There are several food allergies in my family. It’s been hard to deal with at times, and the storm clouds of self-pity and general universe hating have come rolling in — usually at social events that are centered around food. There is a silver lining in those clouds, though — my whole family is eating healthier and cleaner as a result of learning about the food allergies and how food affects our bodies and brains.

Discovering the food allergies started with my son, then three years old, eating his first peanut butter sandwich — and today both my sons and myself stay away from wheat and go very light on dairy. (Apparently wheat is our main problem, but we tend to eat gluten-free because we know there won’t be any wheat in a gluten-free food.) My oldest son is also allergic to peanuts, nuts and eggs, and neither he nor I can eat pineapple.

Taking away wheat and dairy from your diet is challenging when so many of the standby foods in our society are made from those ingredients.

So you end up looking for alternatives (which are usually more expensive) — and doing a lot of cooking yourself.

Although I used to consider myself a baker (taught by my professional cake decorator stepmother), baking wheat- dairy- and egg-free has thrown me a curveball. I’m still learning. And to learn, you have to bake.

So I baked some chocolate muffins with my 5-year-old, and this is what I came up with. Even my gluten-eating friends ate them and said they liked them. These muffins are chocolatey but not really sweet, so if you like sweeter muffins, add more sugar or make sure you add the optional coffee glaze. (When I made them for my sons, I made the muffins without the coffee glaze.)

I will never be as handy with ingredients or as eloquent as Gluten-Free Girl or as creative and knowledgeable about food as it relates to various health issues like Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom, but at least my kids won’t lack eating healthy food or treats.

The Characters in Flight hot-air balloon is a centerpiece in Downtown Disney

Getting a sweeping view of Downtown Disney, Walt Disney World resort and even other areas of central Florida all at one time is an amazing experience on the Characters in Flight hot-air balloon ride. Stationed on the West Side of Downtown Disney (but closer to the East Side), the balloon is something you can see rising while you walk along the lakefront area, and even from some of the hotels.

The Characters in Flight hot-air balloon goes up to 400 feet on calm days

The first time I saw the hot-air balloon featuring Disney characters known for flying, I had to take a ride! Unfortunately, weather conditions or family time needs kept me from the ride until the fourth try.

The Characters in Flight balloon

My husband and little boys didn’t want to ride Characters in Flight, so I was flying solo.

The view from inside the Characters in Flight basket -- the liftoff

You walk to the end of a pier to the launch pad (balloon pad?), and enter a metal donut where you stand for the ride. Lifting off is the time I felt the most movement, but after a few seconds of getting used to the feeling, it was freeing.

It was fun to be up so high — we rose to about 400 feet. The hot-air balloon is tethered, so it can’t float away.

The view of Downtown Disney from above

The pilot pointed out Epcot, which was easy to spot because of its giant ball. (I mean, the Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere.) You can also see other Epcot landmarks like The Land.

You can see Epcot from the Characters in Flight balloon!

Why, look — there’s the Contemporary Resort (which blocks the view of Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom).

Look for Disney resorts from the air

You can see the Dolphin and Swan resorts, and to the left, the Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios.

Check out the Dolphin and the Swan from on high

Looking out at landmarks is one thing … looking down through the hole in the donut/basket is another.

Afraid of heights?

Everything looks pretty from above, doesn’t it?

Take in the view before the balloon descends

A pilot runs the hot-air balloon, so you feel safer than being in a balloon with just some guy who has a few sand bags and a torch.

The hot-air balloon is operated by a licensed pilot, who offered to "do something pilot-y" for a camera pose

The ride is over all too soon, setting back down gently. As you would expect a hot-air balloon to do.

You can buy Characters in Flight tickets at a counter right at the hot-air balloon, weather permitting. Tickets are $18 for ages 10 and up and $12 for kids 3 to 9 (tax included). Children 2 and younger are free.

Win a Disney Baby bodysuit and a bumGenius cloth diaper

Parting with baby items, even those that you never used with your own babies, is kind of bittersweet. But since my two boys are beyond babyhood and I’m not expecting a baby in our family any time soon, I wanted to share this Disney Baby bodysuit and bumGenius cloth diaper with you.

Both of these items were given to SheStreams conference attendees, and it was inspirational to hear women from both Disney (Laura Spencer) and Cotton Babies (Jennifer Labit) speak at the conference.

The Disney Baby bodysuit is a 3-6 month size. I don’t think you can buy it on the Disney Baby online store (although I did see a super cute Mickey Mouse baby bodysuit and matching mouse-ears baby hat there).

This Disney bodysuit isn't available at the Disney Baby online store

The bumGenius cloth diaper is a beautiful pocket diaper that can be worn again and again. The diapers come in other colors, too, and even some fun prints. (I think the Flip potty training kit is pretty awesome.)

