A Thanksgiving Story

You know you have the picture perfect idea in your head of what holidays SHOULD be?

Our day started out that way – at least our table setting looked that way.

Here’s the REAL story of what happened:

I got up on Thanksgiving morning at 7:30 – that’s pretty early for me.

I don’t have a double oven – so I asked my neighbor who was going out of town with her family if we could use her oven – she kindly agreed.

We got the rolls raising, got the turkey in the bag – went over to our neighbor’s house and got it in the oven. 

We had planned to eat at 1:00.  At 11:00 I sent Brad and his sister over to check on it.  

The phone rang a few minutes later.

I answered the phone “butterball hotline”.

The phone is silent.

Then I say “Yes, can I help you?”

Brad replies:  ”We have a problem!”

I say?  ”Okay – what”

Brad replies:  ”You put the turkey in the WRONG OVEN!  It’s been sitting over her for 4 hours – NOT COOKING!  What do you want us to do?”

So, I take a deep breath and then tell him to PUT IT IN THE RIGHT OVEN!!! turn the heat up and we’ll just have to eat dinner a bit later than we expected.

At 1:00 I go over to check on it and it’s looking really good – browning, up nicely, but still a little pink in the middle.  I think it will need about another hour. We get the potatoes, stuffing, yams, casserole, soup – everything else all ready, then Brad and I go over to cut it and put it on the platter an hour later.

We get through the breast and then hit BLOOD!  I’m starting to get really nervous.  So we keep the breast meat that is done, put the rest of the turkey back in the over for another hour and head home.   Brad sopped up the blood off the platter with a paper towel.   We ate dinner with just the breast meet and I’m just kept my  fingers crossed that it hadn’t been cross contaminated from the “bloody pieces” and makes every one sick.  I really really paranoid about this.  I always have been.  I was so worried about it that I wouldn’t eat any turkey.  I thought:  If everyone in the house is barfing – someone has to be okay to do clean-up.   So I didn’t even eat any until days later.

No worries = no one got sick!  Wheww……..

 

The “kids table”.

The lovely turkey roll basket made by Jayden.

Ready for dinner……..

Celebrating that we didn’t get sick!!!

Nothing better than chewing on large amounts of meat!

This was after the turkey had cooked for another hour or so……

Now it’s time for Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Joshua made this at school yesterday – it’s a little paper that has what he is thankful for:

 

So here is what he is thankful for:

A Strange Girl

A Baby

and….

A CREDIT CARD!  

(an american express at that – he must be looking for miles)

Laundry Room – Check!

We’ve lived in our “new house” for over two years now.  We LOVE it!  

However, buying an 18 year old house also has it’s challenges:

Replaced both furnaces and air conditioners, dish washer, just bought a new built in fridge – had 2 major floods, redid the landscaping….you get the idea.

So there is some UPDATING that needs to be done and it’s a SLOW process.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been working on the laundry room – it’s done – CHECK! 

I love being able to cross things off “the list”.

The has to be one of my favorite rooms in the house – in fact it’s one of the things that sold me on THIS house.  It’s this awesome, sunny bright room with lots of space.  I really wish I had taken a true “before” picture – but I didn’t think about it.

So I’ll give you an idea of what it looked like before – these are what the cabinets looked like BEFORE:

And here’s the AFTER:

 

 

So here’s a list of what we did:

Painted the cabinets, sanded them and antiqued them.

Replaced the hardware.

Painted the walls – Thanks Colette – Yes, it’s true I have the BEST friend – who painted the walls for me while I was on vacation.

Made the new curtains.

The accessories:

Soap jar – got the jar for $11.50 at WalMart and had the vinyl lettering made fo $1

CLEAN and WASH signs – Got the frames at DI for $3 – spray painted them black and had the letters made for about $10

Baskets – already had.

Flowers on window sill – already had.

Laundry signs – got from Hobby Lobby on sale for about $10

More Acorns

I admit it – that’s the first step.  I am completely smitten with acorns.  I love them.  I can’t get enough of them.

Here’s a new little display I made with the left over acorns from my previous project.

The other day I was shopping at Williams and Sonoma for some Thanksgiving Dinner trimmings when the had a table set with these:  OH MY GOODNESS!!

Aren’t those just soooo cute?!! I just loved them so much.   I could just imagine a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner set around those cute cute acorns. 

Hope your all getting ready for the big day!  We sure are!  I went grocery shopping today!  

 

 

Cheetos

This morning the boys and I were looking through an email that was forwarded to us of National Geographics Top Pictures.

We came across this one and Jame says:  ”Hey Cheetos!”

Yep – Cheetos!

Just ONE of the reasons

I LOVE living here:

I admit, I don’t take advantage of it as often as I should, but it is so great to have orchards all over the place.  You can be picking your kids up from school and stop and buy fresh fruit – peaches, pears, apples – yum!  on the side of the road – reasonably priced and so fresh and delicious!

Josh talked me into bringing these beauties home today – he’s already eaten three today!!!!  I’m going to make some cobbler with the rest.

On that note – here’s a couple of funnies that I heard today:

Josh to me while talking about his dad’s new cell phone (a blackberry)…..”Dad has that phone”.  Mom:  ”What phone?”  Josh:  ”A black apple”.

He got the COLOR right, wrong fruit.  Or perhaps he’s just an apple guy and not into PC’s like his mom.

Here’s another funny conversation:

We were talking about his cousin Garrison.  At dinner one night we had mentioned a post that his mom had made on facebook about him being a “pre-teen”.  Josh wanted to know what that was?  We explained that it meant, not quite a teenager, but almost.  Today, a couple of days later he asked me?  ”Mom, how old is Garrison?”  Me:  ”He’s twelve – why?”  Josh: “How old is Jake?”  (our neighbor down the street)  Me:  ”He’s 18 – why?”   Josh:  ”How old do you have to be to be a pro-teen?”   

This cracked me up – he got confused with the “pre-teen” thing and as calling them proteins!!!!!

 

SNAKES, snails and puppy dog tails…..

Check out this fun project!!!

One of Joshua’s friends made one of these at a birthday party.  Joshua HAD to have one – we raided Dad’s closet for an old tie and here you go!

Easy, fun project for little boys!

While Josh and I worked on that project – Jameson worked on this project:

 

Pirate Island Pizza – try 2!

I know what you are thinking after I DARED post how barfy the food was…..are you insane for going again?

Well Brad is at a camp out with the scouts – that alone caused me to do CRAZY things! obviously.  

So, the kids and are were trying to think of a fun place to go to dinner, where we could pass away a couple of hours without dad.  I gave in and we went back for a return visit to Pirate Island Pizza.  I’ve heard that it is best to just order the pizza and not mess with the other stuff.  So – that’s what we did.  I ordered a pizza for us to share – and I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised.  Maybe because my expectations were so low – anything could have beat what I was expecting – anyway – it wasn’t all that bad.  Josh ate three pieces! – so what more could I ask for?

Anyway – second time around wasn’t so bad.  If we go for a third round -I’ll be sure to keep it quiet!!!

Cheap and Easy

Here is a cheap and easy Thanksgiving/Fall decorations.

I got the tiny pumpkins at a pumpkin patch for $1.

Used the left over “J” pumpkin from Halloween….

Pulled out some old orange candles.

Got the hurricane vase at a yard sale for $3.

Went to the our local park and picked up acorns, came home and hot glued the tops on them.

Put a bow around it – here you go.  A cheap, fun thanksgiving/fall themed decor.

 

It’s that time of year….

TIME to start thinking about those CHRISTMAS CARDS!

This year, I have decided to give you the POWER – you get to decide which card I send out.
I have 5 prototypes for you to choose from.  I have to admit – this part is usually the hardest for me – but this year, thanks to a friend loaning me some stamps and some fun new “toys/tools” – it has been soooo fun!  I couldn’t stop!  I just wanted to keep making more.

So send me a comment or an email and let me know which one you vote for and then SURPRISE, you’ll know which one WON, when you get it in the mail.

NUMBER ONE:

 

 

 

NUBMER TWO:

 

NUMBER THREE:

 

 

NUMBER FOUR:

 

 

NUMBER FIVE: