I was very excited this evening when I got a comment from Happy Whimsical Hearts letting me know she had given me a Liebster Blog Award. What a wonderful surprise! Happy Whimsical Hearts is a wonderful blog sharing imaginative children's crafts and activities, handmade toys, outdoor fun, baking and simple living ideas.
wonderful to read, and I hope you enjoy checking them out!
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I enjoyed our Thanksgiving, we celebrated at home with my mother and father in-law. We normally have a full house, but this year everyone was off visiting other relatives. Although I missed seeing all of my family, it was a nice day.
I really enjoy cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we stick with a very traditional menu, Turkey with Mashed potatoes and Homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and yes, we have the kitschy but tasty green bean casserole & yams covered in toasty brown yummy marshmallows. For dessert I always bake 4 pumpkin pies, that way there will be plenty for all, as well as enough to have plenty of servings of pie with tea and coffee for the next few days.
I love baking pumpkin pie, I have always had good luck with the recipe right off the can of Libby's Pumpkin. I make my own pie crust as well, but I still have more work to do perfecting my pie crust. I just cannot seem to crimp my pie crust edges properly, I have been baking pies for years and I never get it right, so I make my pie edges pretty using mini canape and cookie cutters. This year I used mini pumpkin, leaf, and acorn cutters and attach them using a little cold water.
Here's how the edges turned out.
I also like to serve a cracker spread appetizer before the meal is served, so everyone can nibble while they wait for the big meal. This year I made a very yummy Cracker Spread- Deviled ham with Green Olives.
Mix all of the ingredients together, when combined transfer to serving dish, garnish with additional chopped olives cover and chill for a few hours or overnight. Serve with Crackers. This spread could be made vegetarian by omitting the deviled ham and Worcestershire sauce and maybe adding a little garlic powder and a handful of grated cheddar cheese. I love the flavor of green olives!
I love Thanksgiving, it is so important to remember the things we are Thankful for. I am so thankful for my family, My husband Gary and my children Sarah and Joseph, they bring me so much joy! I am thankful for our health and safety this year. We are blessed to have a nice home and good food. Our two labs Zoey and Xena add so much to our home, we all love them. I am so thankful for this blog, and how much fun I have had this year writing about my family and home, and I am thankful for all of the wonderful blogs I have read this year, I feel like I have met so many wonderful people! Most of all I am so thankful for my faith in God, and my savior Jesus, who I go to with all of my worries and who provides and cares for me and my family.
To me a holiday celebrating gratitude is the perfect way to kick off the holiday Christmas season. Thinking about all of the things we are blessed with is a nice tone to set for Christmas which can, if left unchecked, become a very materialistic holiday. I love celebrating Christmas, with all of its trappings, I am excited to share about our Christmas this year.
Today we got our Christmas lights up, we normally have them up the week of Thanksgiving, so we can light them up on Thanksgiving evening, but the rain kept us from putting them up until today. The weather was beautiful and sunshiny, and Gary and Joe got the lights up in no time, while me and Sarah worked on projects in the house to get ready to put up all of our Christmas decorations.
Here are Gary & Joseph putting up our lights.
This cute little frog hopped on by to see what was going on. He looked pretty next to the purple cabbage.
Here are the lights all lit up! I love Christmas lights, can't wait to drive through the neighborhood and see all of the decorated houses!
Lastly I would like to share a couple of wonderful Christmas DVDs that I recommend, these movies get me in the Christmas mood and ready for Winter.
Stranger in the Woods is a wonderful nature filled movie about a snowman that appears in the woods and how the wildlife reacts to it. This movie shows the forest animals like little deer investigating the snowman. Cute, peaceful little movie. We all enjoy it, this movie was a big hit when my kids were younger as well. As an adult I enjoy seeing all of the nature scenes. Just a nice happy show to put on, and wonderful for teaching about winter!
Here is my Amazon affiliate link.
