Sunday “Crafternoon”

Well, the girls and I had a fun afternoon of giggles and crafts a couple of Sundays ago!

While Chip was off at a church meeting, we played!

Both of the girls had projects they had already started. I decided to work on some seasonal decor. Of course, my Pinterest boards are full of ideas!

Katie is working on her first quilt! She saw a pattern on Pinterest (like mother like daughter!) and loved it. I was able to track it down for Christmas last year.

She had a BLAST picking out all of the colorful fabric! She is well on her way to having all the little pieces cut out and ready to start stitching!

Megan had a pre-printed world map that she wanted to quilt. She loves anything having to do with world travel!

She ended up not liking the way she had stitched around the countries AND the latitude and longitude lines and ripped out some of them. It has been a fun project for her to work on while watching the World Cup!

I worked on some patriotic decor for our 4th of July church gathering at our house. I got the “wreath” idea here. I liked hers better. She used fancy scrapbook paper. I used what I had–construction paper. I liked how hers had a darker, more muted tone to it. Oh, well. I liked mine well enough! Plus, it was fun to make.

Nothing too fancy about toilet paper tubes wrapped in construction paper to look like little rocket!

I had not really done much crafting lately. I realized my NEED for a craft room! So, I spent a good amount of my craft time tracking down supplies! One day I will have a space to corral all my supplies!

My constant supply tracking was just one more thing to laugh about on our fun-filled “crafternoon” that bled into the evening.

 

 

Thanksgiving 101: The Pies

Back in October, Mom and I started talking about Thanksgiving. For YEARS Thanksgiving was at my Mom and Dad’s house. Even after my husband and I got married (the weekend after Thanksgiving!) Thanksgiving was still at Mom and Dad’s. (For a long time, my in-laws lived out of the country making a Thanksgiving swap very difficult and costly.)

My sisters and their spouses and all the cousins would come. It was great–crazy, but great!

As the years have passed, things have changed. We no longer head out for Black Friday sales. With demanding jobs far away, we are not able to gather everyone together like we used to do. I wish it could be the same. I guess change is just part of life.

One year we all loaded up and went to Liz and Trey’s in Texas for Thanksgiving. Another year, flying out to Virginia to be with Nana and Bud was fun and different. A couple of years ago we all headed to Laura and Brent’s new house near Fort Smith, AR.

In the 22 years that Chip and I have been married, we have NEVER had Thanksgiving at our house! I’ve never even made much more than mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. So, I asked Mom and Dad if they would come to our house this year and teach me how to “do” Thanksgiving. I invited the sisters, too. Remember those demanding jobs? Too bad they can’t come. : (

While Mom and I sat on the plane on our recent trip to Baltimore, I got all the low-down for Thanksgiving 101!

There will be several blog posts. Most of them will come after Thanksgiving, obviously. Be sure you save your favorites on Pinterest for next year or even for Christmas!

The Pies!

Yesterday I made my pie crusts. Here is the recipe I use. Of course, you can use store-bought if you like.

The hardest thing about making a homemade crust is hauling the food processor out of the closet!

I got to use my fancy pastry mat that my hubby gave me for my birthday.

The dough has to chill. That’s why I made it yesterday. Then it has to warm back up a little before you roll it.

Perhaps it needed to warm up just a little more!

Gather all your ingredients–pie helper optional!

Mom uses the Pumpkin Pie recipe on the back of the Libby’s pumpkin! Well, that’s easy enough!

Mix the dry. Mix the wet. Mix together. Follow directions on the back of the can!

Once you finally have your pie crust warm enough to be rolled, make sure it is all even-no lumps.

Place the crust in the pan and crimp the edges. Of course you can get all fancy with your edges if you like. We chose regular crimping.

Then fill the pie crust with the Pumpkin Pie filling.

I know you will be SHOCKED by this…but this was my first Pumpkin Pie! Had I made one before, I would have known to use the deeper pie pan for the Pumpkin Pie. I also would have known how careful one must be when transporting the unbaked Pumpkin Pie to the oven! Almost didn’t make it!

Looks pretty good.

The Pecan Pie…well, it was my first Pecan Pie as well.

The Pecan Pie recipe is on the back of the Karo Syrup bottle.

Check out this newfangled bottle. There is a measurement mark for one cup right on the bottle. I used it. I didn’t like it. I was afraid I would accidentally use too much. An easy way for less-mess-measuring is to spray your measuring cup with cooking spray prior to filling it with the sticky syrup.

So, we followed the directions on the bottle, mostly.

The directions said to stir the pecans into the syrup mixture. Well, we had recently been watching a cooking show where the guy made  lovely rings on top with the pecans. Oooo, yeah! Let’s make it fancy!

That was all well and good and time-consuming, however, we had lots of leftover pecans. I didn’t want my first Pecan Pie to not have enough pecans in it!!!

So, I had the “bright idea” to chop up the remaining pecans and kind of poke them down in those empty spots.

Don’t do that.

Our pie went from fancy and beautiful to looking like someone had already chewed it up!

It got a little scorched in the oven even though I covered it with foil. Not sure why part of my crust flopped over.

Fingers crossed that it tastes good!

So how do you make a Pecan Pie that looks all fancy and still has the right amount of pecans in it?!

Stay tuned…more Thanksgiving 101 to come. I’ve already chopped celery and onions and made the cornbread for the dressing.