Online Black Friday Ads

I will be doing all my Black Friday shopping this year from the comfort of my home. Tons of online deals are listed here. Check it out!

Advent Calendar Inspiration

I love Advent Calendars. My next project after Thanksgiving is to hurry and get ours done. The Crafty Crow compiled a huge list of amazingly neat Advents. If you are looking for inspiration - check it out.

That's all for today. My sister and her two fun kids are in town for the Holidays. I am getting a ton of fun baby time in with my newest nephew. We are trying to give her a much needed break for a week (her husband is in Iraq). It is fun and BUSY having a houseful of people. I finally got my tables set for Thanksgiving tomorrow and am heading to bed.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

WFMW - Thanksgiving Macaroni

There really is nothing thanksgivingish about this macaroni recipe. Is macaroni and cheese even really a Thanksgiving dish? Or is it just in my family? As far as I'm concerned, pasta should be a part of any celebration. Anyway, I call this Thanksgiving macaroni because it is one of the only times of the year that I will allow myself to eat this delicious concoction that has 500,000+ calories in every bite. I kid you not. But once you take a bite of it, you will no longer care. It is that good.

The beauty of this recipe (besides the 3 yummy cheeses) is how easy it is to make, yet it seems very impressive to friends and family. It helps me continue with my masquerade of being a good cook. Just be careful about who you make it for - you will be asked to make it again and again and again :)

Ingredients:

Butter for greasing the dish
12 oz wide egg noodles
3 cups whipping cream
1-1/2 cups whole milk
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt - plus more for pasta
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups (packed) grated Fontina
3/4 cups (packed) finely grated parmesan
3/4 cups (packed) grated mozzarella
4 oz. cooked diced ham - optional (sometimes I throw in Trader Joe's prosciutto)
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

Preheat oven to 450. Butter a 9 x 13 glass baking dish and set aside. Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water until firm - tender (about 5 minutes). Drain well but do not rinse. Whisk the cream, milk, flour, 1/2 tsp salt, and pepper in a bowl to blend. Stir in 1 cup Fontina, 1/2 cup parmesan, 1/2 cup mozzarella, ham, and parley. Add the noodles and toss to coat. Transfer the noodle mixture to the prepared baking dish. Toss the remaining 1 cup Fontina, 1/4 cup parmesan, and 1/4 cup mozzarella in a bowl. Sprinkle the cheese mixture over the noodle mixture. Bake until the sauce bubbles and the cheese melts and begins to brown on top. Takes about 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serves 6.

Recipe from the Food Network a couple years ago - I can't remember which chef.


For more great tips and ideas head to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions
Managing school papers
Fall Traditions
Coupon Binder
Toys Worth Buying - Board Games

Fun Ego Boost

What Your Home Says About You

You come across as very intellectual. People take your wisdom seriously. Your hygiene is passable, but you may be hiding some dirty secrets. You are a very domestic person. You enjoy decorating, cooking, and making things homey. You are not a nurturing person by nature, but you can easily take care of someone you truly love. You feel settled in your life. You have enough time to focus on little details. You are a very self sufficient person. You can get along well without much help. Your friends see you as honest, humble, and responsible.

What Does Your Home Say About You?

Thought this was a fun little quiz just in time for Holiday company. No dirty secrets here though. I have cleaned out every cupboard, closet, room in my house over the weekend. Just don't look in my attic :)

NaBloPoMo

Posting every single day for a month is HARD WORK! I'm beginning to think it was not so wise to try this challenge during the month of November. I have so many projects that need to be worked on for Christmas and not enough time.

My mom and I spent Saturday doing one of my all time favorite things - thrift store shopping! We found so many fun things I'm going to tweak and either give away or use in my house - I will post pics when finished. I haven't been to a thrift store in such a long time that I forgot how much I LOVE it. We ended the day by stopping at Anthropologie so my mom could pick up an early birthday present for me - a new gorgeous apron! Just in time for the Holidays. I heart aprons but somehow can't get my husband to understand that I need more than one. Thanks mom!

