Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope everyone had as wonderful a day as we did!! It was a lot of work as usual. but always worth it to enjoy a beautiful meal with family and friends.




First up.....the tablescape. I made this runner that I saw on a really neat blog called Its always a party at the Parkers. Its burlap and cornhusks, so inexpensive but elegant. Just my speed :D The white pumpkin was a score for free at Trader Joes and the little goblets are Goodwill. I love putting stuff together like that!!

Next up....FOOD! We had turkey of course, and it turned out delicious, brined and cooked in a bag. It was demolished before I got the camera out though. My friend Alane and I started playing around and pretending we were food photogs for a magazine with all the leftovers. SO fun!!!!

Some culinary highlights: Honey Glazed Ham




Homemade cinnamon orange cranberry sauce:




Dads stuffing...the good stuff!

Alane was in charge of desserts and outdid herself with lemon bars

And Italian Cream Cake...TO DIE FOR (I mean southern baking at its best right here!)

The guests:Dianne and CT, Our friend Alane, Robert (Denise Atom and Logan around somewhere) and me Mark and the kids)

Kiddos and their Grandma Lamb getti ng ready to head out to the traditional post dinner movie

As you can see it was a great day, the Pats AND the Saints won, and now its time for MORE friends and family to come over for some games and, of course, food. I am beyond blessed!!!!

Making a list.....

My Christmas wish list consists of ONE thing......a Silhouette machine. Did you hear that Santa?? :D Hopefully, I will win one this week at tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com since she is having a giveaway and I finally entered one. I double puffy heart love this website (and I'm not just saying that!) and if I had a silhouette I could copy even MORE cute stuff from there!

So Fall-y

Fall is finally here!! The weather is finally cooperating too, which is the best part, right? If you look around my house you can tell that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Any excuse to cook and bake and decorate is my favorite I guess. Mark has been trying to teach me some photography and photoshop basics and this is what I have come up with so far. It is so fun and kind of like an art project, but SO much to learn and remember. Really fun to play with though.

Speaking of baking, I took these little treats to my visiting teaching ladies (and a couple other neighbors) last week, it is Jills YUMMY pumpkin bar recipe and cream cheese frosting that I did up as cupcakes and stacked in jars. They go great with Pres. Monsons Saturday (??) afternoon conference talk about the farming family who got electricity.

I made a sticker for the top that said "Give thanks" I'm mostly just giving thanks that I got it done so early in the month!

This is Halloween!

Does anybody else feel like Halloween was a bit anti-climatic this year?? Halloween on Sunday is LAME. The kids dressed up for our trunk or treat and chili cook-off/carnival thingy on Friday which was really fun. Saturday I was gone all day spending the day with Jen and her sister Deb who was going through the temple. It was a great experience!! It was so great that Mark got to finish the pumpkin carving and then went to Cades basketball game. Our neighbor Matt took the kids to the Spooktacular in the neighboorhood and then Cade had a Halloween party.
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We did get a LOT of candy, trick or treating or no....

I did get ONE cute halloween project done (at my moms in Montana) I made this candy corn pennant. It turned out really cute :D


Sunday the fun continued and we let the kids dress up and hand out candy and scare people who came to the door. The only one who had a problem with the lack of official trick or treating was Wyatt, who informed me that he had THE worst Halloween in history. Then he proceeded to change into every costume he could put together and moped around. Oh it was SOOOOO horrible for him! LOL We had a big family party (continued from Saturday's temple festivities) and ate lots of good stuff. It was so lovely! It was great to put the kids in charge of handing out candy and the adults got to chill and visit.

And now it is officially the MOST wonderful time.........OF THE YEAR, which is FALL and Thanksgiving! Woop Woop! I have already started preparations, the thanksgiving tree will be up this week (fingers crossed) and I have started Christmas shopping. WOO HOO!