by example.  And as I reflect back today, if I’m really truthful, I don’t know that I’ve always lived up to my advice.   

 Read More