I hope when my girls are in college they will be this sweet

We have a sweet college intern working with the youth at church that I just love.  She is sweet, thoughtful and very, very good with the youth.
She asked me to take some pictures of her and her brother for her parents for Christmas.  She also brought along a little girl who is her "sister" since she is in Big Brothers/Big Sisters... what a fun time. 

She showed up with a sweet gift for me for doing this and it was then that I realized she was really supposed to be in my family...

It was beautifully wrapped box with this cross inside... and she wrote a sweet message on the back.

Of course before the day was over my friends at school and I were planning on when we would get together and copy the cross...

It took some twine, some hot glue and just a few burns.

See that center part, when you are pressing it into the right spot, that is when you'll get the burns...

I did this one for part of a wedding gift... see the little "cherish" tag? 

Fun, easy craft...

Thanks Kelsey for such thoughtful gift, it made my day and provided a new crafty thing for me to copy!

Thanksgiving

I am very thankful for a Thanksgiving week that was spent with some of my favorite people...

Jennifer came... Which made my sister a little mad... can't spell Thanksgiving without some family issues can you?

Jennifer and I spent Wed. running a few errands, cooking, eating, and cooking some more...

 

I invited a good friend and her family to join us for Thanksgiving. 

We had a discussion about the dressing last week. 

You know, the what do you put in your dressing kind of discussion you have before you commit to Thanksgiving at someone else's house.  We saw eye to eye on the dressing luckily.

But. 

Then I went to buy my cornbread mix.  I usually use one brand and there was none to be found so I substituted another name brand.  This is where the story goes horribly wrong.  It made very, very sand like, dry cornbread.  I did not realize this until I went to make the dressing.  I used enough chicken broth for the whole neighborhood and still couldn't get moist dressing.

Now, to a southern woman having friends over, serving bad dressing is the kiss of death.  We will be judged by our dressing on Thanksgiving after all....

I knew it was awful when Mike told me not to save any of the left overs.  He will eat left over dressing for a week under good dressing conditions.

We had tons of other good food and more importantly a group of friends and family that I love. 

We had football napping guys

and dogs tired from begging

shopping the ads

 and we even fit in a quick Thanksgiving day shopping trip.

Today, there is a fresh pan of dressing so I can keep the hubby happy, drizzling rain outside and relaxed crafty time in new soft PJ's inside.

I am Thankful.

Pictures can be very, very painful

My family came to town this weekend...
There is always some drama getting everyone here...
They don't travel easily...
There is always debate over how many cars they need to bring, etc...
But they all made it.  Even the youngest niece....

I planned a family picture and that caused a bit of grumbling from the men and my sister.  My sister who usually likes family pictures was not happy that I told everyone to wear black or black and jeans.... she only heard the black and jeans part and even when we told her to wear what ever she wanted she wore black and jeans "like she was told" and even sported some nice white tennis shoes....
I also wanted all the girls to wear different colored scarves.  I had a picture in my mind, everyone liked the idea except the sister...

The guys got a little happier while we were taking pictures on the Tech campus and they visited with some guys who were still there tailgating.... I believe there might have been beer involved.

Part of the group went to the "worse Tech game ever played".... "during a dust storm" Jennifer thought... nope, just a breezy West Texas day...
The sister and I skipped out on the game...

We celebrated Mike's 49th birthday.
The brother in law assured him this is the last good birthday. 
I'm a little concerned about him being 50 next year....I can't be married to someone who is 50 cause I think I'm only about 34...

Jennifer brought Mike's favorite dog in the whole world and it made Ellie very very jealous...

She just sat and pouted

In the end everyone was getting along and forgot what they had been grumpy about... We ate a lot of good food and fit a lot of good visiting into a few hours!

It's all Pumpkin

I've been a little pumpkin obsessed lately.

Last week I made Pumpkin Granola, I almost burned it... I still ate it anyway....
Over vanilla yogurt for breakfast.  Yummy....

So, today I made a new batch (and almost burned it) to take to my friend I'm going to visit today....
They eat very healthy at their house so it seemed the perfect thing.

This is what the pan looked like when I realized I wanted a picture...

Pumpkin Granola
3 cups rolled oats

3 cups rice crispy
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
¾ tsp. salt
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup applesauce
¼ cup maple syrup or molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cranberries



Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment

Combine the oats, nuts, salt and spices together and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, sugar, apple sauce, syrup and vanilla.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until everything is evenly coated.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and give the mixture a bit of a toss around the pan before returning to bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.
Toss the dried cranberries
Store in an airtight container


The left over pumpkin from the can couldn't go to waste so I made Pumpkin Flan to have after dinner tonight.