The next DVD I love to watch is Rick Steves' European Christmas. I first saw this on PBS years ago. I enjoy Rick Steves' travel shows, he always visits such great places. In this DVD Rick visits with his family, Christmas in England, Norway, France, Germany, Italy and the Swiss Alps. So many wonderful traditions to see, some very pretty music, and great European scenery. I love to incorporate traditions from around Europe in our home, and I have always enjoyed learning about Christmas around the world. I can watch this movie a couple of times every year and I never get tired of it. This would also be great for teaching older children different Christmas traditions. I hope you can catch this show on your local PBS, or possibly from the library.
Here is my Amazon link for this DVD as well.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, and having fun getting ready for Christmas!
We have had a very productive weekend and a busy Monday. This weekend I went to the grocery store and purchased everything except the perishable veggies for our Thanksgiving dinner, and got the freezer organized to make room for the Turkey.
This week I will be getting ready for Thanksgiving, as well as working more on my Christmas crafts and gifts.
I thought I would share with you a fun craft that I finished today- My Thanksgiving Favors to set out at each plate.
I purchased this stamp about a year ago, knowing that it would be a handy stamp pattern to have in my craft closet. I think it would make pretty cards or gift tags, and thought it would look great for my Thanksgiving favor craft.
I used dark cream colored card-stock paper cut into rectangles about 3 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches, and stamped the paper with brown ink.
I let the ink dry for about an hour, then got out my Martha Stewart glitter stamping kit, this set comes with a glue stamp pad, and quite a nice selection of stamps. You press the stamp on the glue pad, then to the center of the paper, then I sprinkled on glitter in a nice copper color called fire opal. If you already have a nice leaf stamp you could just buy a glue stamp pad or use a makeup sponge to dab glue on to your stamp.
Here is one of the papers with the glitter leaf. Let this dry for about an hour or two.
Then wrap each decorated paper around a candy bar, I chose a Hershey's Bar because I like the nice simple brown color.
We also enjoyed a wonderful seasonal treat today- the beautiful Pomegranates are out in the produce department, so I bought one for the whole family to share. These aren't in season for very long, and I think they are fun for the kids to nibble away at, such an interesting fruit!
I am getting very excited for the holiday season as it quickly approaches!
I love it when the weather is foggy, a day ago we were surrounded by fog for nearly the whole day.
All of this November weather has got me in the crafting mood, so for the last couple of days I have been busy stitching away on my Christmas ornaments as well as sewing up the Thanksgiving bunting that I wanted to make. I will share my Christmas ornaments in a post next week, I am really enjoying making them. I am really happy with my first attempt at a burlap bunting. I hung it above our fireplace, to finish off my Thanksgiving mantle decor.
The bunting triangles are 7 inches across at the top and 9 inches tall at the center (roughly 8 inches after making the fold at the top to thread twine through). I printed the letters from an Alphabet Template here. I cut out the letters from various fall colored fabric scraps I had on hand from various projects over the years using pinking shears. The letters are sewn on by machine stitching around the inside border of each letter. To hang the bunting I thread jute twine through the tops of each triangle, and it was ready to hang above the fire place.
Here is a closer shot of the bunting. This was a very fun project, and I am planning on making one for Christmas as well!
Nice warm comforting foods are also essential this time of year, I thought I would share one of my family's favorite meals- Cottage Pie. Cottage Pie is simple to make, and my whole family just gobbles it up! Here is my recipe.
Brown the hamburger until fully cooked and drain, then stir in tomato sauce and seasonings, then stir in beaten egg and stir until combined, then stir in frozen peas and carrots. Transfer to a casserole dish.
Top the meat mixture with 1/2 cup of shredded cheese.
Then into your cooked and prepared mashed potatoes, stir in 1 cup of shredded cheese as well as 2 teaspoons of dried parsley. Stir until cheese and parsley are thoroughly combined with mashed potatoes. Then spread on top of meat mixture.
Bake at 375 F. until top is golden brown and meat is bubbly hot about 40-45 minutes.
This makes a perfect one dish meal or can be served with a salad and bread.
I look forward to spending the weekend doing some more crafting as well as getting my Thanksgiving grocery shopping done.
In honor of Veteran's Day I would like to say a big Thank You to all of our Veterans as well as to the families of Veterans- I truly appreciate your service to our country!! God be with you and yours!