I had such trouble on what to post today. I have such a backlog of things to share with you. How did this happen?!?!?

Oh well, just means I'll have lots of posting material for you guys. :)  I want to share with y'all a craft that Dev and I did for the kids' Christmas tree. I ended up having to recycle a bunch of the ornaments that he and I made last year, and I needed something quick and easy until I can fill the gaps.


So Dev and I sat down and made some ABC ornaments. :)

What you'll need:
Chipboard letters
Glitter
Plastic Cups
Glue
Jute
Paintbrush

What you'll do:
Gather a clean and large work surface. I {ingeniously} picked my kitchen table, because food and glitter go really well together. More on that later.

This is a neat little glitter pack that I picked up from Michael's. It has 16 colors, but I opted not to use the black or the brown glitter. They will  live on elsewhere. :)

 My chipboard letters had some extra baggage, but I decided to use some of them. I have used some of these letters for other projects and I had to use the circles because said letters were no longer there.  :)

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the glittering process, but I painted the glue onto the letters and then I put them into a plastic cup. One cup for each color glitter. Then I let Dev pour the glitter into the cups and gently shake them around to make sure the letters were completely covered in glitter. Then I fished them out and laid them on the newspaper magazine paper. :)

I do love me some glitter. :)

 So after the glitter and glue dry it's time to attach them to some ribbon jute. I cut each length of jute to 18". I cut 8 pieces total. I knotted each end. Then I dabbed a spot of glue on the back of the letters, and then just pressed the jute into the glue. Dev wanted the alphabet in the right order so we had ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL, MNOP, QRS, TUV, XXYZ.

Look at all that glitter on my table. le sigh.

Then just wait for the pretties to dry. Oh scroll down one picture. You'll see where the food comes in.



Next week, I will be showing off the house in a Holiday Open House going on all week next week. On Thursday, December 9th, I will be posting up a linky party, and I am cordially inviting all of you to post up your Christmas Trees! I would love to have a showcase to show off your wonderful decorations the next week!

I hope that you guys are as excited as I am! Have a great day everyone and enjoy it!


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Today I had a hard time deciding what to write about. I mean....all my Christmas decorations are up and almost all of the boxes are back down in the Christmas closet, and I really really want to show all them off, along with the ornaments that Dev and I made for the kid's tree, but I got the thinking right before I started writing this post.
I got the thinking about luggage. I mean everyone has it. Our luggage is several years old and is teal and black. It was a set that we got from Target for like $80, and its perfectly fine for a trip that lasts several days long, but do we have anything that would be perfect for an overnight visit? Not really.

Well I was cruising around CSN and came across  sling backpacks . These things are adorable and their uses go far beyond just an overnight jaunt to your favorite shopping destination! 


Take a look at some of these styles. 

I am thankful for so many, many things. I'm thankful for Jesus first and foremost, for my wonderful, loving husband and for my sweet, little dogs. I'm thankful for my family and my friends and job and so much more. I'm also very thankful for electricity. As the power went out yesterday an hour before I was supposed to serve dinner, and Mike peeled potatoes by candlelight, I said, "Lord, thank you so much for the gift of electricity. I am happy that I have the serenity to accept that there is nothing I can do about this power outage. Now that I have this acceptance, can I please have power back?" Everything turned out perfectly fine, but I do not wish that kind of Thanksgiving adventure on anyone, haha.


It goes without saying that Thanksgiving is a great day to slip a few new recipes in with the tried-and-true family favorites. Last night, we enjoyed mashed potatoes, squash casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, and canned (it must be canned, per my husband's tradition) cranberry sauce, just like we do every year. We also had Heather's Delicious Pumpkin Bread instead of pumpkin pie and the homemade Dutch Applesauce I featured on here before. For the turkey, however, Mike asked for a twist on that this year, and I tried a new citrus-y apple cider recipe.

Yorkshire Pudding With Chicken
Or turkey in my case.

PUDDING:

1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. milk
3 eggs
1/4 c. parsley

CHICKEN:

1/4 c. oil
1/3 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 tsp. sage
1 broiler-fryer (about 3 1/2 lbs.) or boneless breasts

Pudding:
Stir flour, baking powder, salt and beat in milk, eggs and parsley. (This can be done before chicken is cooked or while it's cooking.)

Chicken:
Pour oil in 2 1/2 quart round casserole or 13"x9"x2" dish. Combine flour, salt, pepper, sage on waxed paper.

Coat chicken with flour mixture. Rub chicken skin side down in oil; turn

Bake in hot, 400 degree, oven 40 minutes to 1 hour.

Pour pudding over chicken. Don't remove excess fat from baking dish. Place on cookie sheet to catch over flow. Return to oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until brown.

Hot Spiced Cider
2-1/2 cup apple cider or unsweetened apple juice
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick (3 inches)
12 whole cloves

In a 1-1/2-qt. slow cooker, combine the first five ingredients. Place cinnamon stick and cloves on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and tie with string to form a bag. Place bag in slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 1 hour. Discard spice bag; continue to cook 1-2 hours or until heated through. Yield: 3 servings.

We ate till it hurt. Everything was amazing. It was a small, relaxed get together with my mother-in-law, Valerie, and our friends Jon and Nova, and I couldn't have asked for a nicer time. Nova also brought some very lovely deviled eggs, a chocolate pie, and some banana bread. So much food! But that's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it?







I hope all of you had a wonderful, happy, and safe Thanksgiving with your family and friends.

The table is set.




The menu has been planned.

The food is ready {mostly}.

Now all we need are the folks who are coming by today to help us celebrate what we're thankful for.

I'm thankful for this guy. He does ovens! I mean who wouldn't be thankful for him. ;-)

I'm also thankful for these guys. Even if they are getting annoyed at me for snapping so many pictures.



Thankfully these little beauts don't mind me snapping pictures of them.

I had to get a coffee shot in. Its been a loooong day.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and may it be everything you hope it to be.

Well the baking is in full swing to get ahead of the roasting tomorrow. My hands are so dry from all the hand washing, but while waiting for all the baked goodness to get done yesterday So I decided that needed some new napkin rings. I busted out my old napkin ring projects and moths flew out.  Hrm. Ok so its been a while, but never fear. I have a plan! So on to the show!



Stuff you'll need:
3" Cinnamon Sticks - I got my cinnamon sticks from Buckland Farm Market and 5 packages of their whole cinnamon sticks made all 6 napkin rings. Each napkin ring is made up of 13 or 14 cinnamon sticks. I got all of the cinnamon sticks for less than $8.
Jute

What you'll do:
Cut a length of jute about a yard long, then separate the jute into individual strands, like floss.


Tie your jute strand around your first cinnamon stick. Not like this:

But like this. Have the cinnamon stick knotted in the middle of the strand. I used an overhand knot (I think).  I placed the knot towards one end of the stick.

Then loop the strands around the next cinnamon stick and knot that. Continue until you cinnamon sticks will go around a toilet paper roll.



Isn't that a lovely picture? Devlin pulled it freshly empty from our powder room. He's so sweet. He's also very managing. How many pictures do you see Super Mario Galaxy jammies in?

So after you get all of the cinnamon sticks tied, you need to take another strand of jute and tie the other ends of all the cinnamon sticks together as you did before.

Once both sides are knotted then just bring the ends of your cinnamon stick row together and tie the jute strands around the opposite stick and trim the ends close.

Enjoy! This really didn't take any time at all and I'm enjoying the subtle fragrance from them. :) What do you guys think?  Oh! and don't worry if the jute breaks {and it will} just tie the broken strand back together and keep  going. You won't notice. Strands broke on every single one of my napkin rings.


Have a great day!



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