Oh Christmas Tree

We had such a beautiful Thanksgiving with friends and family. The boys enjoyed decorating the tree. It's so pretty.
Luke's smile is priceless. I love my boys.

Stuffing

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is cooking with the boys and sharing the day with family. I love stuffing the turkey. It's just a warm filled day and although everyone's been feeling under the weather lately, I can't wait to all be together.

Ingredients

• Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1 fresh bay leaf, available in produce department
• 4 ribs celery and greens, from the heart, chopped (save time and purchase celery already washed, trimmed and cut into sticks, this makes chopping fast work)
• 1 medium to large yellow skinned onion, chopped
• 3 McIntosh apples, quartered and chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons poultry seasoning
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 8 cups cubed stuffing mix (recommended: Pepperidge Farm)
• 2 to 3 cups chicken stock, available in paper containers on the soup aisle

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil to skillet and 4 tablespoons butter. When butter melts, add bay leaf and add the vegetables as you chop them, celery, onions then apples. Sprinkle the vegetables and apples with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Cook 5 to 6 minutes to begin to soften vegetables and apples then add parsley and stuffing cubes to the pan and combine. Moisten the stuffing with chicken broth until all of the bread is soft but not wet.
Butter 12 muffin cups, 2 tins, liberally with remaining butter. Use an ice cream scoop to fill and mound up the stuffing in muffin tins. Remove the bay leaf as you scoop the stuffing when you come upon it. Bake until set and crisp on top, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove stuffin' muffins to a platter and serve hot or room temperature.

Happy Thanksgiving All

Pumpkin Pie

Thanks for all my new followers. I will catch up as soon as everyone feels better. We've been sick with a little bit of everything going on.

This Pie is so Good.

Libby's Famous Pies are grand.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk
• 1 unbaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep-dish pie shell
• Whipped cream (optional)

Directions

MIX sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.

POUR into pie shell.

BAKE in preheated 425° F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Top with whipped cream before serving.

 

I hope your all doing well and staying healthy. Have a nice weekend.

I haven't had the chance to get on and write in a while! My son had a school field trip and I've been busy trying to get parents to sign up to bring things in for his Halloween party. I'm the "classroom mother" so I get the joys of calling all of the parents to ask for things, yay. I'm really happy that I've found someone to do everything except for a dozen donuts which I'll probably get stuck with doing on top of my 17 goodie bags - but I don't mind.

Anyway, my son had so much fun on his field trip!! He has "two girlfriends that he's going to marry" and he just had a blast with them the entire time! We went on a hayride, learned all about different types of corn, pumpkins, and flowers and even got to take home a pumpkin. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

This is my son with his "girlfriends" on the hay ride. I got a new camera the day before his field trip and I'm so pleased with the pictures I got!


It's not letting me upload anymore pictures for now so I'll have to try to get on later and show you guys some more!

Hope you all had a great week! Let the weekend begin :o)

Since I haven't really had the time to do anything new lately I decided I'd show you guys what I've done in the past. Let me know what you think!

This is a door sign and light switch cover that I made for my niece and her step sister as a Christmas gift. I also made matching outlet covers but never took a picture.

I made this one for my nephew. He adores the movie CARS. Looking at the finished project I definitly would've gone with a differnet color for the writing. You learn a lot your first time around!

These are some other things I've worked on. The top two I made for my newest nephew who was just born in August to match his bedroom theme Jungle Tales.

The garbage can I just thought would be neat to match my newest kitchen style.

And the three outlet covers matches yet another nephews room. I figure the kids in the family are the best to practice making things for because they really don't know any better - they're excited no matter what.

Anyway, these are just some things I've done during my free time! I mostly enjoy sewing but I've done more with painting I suppose. Let me know your thoughts! Please try not to be too cruel, I haven't been painting for years. Thanks guys! :o)

Fall Leaves..

Me and my husband are planning on getting a new camera for Christmas since Anthony broke ours months ago. I'm really hoping to get one a lot sooner than that so I can take some pictures of the beautiful leaves outside to show you guys! I go through my blogs every day (or try to anyway) and see pictures of all of the yummy treats and things you guys do every day and I wonder why it seems like I have no time whatsoever for any of that. I guess I get 2 1/2 hours of free time while Anthony's at school and Lucas is napping to do what I please, but that usually consist of writing on my blog, and posting things on craigslist(which takes forever). I really need more time for things that I enjoy.

I did get time to cut my sons hair this morning before school. He was bumming out because "he likes it long" and I cut it too short. When he got to school his girlfriend wasn't friendly which made it even worse (yes, my almost 4 year old has a "girlfriend"). He holds her hand and introduces her to all of the kids in the class since she's so shy. I think she was acting weird towards him today because they had a 3 day weekend and she was back to her shy self. Hopefully it's not because I cut his hair too short! :-X

Plans for tomorrow must consist of me trying to bake something yummy for the kids, or work on some crafts, or something fun! Hope you guys had a great day!

I had such a busy but great day yesterday. I spent a few hours at our first annual Oktoberfest. I live in a tiny town so it was nice for us to actually have something going on for local vendors. There weren't too many craft tables set up, but enough to enjoy the day. The kids got to play in blow ups, get their face painted, free helmets, fishing, etc. It was just a great place for families to spend together.

After Oktoberfest we threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my father in law. We had family come in from out of town and it was just really nice to get everyone together. He was so surprised and happy to see everything everyone had done for him. The kids had a blast playing with eachother since it's not often that they can all get together and play.

It was just such a lovely day all around, reminding me what really matters most in life is friends and family.