Thanksgiving in Macon

Here is Steve with his Grandma and Mom. Of course Chad fried the turkey. After having fried turkey there is no going back!

These girls are so crazy and cute.

Here are Madi and Great Grandma. Great Grandma Marcella is so fun...she just got a new car last week....a fire engine red PT Cruiser. Go granny! As a matter of fact Teresa (Steve's mom) got a new gorgeous Dodge Charger. Now something is not right when you are jealous of Nana's and Great Grandma's cars.

Madi and Deedee playing on the keyboard. While the girls where doing this, the boys were in Hunter's room with the guitar and AMPLIFIER.

A story and a shirt

I love thinking about the story of mine and Steve's first Thanksgiving. I was so ready to cook my new hubby the best of the best of Thanksgiving dinners. Well it was the night before Thanksgiving and I was right on schedule with this and that. Of course my hubby deserved only the best...homemade everything. My homemade pumpkin pies looked beautiful when I put them in the oven to bake. I left the kitchen for the dinning room to sit and break the loaves of bread for my homemade dressing, when I was interrupted by the over active fire alarm. There was some smoke in the kitchen, but when I open the oven, there were huge flames just licking at the bottom of my pies. (Those flames started because the week before I made my new hubby an over layered and stuffed pan of lasagna that spilled over.) Steve ran in to the rescue and RIPPED the cookie sheet holding my two pies out of the oven. That hot uncooked pumpkin had been flung ALL over my beautiful clean kitchen. We had such a mess...I bet there are still spots in that house that have a touch of pumpkin on them. Steve and I laugh so hard it hurts when we talk about our first Thanksgiving.

My oh my, this morning I was surfing a few blogs and found the cutest idea for a Turkey day shirt over here. Rachael was right it only took about 30 minutes to make. I traced Madi's hand for the turkey body. She is so excited to wear it. With a long sleeve tee under it and a cute bow in her hair,she will be so festive.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The best tree of all!

On Friday I thought of this cute idea to make Steve some UGA ornies for his tree up in the georgia room. So after I picked the kids up from school I told them about the idea and they picked out the words to use. I stitched them while at the kids gymnastics Friday and then on Saturday I picked up the coolest UGA material to back them with. Yesterday the kids had a ball decorating this for their dad.

Steve's idea to use the helmet as a star.

Yesterday was our 1st real day of no school for this week off. The kids, well really just Madi, wanted to go skating. She has been begging to go ever since hailey's birthday party. Ben would not even try skating before yesterday. He is so glad I made him at least try it. He loves it...can you guess what we are doing again today? :-) Hey we get in for free this week and it's only $2.50 for skates.

Georgia turkey tradition

Every November my kids are given the task at school to take home a paper turkey and to disguise it so it can escape it's Thanksgiving fate. Every year we end up with some funky looking Georgia football players. I would expect nothing else coming from my kids!

Saturday fun

We started our Thanksgiving Break on the right foot! For one, I slept in until 0830, that's late for me. We all got to go enjoy Ben's football game. After a late lunch, I went out shopping to Hobby Lobby and Joann's. For dinner when I got home, we had tomato soup and grilled cheese. After such an easy clean-up I got busy making some cards and the kids colored some fun little ornaments I picked up for them today. My friend amber got me thinking about getting ahead and making thank you cards to send out after Christmas...see my wintry thank you cards.




Last night Ben and Steve were out front throwing the football around....look he is about to catch it. Ben's flag football team the Tulane Green Wave, are still undefeated!

a little gift and card

Here are my Turkey Day cards. I just love the elementary theme. On the inside is a poem I have been saying since I was little and in grade school...

The turkey is a funny bird
His head goes wobble wobble
The only word a turkey says
Is gobble gobble gobble

Yesterday I subbed half a day in Kindergarten and today a full day in Kindergarten. It was so much fun. We made Indian vests, colored lots of Thanksgiving Day papers, practiced a poem and singing on the stage for tomorrow's feast and let me tell you those teachers give it their all!