Thanksgiving Help

Due to a last minute change of plans on Thursday, I am now hosting Thanksgiving for between 20-30 people (the numbers keep shifting). I am really excited - I haven't hosted Thanksgiving since the year we were married. That was a disaster! A couple of friends came over, we cooked ALL DAY, and were too tired to eat when it was ready. But we did have a lot of fun.

Anyway, I came across this handy little Thanksgiving Guide by Pioneer Woman. She shows you what her day to day cooking schedule looks like for the next week while she gets ready for Thanksgiving. I love how she breaks everything down so a majority of the work is not done on the actual day of Thanksgiving - I wish someone would have clued my 19-year-old self into that idea. She also has some fun recipes that I think I am going to try out. I also LOVE the idea of making an extra pie crust to make turkey pot pie with leftover turkey. Yum!

I am now on the hunt for a great centerpiece for my table. Any ideas???

Bringing up Geeks

Bringing up Geeks: How to Protect Your Kid's Childhood in a Grow-Up-To-Fast World.

I picked up this book from the library last week and LOVE it. Here's a quick synopsis from the publisher (then I'll tell you what I like about it):

Marybeth Hicks suggests an alternative to the culture of cool: bringing up geeks. In this groundbreaking book, she redefines geeks as Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kids, and inspires parents to free themselves and their kids from cultural conditioning while instilling in their children truly important values.

I think my favorite part of this book is that the author has raised four children and has had kids at all different stages of parenting. I like that she has been in the trenches, so to speak. It gives her a lot more credibility in my opinion. She has ten rules for raising geeks:

1. Raise a braniac.
2. Raise a sheltered kid.
3. Raise an uncommon kid.
4. Raise a kid adults like.
5. Raise a late bloomer.
6. Raise a team player.
7. Raise a true friend.
8. Raise a homebody.
9. Raise a principled kid.
10. Raise a faithful kid.

In each of these sections she gives clear ways to implement these values into family life. She gives examples of how to do this at all different age levels and what challenges parents can expect. It is a fun easy read filled with examples from her own family. I love reading books that inspire me to do better and this one certainly did.

Area Honors Orchestra - He's in!!!

Tryouts for Area Honor Orchestra were this week. Spencer has been waiting all year to be old enough to try out. He was super nervous Monday and I was nervous for him. We have wondered all week when he would find out if he made it and have talked about it often. Tonight while we were driving home from a church activity Spencer casually said "Oh - I forgot to tell you. I made it into the Honor's Orchestra." Silly boy.

The honors orchestra is comprised of 5th and 6th graders from different schools in our area. There are a LOT of practices but luckily the schools arrange the whole carpool list if your kids get in. He loves playing the viola so we are really excited for him.

Yesterday

I had a million and one chores to do yesterday. Ella had other plans.

First on Ella's agenda:

Perfect leaf criteria: Red or yellow, never brown - unless it has a hole in it.

Next on Ella's agenda, Covering each other with leaves -

Mom's turn (a pictorial) -


Nothing better than running, jumping, and playing in leaves on a brisk fall day -



Unfortunately for one sad little girl, it must all come to an end -

But mom saves the day with hugs, kisses, and promises of hot chocolate -


One afternoon well spent!

WFMW - Super easy way to melt chocolate!

My MIL makes the best chocolates every year for the Holidays. She taught me this super easy way to melt chocolate - no double boiler required. Here it is broken down:

1. Turn on oven just until it clicks on. You want it on the lowest degree possible.

2. Chop up chocolate and put in glass baking pan. If I'm doing a small amount or a single batch, I use the Pyrex glass measuring cups.

3. Put pan in oven and check often to make sure the pan is not getting too hot. An easy way to test this is to touch the pan. If the pan is too hot to pick up without hot pads - IT IS TOO HOT. If this happens, take the chocolate out, cool it off, and then return to the oven.

4. Stir the chocolate often as it melts.

Yum . . . I'm ready to go make chocolates right now. I love the Holidays!


ALTERNATIVE METHOD: If you can't get your oven to a low enough temperature (I lived in one house where this was the case) turn the oven on just until it clicks on. Leave on for 5 minutes and then turn off right before you put the chocolate in.

