Thanksgiving Goodness

Hi Friends!

Sorry it's been a couple weeks since I posted! Not a lot has happened, just a lot of little stuff preventing me from getting to the computer. Not to mention the Hubby has been studying for finals, so I have minimal laptop exposure. Anyway...Thanksgiving happened and that was good. We had a small crew but it was so much fun. Crockett and Kara came over with their sweet baby girl, Tessa as well as our friend Garrett. We had enough food for 20 people but in true Thanksgiving fashion, we engorged ourselves with goodies. Here are a few pics from the day taken by Kara.

The table before the food



The table all loaded down!

 I don't know about you, but every time I cook a turkey or whole chicken, I imagine that scene from Christmas Vacation where Clark cuts open the turkey. There is half a second where I think, "Please don't explode with steam!" Thankfully our turkey did not do that. Yay for Reynolds oven bags!

Pumpkin pie and minis

Kara did not take the previous picture. That one was snapped with my iPhone the night before. I've never made pumpkin pie before, but it turned out great! The mini pumpkin pies were so addicting! I found the recipe on Bakerella's site. They will definitely be made again!


The cooks!



The boys!

My love. :)

Kara, Tessa, and Crockett

I would like to take a second and say how awesome Kara is! She made awesome biscuits and dressing and allergen free pie for Crockett and took pictures and took care of a baby! Super-woman! Kara, I'm so thankful for your friendship and also for you getting a light scoop for your camera so I didn't look sweaty in all these pictures. (I'm sure that's why you got it, right?;) haha!)

We had to work on Black Friday which really wasn't that much of a bummer. I've never gone out deal shopping on Black Friday and I don't think I ever will. After reading all the horror stories of people getting pepper sprayed, beaten, and shot over cheap merch, I think staying home and/or going to work are my best options. We DID, however, go on an impromtu 6 hour shopping excursion on Saturday night and got 90% of our family's Christmas presents. It feels good to have it almost done. I even got them all wrapped and they are now sitting in front of our t.v. Be on the lookout for my next post...it will be full of Christmas decor and cookie goodness!

Loves,

Amy

DIY Magnets

Tutorial time! I've been wanting to post this for a while but just haven't gotten around to it. Today I want to show you how to make your own decorative magnets. I don't know about you, but I have never had "cute" magnets on my fridge. They were either pizza place magnets or magnetic chip clips. Ugly. So I decided to make my own. I can't take credit for the initial idea but I'm not linking to anyone else's blog because there are so many different ways to take them! I just wanted to show you how I did it!

1: Assemble your materials. What I used for this project were:

-pen/pencil

-scissors

-scrapbooking paper

-plain magnets

-E6000 glue

-glass marble/fake gem vase fillers

I got the magnets and scrapbooking paper at Michael's, but you could easily find them at Hobby Lobby or any craft store. I got the the glass vase fillers at the Dollar Tree. It was a little hard to find the large ones. They are about 1 1/2" in diameter. Everything else I had on hand. 

2. Find a design on the scrapbooking paper that you like. 

3. Trace around the glass gem. 

4. Apply glue to the flat side of the glass gem.

Here is what it looks like when the paper is attached to the back of the gem. You may want to slide the paper around the back of the gem to ensure that the glue spreads to the edges. You can't see it in the picture, but you will know what I'm talking about when you do it yourself. 

5. After the paper dries (who am I kidding? I didn't let the paper dry!) apply glue to the magnet.

6. Attach the magnet to the back of the paper-covered-gem

7. Admire your work! I made 4 out of the scrapbook paper and the other 4 that I made were just clip art that I printed off on regular white paper. So technically you don't even need scrapbooking paper to do this project!

I had a lot of fun making these and they didn't take long at all! They would make a great last minute gift  for any occasion. I had to stop myself from making more so that our fridge wasn't covered in beautiful magnets. I may have to make some Christmas ones and switch them out to "festive=ize" the kitchen! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! I'll try to post another tutorial soon!

Loves,

Amy

Recently

Hey friends!

The last two weeks of October went by in such a blur! I wanted to update everyone on our recent happenings. On October 22,  I went to Arkansas to surprise my grandpa for his 90th birthday. I had a lot of fun seeing my family and celebrating such a momentous birthday! Here are a few pics of the shindig!

Grandpa's cake and some pictures of him over the years

Some of the guests

The family!

I can't wait to be able to spend more time with them over Christmas vacay!

Last Sunday, we had trunk or treat at Sojourn and had so much fun! Ryan and I dressed up like pirates and decorated our car like a pirate ship. Here are some pics of the event courtesy of our friend Kara!

Arrrg!!

Our pirate trunk complete with a treasure chest full of candy

Great friends

There was a great turnout and we saw some really great trunks! I'm already looking forward to next year. We had several kids think we were real pirates and I'm pretty sure one little boy thought I was going to take him with me to work on our pirate ship.

I'm hoping that I will be able to post a couple tutorials of crafts that I've done. I've already taken the pictures, I just need to sit down and write it out! I think I'll do a series of DIY gifts since Christmas is right around the corner! Crazy!

Hope you are all doing well!

Loves,
Amy