We are Thankful

As 2014 is wrapping up,

I'm realizing there is so much to be thankful for at our house.

We are all healthy, doing jobs we love, living in our own home, have two dependable cars, are making many new friends in Mississippi, have found a wonderful church and so much more.  2014 has been a good year and we still have several weeks of fun that have yet to happen.

I am thankful for you and always appreciate you reading PDP.  I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family or friends this year.

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!!

I'm taking the next few days off to enjoy time with some of my favorite people.

 

Thanksgiving Kid's Table

I miss planning holiday activities for my students around the holidays so this year I decided to plan holiday activities for my little nieces and nephews.  It was the perfect activity to satisfy my teacher fix!

I searched Pinterest & blogs to find some really cute activities:

Thankful Turkey Placemat

via Pottery Barn Kids Blog

Roll a Turkey Game 

via littlegiraffes

Color by Letter Turkey & Word Search

via reading-with-kids

I'm going to put these at each of their place settings

along with some crayons and dice.

I'm also hoping to find some cute thanksgiving jokes to share with them.

I hope the littles love the activities!!

His and Hers Turkey Place Cards

I assigned myself the job of doing place cards for my family Thanksgiving this year.  I love having place cards at the dinner table so it was an easy job for me.  I knew that we'd be coming in town on Thanksgiving Eve so I would not be able to fix any food to contribute to the meal.  I also volunteered to plan some fun activities for the kids.  Check back in this afternoon for the details.

Back to my place cards...

I had SO MUCH fun making them and LOVE how they turned out.

I love the glitter, the bows/bow ties and that I was able to incorporate Olive's watercolor paintings into the feathers of the turkeys.  They came together even better than I imagined.  I also used supplies that I had in my craft closet and did not buy any new supplies for these!

You'll need:

A scalloped circle punch

a scalloped oval punch

thick paper to fold for tent base

a few cupcake wrappers for bows/bow ties

gold polka-dotted tissue paper (Dollar Tree)

colored paper or watercolor painted paper

glue stick

sharpie marker

I folded the paper tents first.

I'd suggest doing this to get the size/shape right.

Then I glued on the feathers, body and added sharpie details.

I cut out each glittery head from the polka-dotted tissue paper

and cut bows/bow ties from the cupcake wrappers.

I glued them on last and each turkey seemed to come to life.

Can't wait to see what everyone thinks about their turkeys!!

My turkey family
(We have three Kevin's in my family so last initials are necessary :)

 

 It is possible to make CUTE turkeys :)

Delicious Crockpot Turkey

I thought I'd share the easiest, most delicious turkey recipe with you again this year!  Last year was my first year to be in charge of the turkey and it was SO GOOD.  If I were cooking this year, I'd definitely make this recipe.  Give it a try!!

I wanted to try to make my own turkey for Thanksgiving this year but did not want to fix a whole turkey.  I was cooking for a small number of people and didn't want to be eating turkey all winter.  Plus, I didn't want to mess with all the yuck that comes with fixing a whole turkey.  I opted for a fresh 6lb turkey breast instead.  My mom often makes these using her crock pot so I was hoping to find a crock pot recipe.

Six Sisters Stuff came through with a recipe for

Slow Cooker Turkey Breast

Here's my version of the recipe:

1 6-9lb thawed turkey breast

1 pk dry onion soup mix

2-3 c water

2 T garlic powder

salt and pepper

1 T parsley

1 T seasoned salt

1 T oregano

1 T basil

*The turkey was not oniony but it was very flavorful so don't let the onion soup mix fool you.

I had a hard time finding this type of turkey in the store.  My mom said that it's usually in the frozen meat section but I found a fresh one with the other fresh meats.  It was around $13.

I salt and peppered it first.

Sprinkled on the rest of the remaining dry ingredients.

 And then added about 3 cups of water.

Let it cook overnight - 8ish hours.

Then I refrigerated it.  We were having it for dinner and it was done in the morning.  I left all of the juice in it and then cleaned the meat off about an hour before dinner.  I saved some of the turkey juice for the gravy and some to pour over the meat.  Ideally, you could just serve the turkey to guests after it had cooked for 8 hours but that just didn't work with my dinner timeline for the day.

 I don't think I'm cut out for cleaning turkeys or anything for that matter because it was gross.  I made it through and ended up with lots of tender turkey.  I very carefully removed all the bones and yuck so that we wouldn't have to worry to much when we were eating it.

 The only perk of doing the turkey myself was getting the wishbone.

 I reheated the turkey in the crock pot and served it like this:

 I also made brown gravy to go with it.

My family loved this recipe and we will definitely be having it again SOON!

Watercolor Turkeys

I mentioned earlier this week that Olive and I did some water color painting.  I was excited to use her art work to make some turkeys this year.  I figured it would be a fun way to personalize our Thanksgiving cards.

I traced her hand on an index card to make a template and then began cutting three hands at a time by layering the paper.  It worked out great and was really quick.  I also purchased this giant box of 200 note cards + envelopes for $15 at Target.  I figured I could make a TON of cards from the blank note cards.

 My helpers were very interested in playing with the cards.  Topher kept laying on them and Olive gave each of the cards literal hugs and kisses.

 I had some left over hand prints so I made a garland for our mantle.

 Happy Thanksgiving!!

Edible Pumpkin Patch

I love chocolate chips in most desserts and especially love the combination of pumpkin + chocolate chips this time of year.  We had a little Thanksgiving brunch with my MOPS group and I knew I wanted to bring my favorite Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

They were a big hit and the recipe makes so many that I was able to give some to my neighbors, too.  Win-win!  Aren't they adorable little pumpkins??

I found this Nordicware pan a few years ago.  I look forward to using it every Fall and I've recently spotted a few of them in TJ Maxx.  I think they're around $20 and the quality is great - heavy, non-stick and they come out perfectly every time.

 We also did a holiday recipe exchange. 
We had to bring 20 copies of one of our favorite recipes to share with the group.  I had some cute Christmas recipe cards so I chose a short, favorite recipe to share.  We ended up with a stack of yummy family favorite recipes that I'm excited to try.