I have always tried to give my kids teachers a little something for each holiday. My friend leslie gave the idea of a dip with some apples. I just printed up the recipe, cut it, used my threading water punch and there it is. Plus I ribboned up the handles, filled them with apples and also threw in a Turkey Day card ...easy and cute! We are handing them out tomorrow...we are out of school ALL next week!!!! Can you say sleeping in!

Graham Cracker Brittle

This is the yummiest recipe ever! And SO easy! I got it from the Plum Tree at last year's Christmas Open House. I made it last year for Thanksgiving when I hosted a ton of people from Steve's side of the family. They LOVED it, so at Christmas I made more. My kids love to eat it and to make it...they have so much fun lining the pan with the graham crackers and chopping up the pecans. My mother in law ask me to put this on my blog so all the ladies she works with could see it...so here you go and enjoy!


Graham Cracker Brittle

1 stick butter
1 stick margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Line 9" x 13" pan with graham crackers. In a saucepan, boil butter, margarine, sugar and pecans for 3 minutes. Pour over crackers and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool, break up and serve.

Nice and warm

Last night was our first fire of the season. I think a fire is mesmerizing...it sure captured Ben and Madi.

MMM...my kitchen smells so good. The kids had fun last night poking some whole cloves into oranges. They are now sitting in a pretty dish on the stove. I remember doing this when I was little.

We were having some fun after school today! Ben is such a serious kid I love to see a look like this every now and then on his face. Since today was Monday, Ben stayed after school for chess club and I just picked up Madi...she loves to go to the gas station to pick out a piece of candy or some kind of treat when it's just the girls....Monday's are fun.

cousins cousins cousins

My kids so LOVE their cousins! That is their favorite thing to do ever! Today we went down to Macon to celebrate Hailey's 5th birthday. In the above picture you can see Steve and Teresa/Nana helping Madi after she just put her skates on. The skating rink party was a hit!

Here are the girls....Deedee, Hailey and Madi.

The little girls skated non-stop! I bet roller skates will be on Madi's Christmas list tomorrow.

Here are Ben and 'Heartthrob' Hunter. Ben played some game and won 400 tickets. Hunter is 14 (the oldest cousin) and always takes Ben under his wing and shows him a good time. Madi...she wants to marry Hunter :)

After the party Steve's mom insisted on watching ALL the kids, so Steve and I could go out and about by ourselves....Thank you Teresa! Chad had to go to work, Alicia had a work party, so Steve and I went to dinner at our favorite place Applebee's. Then we thought we might do a little Christmas shopping for the kids, but first we ended up at the mall....Steve's favorite Georgia store is there. To walk into the mall we had to go through Dillard's...they were closing and everything in the store was 50% to 75% off or more! Look at what I got...the most soft VERA WANG pj's....awww.

CMA's = gingerbread

Last night was so fun! Every year I look forward to the CMA's. One of these years I am hosting a huge CMA party at my house. There were so many great songs sung last night. I love the video with Andy Griffith and Brad Paisley...Waiting On A Woman...it's the truth ain't it.

Our radio stations play this guy's latest hit ALL the time and I LOVE LOVE it. It's my new favorite song...gets me in the mood to dance around the house and get my cleaning done or it can pump me up for a good workout at the gym. It was so fun when he came out on the CMA's to sing it...I was stitching to the beat :) Every now and then he can bust out a good song.

Here is the song....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOSC376d0L8

Here are the cute guys I got done last night while watching TV.

A few days off

Steve has had the last 2 days off work. We planned on having the kids skip school one of the days(they have perfect attendance with 0 tardies right now) so as a family we could drive a bit north to the base of the Smoky mountains to take in some beautiful fall sites...but my school lovin' kids refused. So, Monday Steve just took me to north Atlanta to my favorite paper crafts store and then we had lunch together. Today we hung out at home this morning and then went to the gym together...nice and relaxing.
It is so beautiful here right now! Now we have lived in Washington State and in Germany but neither compare to Georgia. Now Germany was pretty in the fall but the colors only lasted 2 weeks and then the leaves were gone before Halloween. Here it's more than a month of colors and all the leaves don't all fall until the end of November. Here are a few pictures I took yesterday.

