Five Years Coming! Month 5

This Cake a Month is very easy and very delicious!  It's called Apple Pie Upside-Down Cake and unfortunately Martha (yeah we're on a first name basis!) doesn't have a link to this recipe anymore.  If you'd like it, leave me a comment and I'll e-mail it to you!

Upside-down cakes always make me nervous, because in the end, until you flip it out, you aren't quite sure what to expect the top to look like.  But the moisture (from brown sugar) in this cake and the beauty of the cinnamon sticks alone take care of that problem!

Christmas Tree Hunting

Nothing makes me feel more in the Christmas spirit than decorating a tree.  We went to a new tree farm to cut one down had a really fun time.  Lochsloy Acres in Lake Stevens is a cute tree farm all decked out for the holidays.  They give you a toboggan, a saw and as much hot chocolate as you can drink while hunting for the perfect pine (or fir in our instance) for the living room!

The boys with their tools

This one was more their size.

We're going for a white fir this year!





A slightly blurry thumbs up from Fender!

 



Time to head home and decorate!



Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving early this year since I had to work today.  My mom and dad came up to join in on the festivities.  I was definitely thankful for that.  I cooked a 25 pound turkey, baked pumpkin pies, and so many side dishes I thought my oven would give out!  My favorite part is decorating for the occasion.

I saw an idea similar to this on pinterest and was excited to try it.  Fender and I cracked several walnuts carefully open, scooped out the flesh of the nut and then inserted little rolled up wishes.  I hot glued the halves back together and then added a tag to the top.  Fender had a blast rolling up the scroll and setting each person's walnut at their place setting!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Cinnamon Ornaments

I saw these advertised on the side of my cinnamon bottle and really had a hard time waiting until Christmas!  Fender has a Thanksgiving lunch next week and I thought it would be fun for us to make them together and given them to his teachers.  And it gives me an excuse to pull out the leaf cookie cutter I've never used. It makes quite a bot of dough, so I'll use them as place cards for Thanksgiving as well.  If you love the smell of cinnamon then get ready because they bake for 2 1/2 hours and make your whole house smell delicious!

This is Fender's new cool look he gives me...then asks: "Did I look cool?"

Yarn pumpkin

When I saw these on pinterest, I was hooked.  Anything with yarn is on the top of my to-do list and so with barely any qualms from Fender I started wrapping his pumpkin in yarn!

Really fun and easy to do...I got a little dizzy from the winding, but other than that it came off without a hitch!  I am just bummed (as dC reminded me while I was doing it) that the pumpkin is not going to last forever!  Well, maybe next year I'll get a funkin and do it all over again!

Acorn Napkin Ties

Though I wish I could skip right to Christmas, I do love Thanksgiving - the falling leaves, the dinner, and all of the people in my life that I am thankful for.  So to bring a little nature inside to the Thanksgiving table this year, I decided to make these cute acorn napkin ties. 

Up the street a few blocks there is a street lined with oak trees and for the past two years Fender, myself and the whole family have collected the few acorns here and there that have fallen.  I have jars full of caps (which I know I'll find something to do with) but have saved the full acorns for this craft!

My hubby is the best!  dC drilled little holes into all of the acorn tops so I could thread the ribbon through and then glue the caps back on!