I had to come back and say, holy great pumpkin that flan was good!!!
You  might need to try this...

Pumpkin Flan

1 can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups milk (or cream if you want it really rich)

Place 3/4 cup sugar in heavy sauce pan over med. heat, stir constantly till sugar melted and caramel colored.
Pour melted sugar into 6 greased custard cups.
Mix pumpkin, eggs, 1 cup sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and milk till mixed well.  Pour into the 6 custard cups.  Place custard cups in a larger baking dish and add hot water 1/2 way up sides of cups.  Bake at 325 for 50 minutes. 
Place in refrigerator to cool.  Before serving, run knife around edge of custard cup and unmold upside down on plate.

I might have licked the custard cup...


Off to see my friend's sweet little pumpkin...
and look how cute that pumpkin was...

Even Elvis enjoyed the weekend

The girls went to a girls retreat at church this weekend...

Friday night we had no kids here.

Mike and I had a little dinner date...

 I was all exited about sleeping in Saturday morning, coffee, quiet...

till I remembered the dog had an 8:00 groomer appointment.

darn.

 I offered to help with the Sat. portion of the retreat....

I drove 6 girls from the fancy hotel they stayed at back to the church...

I had a 6th grade group and when I asked what they did the night before, "sleep" was all I got.  Not sure they got a lot out of it...

They had someone come in and give make up lessons...

This is the youth ministers wife, she was in charge of the girl weekend...

 she decided everyone wore the same shade of foundation...

she's easy going like that...

Katie was in high demand for curling other girl's hair. 

It might be one of her spiritual gifts...

The cleaned up and went out for a nice dinner...

It was really fun to hang out with the girls and the sweet leaders.  One of the leaders told me I was really a cool mom like her mom.  That made me feel good, old, but good...

I really am so glad I get to do these things with my girls and that they actually want me there...

We followed up church today with a little pumpkin carving...

Mike thinks he has had a bad day because his laptop crashed but really that freed up his afternoon from working, so he spent it with the Cowboys and now Rangers and a bulldog in his lap, what could be better?

 A good weekend was had by all...

It's just like in the great depression but the food is better

Tonight I came in, unloaded a few groceries and left the garage door up with the back of the suburban up also so Mike could go get the water bottles out...
I promptly forgot to even ask him to do it...

Fast forward about 30 minutes and I am making dinner and talking on the phone when Katie comes running into the kitchen telling me I have to come here right now and see something with great concern in her voice... as I pass the front door I realize that it is dark and slightly orange glowing outside...

It go so dark the street lights came on... but you couldn't see them...and during all this I realized the back of the car was open...
I am pretty sure I don't even want to check that situation tonight...

And the funniest thing is that I finished the orange burlap wreath and hung it up last night...
Katie said "mom, what about your wreath?" but the wind and dirt was too bad to open the door...just thougth it was funny that she makes so much fun of me and my burlap addiction but she wanted to get my wreath for me...

This is the "wall of dirt" that started the whole plunge into darkness...

The news reporter said there has not been a dust storm like this since the 1930's when they had the last bad drought.....

"It's just like in great depression when my grandparents told stories of having to put towels around the doors and windows to keep the dirt out" the weatherman added...

Yep, just like the depression here tonight but instead of the cheap beans they were probably enjoying for dinner I was busy making a yummy but cheap chicken quesadilla...

Great, what other things are we going to have out here in the land of dirt???

Tell me one more time why I'm in Lubbock???



A few fall things...

You know how much I love fall right?
I got out all the fall decorations yesterday. 
Katie asked why I decorate, "no one comes to our house"... there were two extra kids in the room when she said that to me...
I had my favorite Pumpkin dump cake at a friends while we were out of town and I can't quit thinking about it.  I'll be making it this weekend and eating it all.  Just fyi...

I bought goodies to "Boo" a couple of people at school and wanted to make some treats to go with them...

Luckily I decided to taste one because the white chocolate tasted weird... wonder how long that has been in my pantry... I want to make them again though... very quick and easy

I added some sprinkles to a cute jar... it is only a matter of time till Kellie shakes up the candy corn colors...It's killing her...

Katie hates my new twigs with old scary bird pictures... Personally I like the random branches...
I've started a cute wreath fall wreath... everything in the house is covered in orange burlap fibers but it will be cute...pictures to come...

This picture doesn't go with the others but Elvis loves his bed.  Last night he moved it right into my path and I almost fell over him in the dark this morning.... I think he might be trying to kill me...