For more great tips and ideas head to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions
Managing school papers
Fall Traditions
Coupon Binder
Toys Worth Buying - Board Games

Fun Cake Decorations

Ella is our resident decorator. She LOVES looking through catalogues and telling me what we need for different rooms in our house. It's funny because I rarely look at catalogues. She is constantly telling me how she wants to redo her room and the other day asked if she could switch rooms with us. She very specifically told me to put all of her stuff in my room and take my stuff out and put it in hers. She said this is a "great idea." When we go to stores she will rearrange shelves to make sure everything is organized and in the right place (I so wish she would apply this skill to the playroom)! She loves to cook and at 4-years-old can whip up a pan of scrambled eggs from start to finish by herself (of course with an adult standing by). She is such a mini Martha Stewart.

So I wasn't too surprised when she came home from the library the other day with Matthew Mead's Cakes for Kids. I love Matthew Mead's site and used a lot of his Halloween ideas and free templates but I didn't know he had a kid's cake book out.

Tonight we looked through this book together for her bedtime story. She was so excited to look at each cake and try to figure out how each one was made. I LOVE having someone in the house who appreciates this stuff. So fun for me! We are going to try our hand at some of these cakes in the upcoming weeks. I'll let you know how they go.

Way to go Spencer!

Spencer's first big project for 5th grade was to write a 5-6 page research paper. The kids could choose any topic they wanted. Some chose sports, others animals, and I think some even chose people. Spencer chose, without hesitation, the atomic structure of the earth. He definitely takes after his father.

The first step of the project was to decide on a topic and turn it in to the teacher. He was excited but when he came home that day he told me his teacher didn't think there would be enough information available for him to write his paper. I tried to help him think of some alternatives (that were way more fascinating to me) but he wouldn't budge. He knew he could do it.

He worked very hard on this paper for quite awhile and was quite nervous when he turned it in. He was so excited when the report came back with an A+. His teacher wrote:

"Spencer - wonderful report full of important information that helped me understand a little better. Great job!"

Good grades and A's come very easily to Spencer but this one was different. He worked very hard on this project and was so proud of his accomplishment. I'm proud of him for sticking to what he wanted to do when his teacher (and mom) tried to talk him out of it. Way to go Spencer!

On my radar

1. Love, love, love this post from Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

2. I stumbled upon a new blog this week that I can't stay away from. MeckMom is a site full of "ideas to make life a little easier." I love that her tips are easy and cheap solutions to ordinary problems. You have to check this out - Must Have Tools for Easier Kid Hair Styling. She is absolutely brilliant!

3. Have you seen theStory of Stuff? I meant to just watch a few minutes the other day but then couldn't tear myself away - it's that interesting.

4. Derfwad Manor had me laughing out loud with her post about liberation from Spanx.

5. 13 Fixes for Tired Moms - Some of these tips look interesting. I am always in the market for ways to have more energy.

6. Finally, one more Nie Nie post. I am amazed at her talent of making the simplest moments extraordinary ones. Her post, Attention all Mothers, definitely captures this. She is constantly in my thoughts and prayers.

Rainbow Bath

Ella was going stir crazy this afternoon so I surprised her with a "rainbow bath." I used one of my older muffin tins and filled each well with shaving cream and then stirred in food coloring. I gathered up paint brushes, sponges, and rollers and let her have at it. She painted pictures on all the tile in surrounding the bathtub and covered herself head to toe in a rainbow. I made sure to tell her that "rainbow baths are very rare and only happen after rain" or else I knew it would be a daily request. It was so neat to see her face when I brought in the tray - she was so excited. It was a cheap fun way to brighten up a rainy day! (I originally saw this idea on WFMW but now can't find the link).

"I Can Make That" - One more easy gift!

Here's another super easy gift idea that I stole from my SIL Michelle. It is just a glass shower block (I think it was $4.00 at Home Depot last year) and vinyl lettering (from The Letter Cafe). Tie a big fat bow on top and you are done! I gave several of these out last year and some of my friends have kept them out year round. Couldn't get any easier.


Just a Girl's I Can Make That Party is still going on. Head to her site to see more easy homemade Christmas gifts. I have had so much fun seeing everyone's.