A Very Thoughtful and Sweet Gift

My Aunt Kathy sent us a beautiful gift in the mail the other day.  She said she kept coming back to it and knew it was meant for us. :)  I really love it and am glad she sent it.  Thank you, Aunt Kathy!!


http://www.sympathysolutions.com/catalog/item/just-the-same.html

Its a glass plaque and it looks just like the pic above and says:

Just the Same

I never got to hold you & bounce you on

my lap, I never got to read to you

or watch you as you nap.  You slipped

away so quickly, before I said your name.

And yet I want the world to

know I loved you just the same.

Anne Peterson

Fall, Fall, Please come soon!

I think I'm trying to will it to turn Autumn.  Maybe, just maybe if I decorate for Fall, it will just decide to capitulate.  It could happen.  Really.

I've never really decorated for Autumn or Thanksgiving or any of that.  I think I always felt the it was way to close to decorating for Christmastime and therefore too much work and more overwhelming than I needed to mess with. :)  This year, for some strange reason, I am inspired!  I'm wanting to just have a fun two seasons.  Fall is my favorite time of year, followed by winter as a close second.  I have some interesting ideas for the environment I would like to create in my house for my family and I don't want to do it last minute, so I'm getting a head start on my project list for the holidays.  Then, perhaps, I will be able to chill out and just enjoy the season!  It could happen.  No, I really mean it. :)

Okay, so here is the first in my series:

 These made me think of Cinderella....shiny.

I found these unfinished ceramic craft pumpkins at Hobby Lobby for 40% off, hey-hey!  Love Hobby Lobby!  Anyway, some burnt umber acrylic paint for the stems and the grooves and then some gold glitter for a bit of bling and I really like how they turned out.

These rather large acorns, too, were 40% off and all they needed was a little glitter to top them off.  Shiny makes me happy. :)

I've got some other items in the works and I'm pretty exited to see how they turn out.  I'll give you a hint.  Topiaries.  That is all for now.

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: