Happy Thanksgiving

I'm not one to be super wordy, so lets just say I have lots to be thankful for. I can't believe the year is almost coming to an end. And looking back, I certainly can't complain.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. May you celebrate the holiday in good company, with a full plate of food and a seemingly bottomless glass of wine :)

Here's an oldie but goodie from last year.

PicMonkey: Halloween Edition

Two back-to-back posts. How unlike me!

I often use the free photo editing capabilities of PicMonkey. I especially like them to create simple photo collages, which is something that's more tedious to do in Photoshop. Anyhow, they have some Halloween filters available to get you in the holiday spirit.

Introducing.... Meatsie the Vampire. No need to turn myself into a vampire when I have a dog readily available.

Seriously, hours of fun.

For Our Mothers

 

Homemade cards are handy when 1) you didn't get a chance to run to Target, and 2) your mother appreciates hand made things. Mothers typically appreciate just about anything though, which is why they are so great.

Happy Mother's Day to all moms.

Happy Easter!

Terrible Photoshopping job, but I couldn't resist...

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Nothing beats a homemade valentine. Better yet, a valentine with some humor cheesy humor!

I found this Valentine's Day light bulb tutorial and knew immediately I wanted to make one for my Valentine.... because I like giving him electricity-related gifts. See also here.

The tutorial has good, detailed instructions, plus a link to how to empty out an old light bulb. All went according to plan...









Is that a reference to the Electric Slide lyrics?

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas is exactly a week away. Less than a week if you consider that Mike and I do our own Christmas on the night of the 23rd.

House decorating is done. Most of our Christmas shopping is done. We have a lot of baking to do, but that won't happen till later this week. Aaand I'm pretty pumped for the pumpkin pie and various cookie recipes that we are trying out this year. I've also been busy working on a variety of crafty project/ presents that I'll share later- after the gift-giving is done.

In the meantime, a tour through our festive home...

Starting with our front door. This year's new wreath.

Meatball resting by the tree.

 

THE tree.

The stockings.

Best nativity scene. Ever.

Home-made Christmas donuts. Recipe here.

Not our home, but the carousel at the mall.

Meatball watching Santa go by on the fire engine! (By the way, I LOVE this tradition.)

A view from outside.

Now I'm counting down the days till this weekend. And looking forward to my short week at work :)

Farm to Table

This year we had two Thanksgivings- one with each side of the family. Saturday night was the one with my side. For Thanksgiving #2 I contributed the turkey. It doesn't seem quite fair that my sister made corn bread while I got tasked with the turkey, particularly because I have never cooked one. But it was my own fault. I really wanted to try a local turkey. Lately (as in this year) I haven't been eating much meat. So when I do, I like it to be special. When I found a turkey farm near our house, Maple Lawn Turkey Farm,  I quickly reserved a bird!

Wednesday afternoon was the beginning of my little turkey adventure. Luckily I wasn't in a rush picking up the turkey because it was super busy. Plus I spent some time poking around the farm.

First things, first- picking up the turkey. The turkey I got (later named Pete) was 18.5 pounds. Never having bought a turkey before, I was slightly concerned that it would be too small. When turkey sizes go up to 40 pounds, 18.5 doesn't seem like much! Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

If you look carefully, you can see the turkeys lined up in the back.

 After taking care of business I explored the farm a bit.

 

First stop, Pete's buddies.

 

Next, the baby cows! This is Frank and his neighbor. I took many more pictures of Frank not pictured here. He was so friendly! Had I been a little braver, I actually would have pet him.

 

   

Aaand that was the end of my farm adventure. I had to get home before traffic picked up. 

Now onto the cooking...

Brining. Since I had never cooked a turkey before, brining was also something I had never done before. Enter, Pioneer Woman. I found this excellent brine recipe here.

I actually made the brine in advance to use on Friday.



What sort of container is large enough to hold a brining turkey, you ask? A Lowes bucket. A Lowes bucket lined with a huge Ziploc bag.



And so the turkey sat until Saturday morning, when it was time to start roasting.
Jump ahead about 3.5 hours, and here's the result.



Looks good, right? Jump ahead another 3 hours and we have safely transported the turkey to my parent's house.

Expert carver

Time to feast.



See all of those sides? Yup, they're the reason for all the turkey leftovers. Multiple days of planning for such a short meal. Until next year.

Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love pumpkin flavored anything. And I love candy. This year Mike and I were invited to a Halloween party which means we got to dress up! Although we had the reoccurring conversation on whether I could make an abominable snowman costume in time, a la this guy...

We decided to go simple this year. So we dressed up as nerds!

Aka, my costume was "Caroline with Glasses." I came to the realization halfway through assembling my costume that most of the stuff I either, already owned (the graphing calculator, the Chucks, the spiffy collared shirt), or would be happy to wear after the costume party was over (hat and bag!). Aren't we cute?

The bag was one of the fun parts of the costume assembling. I totally stole the idea off of Pinterest, which has it posted all over the place, like here and here. Supplies: $2 tote from Michaels + ComputerCrafts iron-ons that I've had sitting in a drawer for a couple years. And ta-da!

And then of course there's my favorite part about any holiday: dressing up Meatball. The poor guy is such a good sport about it too.

This year he rewore the costume I made him last year: Count Dogula. Even though he was only about 5 months old around this time last year, for some reason it didn't occur to me that it might be snug on him this year. (Hence the neck roll.) For comparisons sake, here's a picture from last year. I had also previously posted a picture over here.

See how it used to actually drape around him? haha.  Needless to say I had to make some slight adjustments to the straps.

Despite the costume snafu, Meatball was my trusty companion while I handed out candy to the kids. Here's him eagerly awaiting their arrival.

 

And here's him standing watch at the door.

 

Oh and those sad little pumpkins and lights were my only Halloween decoration this year. I know, I slacked off. However, those small pumpkins will be turned into pies and treats soon. Can't wait!