Easy Christmas Bark Recipe

Today I have my work Christmas party and as part of my contribution I made Christmas Bark. It's a super easy recipe that I found on Pinterest and adjusted slightly to fit my taste so I thought I'd share it with all of you in case you are looking for something really easy to bring to your holiday party this year.

Here's what you will need:

Baking Pan (I used a cookie sheet)

Tin Foil

Chocolate Chips (3 cups)

Shortening ( 2 Tbsp)

Pretzels (I purchased the mini pretzels and crushed them up)

M&Ms

Christmas sprinkles

**Note: You can really include anything in the bark. The original recipe I found had peanuts, but I don't like peanuts mixed with chocolate (I know I'm weird!) so I didn't include them. You could certainly include different candies other than M&Ms this is just what I used!**

First, I lined my cookie sheet with tin foil.

Ready to get started.

I took my three cups of chocolate chips (I had a little bit over the three cups, but I just used an entire bag of Nestle chocolate chips and it all fit on the baking sheet.

I poured these into a microwaveable bowl and heated the chocolate up in one minute increments. After two minutes I just did a final thirty seconds to finish melting the chocolate. You'll want to stir each time and you'll know it's done when the chocolate is smooth.

The length of time will depend on your microwave so keep an eye on your chocolate!

Next, add in your shortening and microwave in ten second increments until smooth. Mine took 20 seconds and it was good to go!

Next,  pour your chocolate onto your cookie sheet and start adding your extras.

I used red and green M&Ms.

These are the mini pretzels I used.

These are the sprinkles I used. 

One of the tips I read was to make sure to press firmly down on everything that you put in the chocolate otherwise it would not stay when it firmed up. I pressed down on the M&Ms and pretzels and some were hidden inside the chocolate as well. I didn't press on the sprinkles though since they were so small it would've taken me forever.

Then it's time to let the bark firm up! I placed it in the fridge for two hours. 

Here is the end result:

Once the bark is firmed, just pull it apart into a bunch of smaller pieces! 

Overall, a super easy recipe!

Life Lately: Snow Adventures

Well in last week we had our first and second snow!

Since this was Sophie's first snow we weren't quite sure how she would do, but she absolutely loved it!

Our first snow was just a dusting and she kept looking around and trying to eat it as it fell.

She is such a sweetheart and absolutely loves playing outside and in the snow was no exception.

I forgot to save this picture on Instagram before I put words over it but I was wondering how long my white and gray runner would stay clean. Sophie was on it within two minutes eating her bone! We didn't have any rugs down at first because we didn't trust Sophie not to pee on them but now that she's potty trained we are adding one rug at a time. I just ordered one for the living room and can't wait to share that with you once it comes in!

Side note: I need to buy things for underneath the rug to hold them in place. Any recommendations? I know some people use tape and others use mats...

Just another cute picture of Sophie :)

Here she is during her second snow! This one left a lot more snow on the ground and lucky for Soph, her dad got to stay home with her for a snow day! 

She loves being outside so Tim built a snowman with her and sent me a picture while I was at work.

So cute, but I'm so sad I missed out on such a fun day. Boo to work!

Anyone else feeling slightly overwhelmed this December? Seriously, where is the time going? I can't believe it's already the 9th. This month is just flying and even though I feel mostly prepared, there's always something else to do!

This week I have a work Christmas party and I still need to find out what we are doing for Tim's family this year and buy gifts for that. So still stuff to do, even if the house is decorated and the rest of the gifts are purchased.

What is left on your to do list for this season?

Check out those cute little paw prints!

 On Saturday Brittni and I had a fun shopping day on Saturday. We started off at Bath and Body Works candle day and hit up a couple of stores in Garden City, Cranston. Then we headed to the Warwick mall to eat lunch and buy more stuff!

We got a ton of shopping done and it was so nice to be off shopping for the day. I haven't had a marathon shopping day in awhile and honestly order pretty much everything online these days.

Here's my candle haul! I picked up a few for co-workers and then a bunch for my candle stockpile.

Last night, Rachel, Ant and Tilly came to visit and it was so nice! I didn't take any pictures but it was so nice to hang out with all of them and we absolutely love having a place where we can entertain guests.

That's whats been up with us lately around here! What have you been up to lately?

Quick Update

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you guys know of a quick update I've made to the blog. I recently updated a bunch of the pages you see above on the site.

The Travel page has been updated with quite a few of our recent adventures and I believe we are all up to date.

A new page has been created (a multiple hour project) for our wedding! This way if you are wedding planning all my posts are corralled in one place for you. I hope this will be helpful!

I am still working on creating a page for our new home but I will leave Apartment Living up for the foreseeable future since I think it's important to show where we used to live! The page is now updated to reflect that it is pictures of our old living arrangements.

That's all! If you have anything else you would like to see on the blog please let me know. You can always comment, send me an e-mail at balancingonmytoes@gmail.com or message me on Instagram (@balancingonmytoes) I'd love to hear from you!

Our Simple Christmas Decor 2019

Good morning! Today we are talking about our simple Christmas decor for 2019! Since adding Sophie our golden doodle puppy to the family this fall we've had to be very careful what we leave out. I want to keep our decor fairly simple because I have to corral it on our counter when we leave her home alone so it doesn't get destroyed. She is very interested in everything as puppies always are! 

Let's start outside...

The former owners left a garden flag and stand so I thought I would buy flags as an easy way to decorate outdoors for the holidays. I love this little truck with the Christmas tree in the back. I purchased this right on Amazon and it was only $10. There are a ton of different garden flags on Amazon so if you are looking for an easy way to decorate outside this is it! 

This pre-lit garland was also purchased on Amazon and was $25 each. I purchased a few of these and although they don't look the most natural during the day I really like how it looks at night.

I pulled out our decorative pillows. The two bigger ones I believe are from HomeGoods and the small teal one was in the dollar bins at Target a few years back.

This table has been pretty much empty with Sophie around but she doesn't seem to bother this Keep Calm and Wait for Santa sign. 

This little tree came from Target last year in after Christmas sales. 

Here is the start of our garland, you'll see the finished product in a moment.

Here's my Harry Potter POP advent calendar that Brittni gave me as a Christmas gift this year! Follow along on Instagram (balancingonmytoes) to see what's behind each door!

I decorated this plug in garland from Walmart with picks and poinsettias from Walmart. Next year I will put a battery operated garland up there. 

This side has one of the battery operated garlands from Amazon that I shared earlier.

Our tree is set up in our extremely messy office! We can't trust Sophie with it while we aren't home. I ordered this on Michaels when trees were majorly discounted! I had to fluff the branches up a bit but it's a really well made tree and I love how it looks!

Just a good girl and her first Christmas tree!

These little bottle brush trees came from Walmart this year and they are something small that I think look great on our ledge between the kitchen and living room. 

Here are pictures of our completed garland!

I added a garland around the window to block the cord a little bit and I think it turned out very festive.

It's so fun to decorate a new house, but I am ready to come up with even more ideas next year when we can have a bit more out! ( I hope)

Tell me about and show me your Christmas decorations! I want to know what you are doing to decorate your house.

Life Lately: November Barkbox, Two Thanksgivings and a New Bed

Happy December!! I can't believe we are in the last month of the year already, where did this year go?!

Today I want to share with you a little bit of what's been going on lately around here. First up, Sophie's November Barkbox.

Sophie LOVES when her Barkbox shows up! I swear she can smell it as soon as I put it down on the floor she goes crazy trying to get it open. She loved the Piggies in Blankies, those didn't last long in our house! The Piggie Puffs are still hanging around, and she definitely likes them but they don't give her as much joy as the other treats did! The long term chew didn't last long around here, it was gone within ten minutes.

The theme this month was BarkTV and we received the Sloth themed box. This messenger bag is her favorite out of the toys. She loves chewing on the bag strap, I think because she thinks it's something she shouldn't be chewing on, and she carries this toy around quite a bit! It's also been great for working on tugging because it's easy to each grab a side. 

She also loves these two toys. The sloth has lost an arm but he is a favorite around here. The remote has three squeakers inside and she often will bring this over to us to throw for her. Sophie has SO many toys and she will often be laying on the floor surrounded by toys and still get up and go to her toy bin to dig for a toy she wants.

We ordered a new Beautyrest bed for Sophie...

It's her big girl bed and she is starting to really love it! This came from Groupon and I highly recommend you purchase a dog bed off there rather than in store, the prices are so good!

One morning when I had Sophie outside this was the sky. So pretty and the camera doesn't do it justice at all!

I also went to see Frozen 2! It was great and I am obsessed with the soundtrack.

We do two Thanksgivings every year. One with my family on Thanksgiving Day...

Here we are heading to CT as our family of three.

Sophie at my uncle's house. She loves meeting new people!

The best part of Thanksgiving dinner! I really am not a Thanksgiving food person and really don't care for turkey, but chocolate turkeys I am all about!

What are you eating dad? Can I have some?

We only gave her one tiny piece of turkey and look how we spent the night.....

She was exhausted!!!

Love spending time with my family!

On Saturday we headed to Thanksgiving number two with Tim's family...

Sophie and her cousin Attie chewing on each others bones. 

We also stopped by Fetch, a local pet store for small business Saturday. Sophie got her picture taken and posted on their Facebook page!

Yesterday was spent lounging around! We definitely needed to recover before heading into the first week of December! 

Have a great day everyone and see you back here in a couple of days!