Look at this giveaway!!!

Okay, I haven't seen something this cute in a long time, so I just had to alert you all. I came across this giveaway on Blog Giveaways.

Look at this:

That is the cutest bow holder I have EVER seen!!! I love it. I totally want one for Ailey. She may not appreciate a cute bow in her hair just yet, but I'm working on her and she's starting to fold! ;) WHEN I finally get her room done, this would go perfectly in there! Okay, I know I'm gushing, but its CUTE!

Maybe you want it to be a little more minimal? Something like this?

or maybe this?

Well, let me give you the skinny on this giveaway. Head on over to Houghton Happenings here to get all the rules on the entry for the Bubbles and Company.com giveaway. Maybe one of you will be blessed to receive such a fun and cute bow holder for a little girl close to your heart!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a good Thanksgiving all on our own this year. We did miss being with extended family, but it was good with just us nonetheless. We had homemade cranberry sauce (I actually canned it in a round about way and made extra for Christmas, yummy!), green bean casserole (Its the same recipe on the french fried onions package. That is some good stuff right there! Love french fried onions and apparently so do the kiddos; Sam is odd man out - totally not a fan.....), Granny's dressing (I was very proud of myself because it actually tasted pretty close to my granny's! Yay! I'm sad I didn't get a picture..maybe at Christmas?), sweet potato patties doctored with butter, brown sugar, allspice and cinnamon (Who needs sweet potato pie?!;), rolls and cranberry bars (need to rethink my melding of two recipes...could've been better.) We also thought this would be a good day to rearrange some furniture in our house. Good way to work off some of that food! Then we went and had dessert with our friends. I made this pecan pie, too.
It is a recipe I hadn't tried before and we didn't get to it on Thursday and when I went to cut into it Friday, it was not set. Don't know why, I followed the baking directions, but I don't know what the hitch is. It was pretty on the outside, though. Might still try to eat it. :)

Update: I put it back in the oven for another 30 mins. after it sat on the counter for 2 days and then I did cut into it and it was just fine and dandy. I guess next time I just need to bake it a while longer in the first place. It turned out GREAT! Actually, I can honestly say this is one of the best pecan pies I've ever eaten. I got the recipe from Pioneer Woman here.

Friday, we set up the Christmas tree and decorated it.

This tree was in storage for about 5 years. 'Bout time it saw the light of day, don't you think?

She's been giving looks like this lately.

That's a right sexy man there in his pjs and slippers!

Sam and I switched halfway through putting the lights on. We now have the lights on so that we can just leave them on each section. Yay!

She kept trying to put this necklace down her clothes.

Progress....
Lots of helpers!

The finished product!

The shelf got some greenery treatment, too and that is where our main Nativity set is. (Its not done yet, so no pic yet.) That was a very LONG involved process and after about an hour of trying to keep the grabby hands at bay and working in an orderly fashion to put the ornaments on the tree, I decided to finish during the youngers' nap time. I gave Braden the mini tree to decorate all by himself and this is the end result.

He really did a very good job. Notice the ornament hangers. I noticed about halfway through his decorating job that he had the hangers upsidedown. :) He was very proud of himself.

My mom got these stockings for the kids a couple of years ago.

I had to add Sam's stocking in here. His mom made that for him when he was little. Isn't that amazing?! I love it!

They didn't have any decorations on them and I decided to spruce them up a bit. I added the white edging around the neck, arms and legs and added the first initial to each of them. I also put little jingle bells right above their feet cuz jingle bells are fun! Because I wanted Ailey's to look a bit more girly, I blinged hers out a bit around the neck, put some sparkly ribbon around the wrists and added a hair bow. :)

I also managed to get this wreath that I have had fo'eva decorated and hung on our front door.

Its not great, but its enough.

This was a plain red stocking and since I really didn't have one, I decided to repurpose it as mine. I wanted one that would "hang" with the rest of the gang's, so I gave it some bling.
Love me some bling! I'm so not good with handwriting and spatial awareness and I got the writing a little much to one side. I might have to put a star in the big space there or something. Then again, I might not get to that this year. I would also like to say a special thank you to George Schultz for inventing the glue gun!

I want to put up some lights on our porch, but that will just have to wait until I feel like it.

Saturday, we went to Homestead Heritage. Its such a neat place to go and visit. It had been about 12 years since I last went. We got to see some blacksmithing and see some baby chicks and eat some home grown food. I got the most ginormous funnel cake ever. It was topped with homemade icecream, blueberry sauce and powdered sugar. I saw them bringing it out and started laughing. It was huge!!! The funniest part was I got it right before we left so I was walking out with it sharing it with the kids and pretty much everyone I passed was "oohing" and "aaahing" at it. I even had someone stop me and ask me where I got it. That is advertisement in action, right there. Really should've thought to get a picture of it. Maybe next year. :)

They have some very neat make-your-own activities and the boys got to make their own brass spoons.


I figured the spoons would last the longest out of all the things they could've made. :)

They had real hayrides pulled by horses. They had all kinds of displays and demonstrations and it was just a very fun time. This is a pic I took as we left the food court.
LOTS of people come to the Thanksgiving Fair each year. This was the boat building tent.
This was on the side of the gristmill.

The kids were mesmerized by the water wheel. This was the barn raising demonstration.

These are the rest of the pics from the day:

Cloth Diapering Re-visited

Well, we are at it again. I'm giving those cloth diapers another go. I came upon something that rather intrigued me. gDiapers.

Our HEB here happens to carry them, so I went and got a couple of them with the biodegradable inserts. I wanted the cloth inserts, but HEB doesn't carry those. Anyway, Ailey didn't like them because the little snaps on the inside rubbed the sides of her hip. I might be able to figure a way around that, but for now, what I've been doing is using up the g inserts by pairing them with the microfiber inserts I made for my cloth diapers, in my cloth diapers. Its been good so far, but she looks like she's wearing a bustle. I'm now looking into getting some bamboo and hemp cloth and making thinner inserts that absorb more. I found these on nappyshoppe - gflappers.

I like how they are so much thinner than the ones I came up with. She sells the cloth for them, so I am going to order some and see if I can't get the bulk down! Anyone have a surger they don't want?

I still prefer disposable diapers if we are out and about or if someone else may need to change her. Once I get the thinner inserts made, I'll probably be okay with keeping her in them when we go out. Right now, she looks like she was overly blessed in the ba-donk-a-donk area. I might need to take a pic....

So, I did take a pic or two:

White Sauce Butter Balls

I am in love with these little things! I found them over at Chickens in the road here. You can make white pepper gravy for smothering chicken fried-whatever and mashed taters. You can make a white sauce to go over veggies. You can make an alfredo sauce for pasta and chicken. You can make cheese sauce for broccoli or mac and cheese. Basically, you just make these little beauties up, scoop them into balls, freeze them and then store them in a plastic baggy in your freezer and take out what you need and add to a pan of milk. Isn't that fantastic?! These have made my dinner-making life sooooo much easier, so, of course I had to share!

Here are some more pics of the kiddos. Ailey is sporting one of Grandmommie's scarves. She actually let it stay there for a while after I had her look in the mirror at herself. The boys were just wanting their picture taken, too. I came home from the store and Sam said that Braden had clipped his eyelashes and some of his hair with the nail clippers. Makes me really wonder how that idea worked itself out in his head!:)