Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving was a nice LOW-KEY holiday for us this year! We had much to be thankful for! Healthy families, good friends, beautiful weather, delicious food!

I was not the hostess this year for Thanksgiving dinner, our wonderful friends hosted Thanksgiving and we will host Christmas dinner. This was the first year that we broke tradition and followed our hearts to make Thanksgiving not just about our immediate family but also our close friends.  We have hosted Christmas dinner in this tradition for the past 3 years....and it has been so much fun!

Dinner was lovely and delicious! I was in charge of appetizers, a few sides and a dessert! The boys made a delicious Apple pie, I made my favorite roasted brussels sprouts with bacon and red onions and 2 different types of sweet potatoes (actually 3, but who is counting). I had some great helpers in the kitchen! Even after peeling 10lbs of potatoes, Hayden still had a sense of humor and broke out his creative side!

I did end up having to come up with an additional sweet potatoes dish because this was the result of 5lbs of potatoes! Not enough for 10 people!!!

So...I ran out on Thanksgiving morning and picked up 5 more lbs of sweet potatoes and whipped up a delicious side of mashed sweet potatoes! MY favorite!!! However, those roasted potatoes were like little bits of candy! Incredible!!!

Because my Thanksgiving responsibilities were not as great as they usually are, I decided to try out a great tutorial by "My Cotton Creations" I found on Pinterest. It was for PJ pants, but I decided to use it to make Lil' Beansie some pants to wear on Thanksgiving! And, because she can be somewhat of a fickle girl (plus the tute seemed SO easy) I decided to make her 2 pairs! That way she had options! lol...

We spent today (Friday) at home in our PJ's - NOT out frantically purchasing gifts! I will be honest in saying that I did get lured into JoAnne's this afternoon for $1.49 snuggle flannel. I couldn't resist the opportunity to make Christmas PJ pants for the entire family for less than $20.00!! However I did buy a few more yards than I had planned to make a few extra Christmas gifts.

We will be participating a handmade Christmas again this year! After watching the news this evening and hearing horror stories of people being Pepper sprayed and robbed during the chaos of Black Friday shopping, I couldn't be happier or feel stronger about my decision  to continue this tradition!

I wish I could remember where I found this image! Online somewhere...

Little Summer Sunshine for your Plate

An apron full
We have depleted our garden, the dry summer was a bit rough on it and there is nothing left to harvest for the fall. We didn't get a single Squash this year! Last year we could have lived on Zucchini alone...and we practically did! Not a ONE this year! My little orange tomatoes did NOT seem to be affected by the blazing hot summer! I can't even begin to tell you how many tomato salads I made using them...they were soooooo good!

The weather is really starting to cool down but there have been a few warm afternoons to remind us of Summer or maybe hint to a Indian Summer. We took advantage of the yellow tomatoes that appeared to be the end of our veggies and threw them into a big yummy dinner salad!


This is one of my favorites:

Yellow Corn, black beans, pickled red peppers, tomatoes, red onion, romaine and Chicken. Everyone in the house loves it and the bright colors really do make it even more delicious!