The bumGenius pocket-style cloth diaper is bright pink (zinnia) and fits babies 8-35 pounds

Both items are brand new.

To enter to win both the Disney Baby bodysuit and the bumGenius cloth diaper together, please leave a comment below saying whether this would be for your own baby or someone you know, and what you think of the Disney Baby and bumGenius product lines. I don’t believe in making you jump through a lot of hoops to win something, but if you would like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter, I’d appreciate it! I will randomly pick a winner on Friday afternoon. Good luck!

Outdoor room with European style

Source: google.com via Holly on Pinterest

May is Garden for Wildlife Month. (Yes, it’s on the calendar!) If you want to bring more birds, butterflies or other critters to your yard, school, church or community garden, you should be able to find lots of good tips right now. Creating a wildlife habitat is fun and fulfilling, and a great way to get your kids interested in and learning about nature and the environment.

My family has created a yard certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Wildlife Habitat and an Advanced Bird-Friendly Yard, so we are familiar with what you need to attract wildlife — and create an inviting outdoor space for people too! Having the right elements in place to draw in critters definitely enhances the enjoyment we get out of our yard, and it helps the animals who today are being squeezed out of their native habitats due to development.

You only need four basic elements in your yard to attract wildlife: water, a food source, shelter and a place for animals to raise their young. (Which are kind of all the things that people look for in choosing a place to live, if you think about it.) I’ll show you simple and advanced ideas for each element — you can decide how elaborate you want to go.

Water

A wildlife expert once told me it can be harder for animals to find fresh water than it is for them to find food. Here in Florida where we have lots of rivers, lakes and canals, you would think fresh water would be abundant. It usually is — but there are certainly parts of the state (and other states) far from a water source. When you have fresh water in your yard, you create an oasis that wildlife will flock too. (And a water element is a beautiful addition to your yard anyway.)

To go simple, place a bird bath (or three) in your yard. You don’t even have to buy a fancy stone or porcelain bird bath that costs big bucks. Just get a plant stand that has a built-in garden pot saucer — $20 or less. Keep it clean and filled with fresh water. Maintaining the bird bath is an easy job for a child, who may take pride in helping animals.

For something more elaborate, look for a do-it-yourself “fountain in a barrel” kit at hardware stores. You can also install a pond, like we did.

A birdbath, fountain, pond or other water source is essential for attracting wildlife to your yard

Food

Most people are familiar with bird feeders — and they totally count toward providing food for wildlife!

Keeping bird feeders clean and filled is an easy way to attract wildlife to your yard

Setting up a bird feeder is a simple way to get birds onto your property. You can find a variety of bird feeders and seed to fill them at nurseries, hardware stores and Target. My sons love to fill up our bird feeders every few days, and elbow each other out of the way to do it! They like feeling they have fed the birds and made them happy.

Eventually you may also want to install plants, trees or bushes that offer food sources.

Installing nectar plants -- those that attract butterflies and hummingbirds with flowers -- is easy and gives your yard some color

If you have a local gardener friend, ask him or her which plants in your area are easy to grow and which produce fruit, berries, seeds or nuts. You can also ask your local county extension service or native plant society (often on a state-wide level). There may be gardening books specific to your region that you can check out at the library. It’s important to install only plants that work well in your area, or “hardiness zone.” If you give your plant the care it needs, it will produce food that will draw in local wildlife. Many kids like to “play in the dirt” and will enjoy planting and watering a shrub and watching the flowers bloom — my boys sure do.

Install plants in your yard that grow nuts, seeds, berries or other fruit (like this dewdrop) to give wildlife other food sources

Shelter

Basically, wildlife need a place to sleep, hide from predators or get out of the weather.

If you have mature trees, that’s all you need to fulfill the shelter requirement for lots of animals. A hedge or other shrubbery gives small animals places to rest. If you installed a pond as your water element, that will become a home to frogs and other aquatic creatures.

You can also create a brush or rock pile in your yard, if you don’t mind something a bit messy to be in your landscape.

A brush pile gives wildlife a place to call home

If you can tolerate leaving dead trees — called snags — or even fallen trees as logs on your property, they can provide shelter too. Just please make sure a dead tree isn’t over a sidewalk, car or other place a branch might fall on someone.

Even dead trees are great for wildlife to live in

A Place to Raise Young

What’s cuter than a baby anything? You will get to see babies in your yard if you give wildlife parents what they need to create a home for their offspring.

If you have mature trees or shrubs, some birds may built nests there. Great! That is a simple way to attract nesting birds.

To go a step further, set up a nesting box for birds that are cavity nesters.

Build or buy a nesting box with the right dimensions for the kinds of birds in your area that will use one. This one is sized for northern screech owls or American kestrels.

A word of warning: the beautifully designed bird houses you see at the craft store will not work. They are just for decoration. Find out how to set up a nesting box or do a search for “nesting box plans” if you want to make one yourself for a specific bird in your area. You can also build a bat house. (Why would you want to attract bats? They gobble down insects like no one’s business.)

Aside from trees or structures, you can install plants where butterflies lay their eggs. Each butterfly species is very specific in the type of plant it lays its eggs on, which is the plant the caterpillars will eat when they hatch. Kids love watching caterpillars!

If you want to attract butterflies to your yard, install "host plants" that butterflies in your area need to lay their eggs for their caterpillars to feed on

If you want to really attract butterflies to your yard, don’t stop at just flowering nectar plants — also set out host plants for the caterpillars. To find which butterfly species are native to your area and which plants to get, check the North American Butterfly Association and find the chapter in your region. The caterpillars may munch your host plants down to nothing, but they almost always re-leaf and spring back, ready for the next batch of caterpillars. If you don’t like partially eaten plants in your landscape, find an out-of-the-way area to plant host plants.

One tip I learned from a butterfly expert is to spread the butterfly plants around throughout your yard so the butterfly’s predators don’t have so easy a time at finding all of them.

To create an outdoor space that’s home to wildlife, it can be as easy as setting out bird baths, bird feeders, a pile of brush and a nesting box — or as elaborate as creating an oasis of water and regional plants that wildlife love — to provide a home for wildlife for generations. An outdoor space where wildlife are welcome is also one that you will enjoy spending time in, and where kids will grow up learning how to care for their environment.

Have you seen the trailer for the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting? It features Chris Rock, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz and other comic stars, so you know it’s going to be funny. It comes out May 18.

To celebrate having its baby products in the movie, BRITAX has launched a nationwide tour. The BRITAX Expect Greatness Tour is going from city to city around the United States (and Toronto) in specially designed minivans — and coming to Florida!

Come out to the Ideal Baby & Kids store in Pembroke Pines on Saturday, May 12, 10 am to 3 pm or Macro Baby in Orlando on the same day, noon to 4 pm for giveaways, discounts and parent education.

BRITAX has generously offered to give away the new stroller board that attaches to most stroller brands to create room for an older child behind the stroller. (Think of a “sit and stand” type of add-on.) The stroller board retails for $90, so this is a great prize.

All the items you can win either through this giveaway or at the stores on the day of the event count toward BRITAX’s Registry Rewards program, where parents have a chance to get a free Boulevard 70 car seat. If you buy or receive as a gift one BRITAX item in each of five categories of products, your car seat is free. And now winning one of these items counts too!

If you don’t win here, visit the BRITAX Expect Greatness Tour to win online — BRITAX is giving away up to $25,000 worth of goodies (which also counts toward the Rewards Registry program)!

To win the stroller board, please leave a comment mentioning if 1) if you plan to attend one of the Expect Greatness Tour stops 2) what you think of the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting and 3) how the new stroller board would help you or someone you know. Please comment on all three items to be eligible. US and Canadian residents only, please. I will pick a winner this Friday afternoon. Good luck!

The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne resort is spectacular inside and out and was a great setting for the conference

The Mom 2.0 Summit has been a popular conference to attend the past few years if you are a mom who blogs or is into social media, or if you are marketing to these moms. After holding events in Houston and New Orleans, Mom 2.0 came to Key Biscayne just off the coast from Miami, and I was super lucky to be given the chance to attend.

Laid out at the magnificent Ritz-Carlton, Mom 2.0 was definitely the conference to attend if you wanted to catch up with blog friends, meet blog superstars, and talk with brands and media outlets. The parties! The sessions! The speakers! The view! Everything was incredible.

The Speakers

Each day of the summit started with inspirational women, followed by a choice of panels led by well-known bloggers and successful businesswomen: Liz Lange, Karen Walrond, Kristen Chase, Ciaran Blumenfeld-Maso…. I can’t name all the brilliant women.

Every morning there were excellent panel sessions that made it hard to choose which to attend. Here Nicole Feliciano from Mom Trends, Jessica Shyba from Momma's Gone City, Gabrielle Blair the Design Mom and Karen Walrond aka Chookooloonks discuss next steps and new directions.

Lunch was sponsored by Aldi and Sargento Cheese, and afterward Brene Brown spoke words of wisdom — and hilarity. She said, “Don’t silence the gremlin of shame. Say, ‘Thanks, but I got this. I hear you, but I am forging ahead anyway.’” It takes courage to fail, and after you fail, you feel freer. You can’t avoid the story of who you are.

