thankful

I have much to be thankful for this year. Especially for this little turkey!

This little one has us laughing at her cuteness each and every day :)

We have my dad & step-mom in town this year for Thanksgiving so it was nice to be able to cook for someone other than the 4 of us...well, technically 5 of us but Addie didn't eat turkey this year ;)

I brined the turkey again this year which made for a very juicy turkey. Yum. I didn't get too many pics cause, um, I was hungry. 

I tried a couple new recipes this year which all turned out great. Like these bacon wrapped smokies...

Super yummy. Definitely will be making those on Christmas. I followed the recipe except for freezing the smokies (not sure what that step was for??) and I used turkey smokies (you couldn't tell the difference with the bacon & the sweet sauce).

I also made some Texas Roadhouse style cinnamon butter. That was a definite hit. No one used the regular butter for the biscuits. I'll share the recipes for the biscuits & butter in a separate post. Mmm....I think I need another one!

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Oh, and the Breaking Dawn premiere last week. One word. Awesome. 

Such a great movie. I can't wait to go see it again! They did such a good job with this one. Even Kristin Stewart who I don't particularly like was good. Can't wait to go see it again.

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When we came out of the movies it was snowing...and continued to snow off and on all weekend.

I could not get the kids to stay in the house. They played out in the snow for hours.

It all melted on Tuesday. But I'm sure it will soon be back!

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My hot water heater went out on Tuesday...you know, 2 days before Thanksgiving. That was good timing. Thankfully we got someone out on Wednesday to fix it and {keeping fingers crossed} it's been ok since.

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I hope you all had a wonderful turkey day with lots of friends, family & thankfulness. I'm not a black Friday shopper so we slept in a little, stayed in pjs, and enjoyed each others company :) Our company is heading home tomorrow so we'll probably head out for our tree this weekend!

pumpkin cobbler

Do you love pumpkin pie?? Then you will looove this recipe. 

I love just about all things pumpkin. Well, except for shakes & drinks...that's kinda weird to me. I like my pumpkin in muffins & desserts! 

One of my favorites is pumpkin pie. Unfortunately no one else in my house likes it. Huh???

Oh well, I figured I'd try this recipe anyway.  And it was super yummy. And I've made it twice in the last couple weeks :) 

I topped it with some whipped cream. Yum. 

The only thing I changed was adding about 1/2 the pecans that were called for in the recipe. And I did use evaporated milk. Other than that I kept it the same.

Recipe found here.

beautiful fall

I don't know about anyone else but fall is my favorite season. Sure, the other seasons have their beauty. Winter & the beautiful snow on tree limbs. Spring with it's pretty flowers emerging from the ground. Summer & the smells of suntan lotion & pool water. 

But the colors of fall are just wonderful to me.

Sometimes you just need to stop and enjoy nature...and explain to your kids why in the world you keep driving down side streets to take pics of trees ;)

And by the way, that tree in the top pic has already lost all of those beautiful leaves. That's why you have to stop and enjoy them...because very soon they're gone!

out in the pumpkin patch

Yesterday we headed out to the pumpkin patch after church. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather. Sunny & beautiful, just a tad chilly...perfect.

 

My kids don't really have memories of being in a 'real' pumpkin patch since they hadn't been to one in almost 6 yrs.

It was a big pumpkin patch. Note to self - bring gloves next time...pumpkin stems are very picky!

Ahh, those mountains. So pretty.

My son kept going for the big green pumpkins. Not sure you can carve those!

But I appeased him & got a small little green one for our porch :)

We actually went to 2 different farms. At the first one we got our pumpkins & some veggies. At the second one we went in a corn maze & did some other fun things with the kids.

Yes we did!

Addie hung out blowing spit bubbles!

It was a fun day spent with my favorite people :)

pumpkin topiaries

Last weekend I headed outside with the kids to make our pumpkin topiaries for the front porch. I used to do this when we lived in TN. But then we moved to GA and it seemed pointless because 1) we lived about 150ft from the street...hence, NO one could see them, and 2) it was too hot & humid & I didn't want to go through all of this effort for them to last less than a week. 

But now we're in WA and it's much cooler & a lot less humid so I was happy that I could start doing my topiaries again. 

Plus, I have a great porch to put these on :)

I don't remember where I found the original inspiration as it was about 8-9 yrs ago. Maybe a Southern Living mag?? Anyway, I'm sure there's tons of inspiration out there but I didn't bother to check since I've done these before. 

So here's how you make them:

Grab yourself 3 pumpkins in 3 sizes...think of it as making a pumpkin snowman :) 

Doesn't that small pumpkin have the best stem??

