Sunday, November 30, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving!

Throughout the years, we have had many different circumstances and events around the holidays. We've spent some holidays with parents, some with siblings, some with friends, and some all by ourselves. This Thanksgiving, we had some wonderful friends come and eat with us, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We played games, ate a delicious meal, enjoyed different traditions, watched the parade and the football games, and enjoyed the fellowship. It was awesome. And, I can't wait until my girls are old enough to be responsible for making some of the yummy traditional dishes right along side me.

This year, I also prepped a lot! It made the actual day go by so much more smoothly. I don't think I hardly sat down before we served lunch, but that's better than being frantic and worrying that not everything will get done. Right? Right. I pray that in the years to come, I will have the same opportunity.

Here are some pics of our turkey and ham filled festivites.
 Yummy pre-turkey snacking...
 I did NOT brine the turkey. It turned out pretty well in the turkey bag. Maybe next year I will have the wherewithal to order a fresh bird a few days before Thanksgiving. We shall see.
 So, even though eating is a big part of Thanksgiving, an even bigger part is actually giving thanks. I have so much to be thankful for! And, I want my children to begin to realize how much they have to be thankful for as well. So, one of my favorite things we did on Thursday was to make these wreaths...
I just took a small styrofoam wreath, wrapped it with fabric and added the top leaf with some straight pins.

Then, we wrote what we are thankful for on leaves, and added them one by one to the wreath. It was a such a blessing of a time.

 A lot of the things the girls said surprised me.




I got the idea for the wreaths on some morning talk show, and I hope it's a tradition that carries on in some form or fashion for years to come. Of course, it's yet another thing I'm not sure I'll ever be able to toss. Such sweet memories...

Now, we are on to planning a fun little birthday party for our oldest girl, Julia. She's turning 8 this year. I seriously do not understand how I've been a mom for that long, but I'm so glad I get to be a mom to her. Amazing.

Happy leftovers eating! -Amber

P.S. Thank you for celebrating with us Bacas! And thank you for bringing all the wonderful foods, treats and games! You are a blessing to us.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Dining Room Tables in the Living Room

Can you believe Thanksgiving is so close? I barely can! I have the pumpkin pie in the freezer. It is  living right beside the 20 pound turkey. I also have the pumpkin cookies in batter form in the fridge, and have been meal planning and prepping for the big day for about a week. (The excellent recipe I use for Pumpkin cookies is a Martha Stewart recipe that you can find here.)

Whipped Cream to Come
We are super excited to host friends for a our Thanksgiving lunch this year, and I was concerned about seating for everyone.  But, one afternoon, I was looking on a local furniture fb page, and I found a great table! It looked so nice, and would be great for extra seating. I planned to ask Dave to carry up and down stairs when we needed it, but after pick up, we realized the table is much to heavy to haul around. This ended up being the solution:

Remove the Clutter and You Have Extra Seating
The table lives in our upstairs living room now. And, it is working perfectly. Since we've been home from our last trip, we have rearranged half the rooms in our house. The girls bunk beds have been separated, Saige's room finally got some attention to furniture placement, and both our living rooms have been changed up. But, I think that I like the new upstairs arrangement the best. The table doubles as a workstation for your laptop, or for studying cookbooks or any other books. It also works wonderfully for Monday Night small group at our house. We have more spots to stick drinks and goodies and/or for Bibles to be laid open on. I just love it.



What do you think about having a small table in a living room? And, don't forget to give me advise about my turkey. To brine, or not to brine. That is the question!

Turkey, turkey!! -Amber




Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Never Ending Blog Post

I'm sorry it's been a while. We have been to visit family in Oklahoma and came back to a wonderful and full schedule, so my blogging has been falling behind....but here is a look at some of the fun we had OK:

Zebra, Tiger and Lion at Granny's House
The girls dressed up on Halloween and got to go to the carnival at the church we used to attend in Bartlesville. Fun, fun!
Mimi and Papa Joined in the Fun

Grandma Christie (Daisy Duck), Cousin Charlie, and My Girls

Early Birthday for Julia at Granny's
We got to see a lot of friends on family the week that we were in OK. It was so nice, and such a blessing to us all. I also got to visit a place I used to work at called McCoy's Jewelers. They checked my jewelry and verified that the prongs that are supposed to hold my diamond in place is doing just that. Yay!I am free to clean my jewelry with a toothbrush, knowing that my diamonds are secure! Check out this tip and one more in the picture below:



Do you see the bottom one about baby powder on chains? I love this one! I have a necklace from when I graduated high school that has been tangled almost the whole *gulp* 14 years I've had it. Here it is after about thirty minutes, and a couple tablespoons of baby powder.
This Was Once a Matted Mess.

This thing was so matted, that it was actually stuck to another piece of jewelry I owned. I'd worked for hours trying to un-knot this thing, and I thought I'd never have the two pieces separate again. I almost threw away both pieces of jewelry when we moved here, but now I'm so grateful I didn't. And, I plan to let my McCoy Jewelers people know how well this works! Untangling chains is definitely something we worked on!

--And, now that you know my chain untangling secret, and now that we are back in ND, I want to share what's been happening the last few days.You can call this the never ending blog post if you'd like.---

It's finally happened, the cold has snapped here in ND! We are loving the snow, and bundling against the cold. I have a lot of coffee and hot tea everyday, and wish there was a way to convince my daughters to eat soup every night with out complaint. Snow pictures are here:
At a Stop Sign. Beautiful.

Bundled for a Snowball Fight!

In Action
More Action Shots

Snow Angels:
Julia

Saige

Lydia
Sampling Snow at the Library

Came in From Playing Cold and Frowny

We've been having so much fun! We haven't made any Olafs yet, but I'm sure we will have a small herd of them soon. 

Our New Favorite Evening Activity
Thanks for reading! Stay warm!!!!

-Amber

P.S. If there are any typos in this post, it's because my hands were too cold to type.
P.S.S. I love the people who read my blog!!!