I just finished this cute little stitchery...found the idea in a magazine. I have never filled in letters like this before.

100%

Today was report card day...Ben of course got all A's but even got a 100% in Math. Our principle always signs Ben's report card, which I think is so nice that she takes the time to look at his report card. The school has just made a big deal over Ben's 100% and it makes us all so happy!

I love what Ben's teacher wrote for the commments...Best student in math....ever!!! They have never had a student get a 100% average for the whole grading period. I am so proud!

Not only is Ben a smart kid but he is very artsy fartsy too. After taking down our Halloween decorations, he knew I had not yet made Thanksgiving flash cards to put out and asked if he could make them. We needed 10, he came up with 8 on his own and asked me for a suggestion so I said blessing and then he finished up with cornucopia. I think he did a good job...he is just an all around sweetie :)

Thanksgiving cards

Okay, I started making my Halloween and Christmas cards last summer, but for some reason I can't get in gear to make some Thanksgiving ones. While digging out my Thanksgiving decorations I found this Thanksgiving card the kids and I made 2 years ago. It too has become a decoration now.

Here are some pictures of some of my Thanksgiving decorations.

These white candles and pumpkins are one of my favorite. I left the black trees out...I would love to find some pretty brown ones.

I set my Jim Shore pilgrim couple out and this cute Indian couple.

Last year after Halloween, my friend leslie called one day telling me to go check out Michael's...she knew I was looking for Thanksgiving decor and all the fall stuff was either 75% or maybe even 90% off. That's when I got the cornucopia and flowers for it. Leslie always has the best decorating ideas!

25 Days of Christmas book...

I am so excited about this! It's a suggestion from The ali edwards. It's a December daily album...there is a page for the 25 Days of Christmas. Ali said to use what you have...don't go buy anything new for this...that's exactly what I did and love the way things fit together. You can either write a note, add a picture or recipe, anything. I made this on Saturday November 1st and am so proud of myself. I am really good about making stuff for other people, always making Holiday cards to send to everyone but very seldom make something for myself. Even my kids like this idea. As you can see in the picture above, on the 23rd, the page with the rolling pins the kids want to make and get the cookies ready for Santa. What I like though is nothing is planned...I can just write a note or anything simple on each day.

Try this link for Ali Edwards: http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2008/10/december-daily.html

Last night my Election Day dinner was a hit. The soup was delish. As far as the recipe, I followed it except for the potatoes...I did not add them. Of course the pie was yummy, I made a homemade crust, they come out so perfectly good every time.

Tip Junkie!!!

Holy smokes...I went to look at Tip Junkie this morning and low and behold I am one of the tips today...remember my fun idea for dinner tonight. Have fun on this Election Day and go check out tipjunkie.

#13

Ben was fired up when we found a flag football league for him to play in. Of course he LOVES it! They are the Tulane Green Wave...all the teams have a college name. Last week was his first game...guess who made the teams first touchdown! They are now 2-0 and no team has scored against them.

It's a bird, it'a a plane....

It's Super Girl and Indiana Jones...

Madi's 1st grade class had their own class party earlier this week, because yesterday all the 1st grade classes did pumpkin math. We weighed them, measured the circumference, the height, how many seeds and then how much it weighed after carving it. It was so fun.

Madi didn't like the pumpkin slime.

Thursday evening Steve got the van ready for the weekend. On football weekends he likes to put these on. Here is something funny.... We were living in Germany when they hosted the 2006 World Cup. Well there were lots of these type flags all over town. There were tons of country flags showing their spirit during that whole month. When we went to see one of the games we donned our Georgia Bulldog flags. You should have seen the looks, I mean people starring trying to figure out what kind of flags these were. We of course had the European plates that said USA on them, so they could tell we were American. It was the funniest sight ever to see our Georgia flags amongst all those German, Italian, Spanish, ones from Ghana..... We were the Beverly Hillbillies that day!

The kids G'd up the fireplace this morning...it's a big day for the Bulldogs.