Of course, you don't have to do 3, 2 would work really nice, too. (The fatter, rounder ones work better than the taller, more oval ones)


Then recruit the minions to help de-gut the pumpkins...

You'll want to cut a hole in just the top of the fattest pumpkin and a hole in the top and bottom of the 2 smaller pumpkins. 

After gutting 6 pumpkins I realized I really need some cool pumpkin carving tools like they have on Halloween Wars :)

Set the pumpkins on each other & adjust the holes so they sit better.

Then fight with your kids over the power tools...cause power tools are fun :)

I used 2 different drill bits. The top pumpkin has small holes, the middle has big holes & the biggest pumpkin has both. Of course, it's your pumpkins & you can do what you want! 

That type of drill bit that is in the pic makes a cleaner hole. I had 2 different kinds of drill bits & the bigger holes didn't quite cut as clean of a hole. But I had to use what the hubby had!

Then clean them up a bit...along with your grass that looks like a pumpkin massacre has taken place.

All those pumpkin guts are just from the drilling!

Stack the pumpkins on top of each other in an urn or something similar. I have flower pots/urns that are on my porch year round & usually use those. I find that I like to use something to somewhat hold them together. Usually I use garden stakes but since I couldn't find those I used some metal bbq skewers. 

Hey, they worked! Just use something to stake the pumpkins to each other. You don't need a ton. I only used 3 per topiary.

Then feed some lights through all 3 pumpkins. I used 50 mini clear lights with a white cord for each one. I find that the white cord looks better than green when it's lit up.

You'll need to cut a smaller hole in the back of the large pumpkin for the cord to come out. You should probably do that before putting the lights in.

Wrap some grapevine garland around the pumpkins & add some fall foliage.

The grapevine garland I think helps hold the pumpkins in place a bit, too.

I also added a cute little scarecrow (Michaels on sale for $4.99) sitting on a small hay bale (leftover from last year) to hide some of the cord.


And at night...

I wish I had a better pic. It really does look so much better in person :)


So here's a few things to keep in mind:

If you live in a hot/humid climate your topiary won't last as long. When I lived in TN I would usually get about 2 weeks out of this before it would start to smoosh in. Although, when we would have a warmer month I would barely get a week and a half out of it.


If your topiary is exposed to the elements (like rain) it probably won't last as long. (Mine are on a covered porch)


I've thought about doing this with fake pumpkins but haven't for 3 reasons: 1) I'm thinking it might be a fire hazard to have lights inside of those fake pumpkins (but not sure), 2) they are so light that I would worry about my topiary not staying up, and 3) real pumpkins are just so much more pretty!


Like I said, you could also do this with just 2 pumpkins. Or cut a design that flows through all 3 pumpkins. You can really get creative with this!


Happy Fall!!!
 

hello fall! {and a giveaway)

Last Friday marked the 'official' first day of fall. Now, I can tell you that having lived in GA the last 5 years this day meant absolutely nothing when it came to the weather. Because in the south you don't really have a true spring or fall. It stays pretty warm hot through October (at least).

But here in WA...fall is definitely in the air along with all of the wonderful things that go with it. Crisp mornings, shorter days, leaves just beginning to change colors, pumpkins, apples, baking, pumpkin spice candles, pumpkin muffins (or any muffins for that matter!), Halloween costume shopping, sweaters & sweatshirts, and inevitably the countdown to Christmas :)

Bring on the sweatshirts, this is my time of year!

And for the giveaway...

Apparently my brain is not functioning properly. Because, I purchased not one but 2 of these magazines:

I guess I liked the cover so much that I noticed it not once but twice! Anyway, I thought I'd share my extra one with one of my readers :) There's some cute stuff in there including a mini-album from Ali Edwards. So if you'd like a chance to win, just leave a comment & I'll pick someone at random. This giveaway is open to anyone but if you live outside of the U.S. I will ask that you pay for shipping. Sorry :(

I'll leave it open til Sunday afternoon. And maybe you could share what your favorite thing about fall is :)

pumpkin patch

First of all, thank you to everyone for all of your well wishes on this new journey of mine! I am overwhelmed & humbled by how many truly sweet people are out there!!!

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Today we went to a pumpkin patch sponsored by a local church. I really miss pumpkin patches. In southern GA you just don't really have many (at least, that I've found). I think it's too hot for the pumpkins to grow maybe?

Anyway, the kids had fun picking out their own pumpkins, taking hay rides & eating hot dogs & cupcakes :) And we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather.

 Ben already has big plans for this pumpkin

They had all kinds of pumpkins. Regular ones, warty ones, little ones, big ones. They even had some really neat gourds. I really wanted one of these acorn looking ones...

There was even a cute little green bug with black polka dots that was in on the fun...

 Oh how I love fall!!!