Brene Brown spoke about shame and the courage to fail

And then she signed her book The Gifts of Imperfection for me. (Boy, do I need to read that book!)

Ideas and advice came faster than they could be tweeted during an afternoon session when 11 experts gave pithy talks that made attendees think we just might be able to change the world — with compassion, or work, or humor, or even play.

Heather Spohr read from her work about grief.

Liz Gumbinner told us to bring back commenting.

Helen Jane Hearn showed us how to use online jealousy as a tool to get what we want.

Stacey Ferguson encouraged us to be “multi-passionate” and gave us permission to focus on more than one thing.

Meredith Sinclair told us how badly we need to just play.

So many thoughts.

The last session of the conference ended with Jenny Lawson, Catherine Connors, Sam Bee and Allana Harkin being themselves and talking about changing media platforms: newspaper to blog to book, TV to blog to whatever you really want to do. (And I keep hearing over and over how great vlogs and webisodes can be.)

Samantha Bee and Alana Harkin from The Daily Show, Catherine Connors from Babble and Her Bad Mother and Jenny Lawson The Bloggess talk about moving between different media forms during the closing panel (another iPhone photo, sorry!)

And I got to tell The Bloggess how happy I am for her and her book’s success when she signed my copy.

Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) spoke and signed copies of her New York Times bestseller, Let's Pretend This Never Happened (photo taken with my iPhone by Karen Walrond, aka Chookooloonks, who also signed for me her book The Beauty of Different)

The Brands

The companies that sponsored Mom 2.0 provided lots of fun.

Just check out this Hallmark suite.

The Hallmark suite offered attendees the chance to send cards for free

Cute, no? Hallmark let us mail cards to anyone or share cards with other attendees. And there was a card shower for three lucky, inspirational women.

Dove led an attempt to break the world record for the most tweets in an hour (currently held by Justin Bieber fans) with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres to raise money for Girls Inc. We tweeted furiously but failed to break the record. Dove donated $15,000 anyway. Dove also took pictures of attendees in its suite and posted the photos on a Times Square billboard.

I'm famous!

Nature’s Path had a fun booth with a Polynesian theme to introduce the new Love Crunch cereal that’s mixed with coconut. I was happy to meet the Nature’s Path folks because they make my kids’ favorite gluten-free snack bars (EnviroKids) and they gave me a full-size box of gluten-free cereal to munch on so I wouldn’t starve from lack of gluten-free meal options.

Mom 2.0 Summit sponsors had fun displays, contests and giveaways. Here is the Nature's Path booth.

Daily Buzz Moms had a fun Instagram scavenger hunt.

Pom and LaCroix Water handed out free beverages to everyone. There was always something cold, delicious and healthy to drink.

Then.

Intel sponsored a fabulous party in the most glamorous, hard-to-get-in spot in South Florida: the Versace mansion.

Intel sponsored the closing party at Casa Casuarina (better known as the late Gianni Versace's private home in South Beach), a place few people get to explore

Attendees know how to get down!

The Versace Mansion party, as it came to be called, was a great chance to relax with friends and meet new contacts

Intel also gave away an Ultrabook.

Mom 2.0 was a fantastic event on which the founders obviously worked very hard, and now my task is to figure out what to do next with everything I’ve experienced from it.

Next year, the summit will be in Laguna Niguel, Calif. I wonder if any Florida bloggers will be going….

People came from all across the United States and Canada to attend Mom 2.0, and there were plenty of Florida-based bloggers and marketers too, like Caroline from Smarty Pants Mama, Lindsey from Mrs. Potts Thoughts, Nicole from By Word of Mouth Musings and myself.

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(You can see even more photos I took at Mom 2.0 on Instagram.)

Botanical bedroom

Source: kerrisdaledesign.com via Holly on Pinterest

Most people celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a little tequila or cerveza — or a lot! But if you don’t imbibe or if you can’t wait until your party to start celebrating, you can have a delicious cafe con leche from Dunkin’ Donuts.

Take this coupon and a friend and get a buy-one, get-one cafe con leche at South Florida Dunkin’ Donuts locations.

You can also try Dunkin’ Donuts’ cold coffee drinks from now through June 14, 10 am to 2 pm for FREE with the Cool DDown sampling event at the following locations:

· 7135 W. McNab Rd., North Lauderdale, FL 33068

· 9901 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines, FL 33024

· 2770 W. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach, FL 33069

· 5141 South University Drive, Davie, FL 33328

· 12397 Sheridan Street, Cooper City, FL 33026

· 9121 Pembroke Rd., Pembroke Pines, FL 33024

· 7003 Taft Street, Hollywood, FL 33024

· 7125 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Lauderhill, FL 33313