Happy Thanksgiving

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Wishing you a holiday full of fun, laughter, friends, and family.

Enjoy those delicious meals and have a great time relaxing and enjoying the holiday!

Elegant Thanksgiving place cards

Do you have your Thanksgiving menu planned yet? Are you ready to get started on the food prep and cooking? I know I am! I just love Thanksgiving and everything that goes with it. The planning, the buying (but not the crowded stores!), the endless chopping at the kitchen counter... it's all fun.

This year, we're having Thanksgiving a day early with friends. For years our holidays haven't been on the actual calendar holidays. It's something we're used to and this year we're continuing with what has become tradition for us. Doug is on a more regular, Monday-Friday schedule these days, which is something we're quite grateful for. But not all of our friends have that same schedule and here, with no blood family nearby, these friends are our family.

I like to get the china out for Thanksgiving and this year will be no exception. Phee's old enough to handle it and we'll have a table of almost all adults. With any luck, I will be able to handle it, too, and I won't drop anything on the floor!

When I was a kid we spent a few years alternating holidays between Ohio and Virginia so we could see both sides of the family. The first year we had Thanksgiving in Virginia, I remember Meemaw getting out a bunch of cute place cards that she had made for past Thanksgivings. As a finishing touch for our table this year, I created these elegant little place cards. They aren't quite like the beautiful ones Meemaw made, but I can't wait to print them out and put them on our dark green tablecloth. They'll look fantastic!

Grab the file here and print them out on heavy card stock. You can cut them in quarters to have a larger place card with a white border. Or, you can cut them closer to the red border and have a smaller card. Use a fancy pen, or a thin felt tip marker to add names and add that last elegant touch to your Thanksgiving table.

What's your plan for your Thanksgiving table this year: china or everyday dishes? This is about the only time I use my china, though every year I vow to get it out more often!

Thanksgiving crafts for kids (with printable)

There are lots of great projects out there to get the kids involved in Thanksgiving preparation. Try one of these projects with your kids and then stand back and enjoy the pride on their faces as they see their handiwork laid out on the Thanksgiving table.

Placemats
Use cardboard cut to the size you want, card stock, or construction paper. Draw a Thanksgiving picture, use Thanksgiving stickers or stamps, or make a Thanksgiving collage from magazine cutouts. After the placemats are finished, you can laminate them or use clear contact paper to preserve them for future holidays.

Place Cards
Have kids draw turkeys, pilgrim hats, cornucopias, corn, pies or whatever autumn and Thanksgiving pieces they love. Print out the name of each person coming to dinner. Cut out those names and affix them to the drawings. Cut the drawings out and glue to small blocks of wood. Or, even easier, just tape the place cards to the kids’ building blocks. Each person can take their place card home as a memento of the holiday and the blocks go back in the toy box!

Napkin Rings
Download this file or grab the photo below and print it on white or ivory card stock and let your kids color their hearts out. It's a little more work on your end to cut each napkin ring out, but they really are pretty darn cute. And the kids will love showing off their work to everyone at the table!

Centerpiece
There are so many options for centerpieces. Using candles? Let your kids use fall colored ribbons to wrap the bottom halves. Using gourds? Let the kids arrange them in a basket or bowl with some pretty fall leaves and pine cones. Or, get a pretty basket, cut out leaf shapes from construction paper and let the kids decorate them with things they’re thankful for.

How do you get your kids involved in Thanksgiving preparation? I love to hear about the ways people get their kids involved in holidays and create new traditions.


Linked up at Memories by the Mile, Home of Malones, Juggling Act Mama.

DIY Fall leaf votive holders

This post contains Amazon Associate links. It doesn't cost you anything to click on or shop through the links, but it does give me a small amount toward running the blog.

I love fall. I miss the changing leaves of Ohio and New England, but this year and last year we've been pleasantly surprised with a bit of an actual fall here in Austin. The polar vortex this week is certainly reminding us of the weather we left behind when we moved!

One of my favorite things about fall is gearing up for the holidays. I love the planning for Thanksgiving dinner. The anticipation of Christmas music and movies and TV specials. With Phee's birthday at the beginning of December, the six weeks from Thanksgiving through the new year feels like one big holiday.

Decorating for all these holidays is one the most fun things to do. Phee loves to help which makes it all the more fun and exciting. She's so enthusiastic and eager about everything and that attitude is infectious. It's such a joy to work on a project with her.

This week, we had some extra time together due to a bit of a cold that knocked Phee out for a couple days. One afternoon, we worked together to make leaf votive holders for our Thanksgiving table. Right now, they're adorning our faux mantle with our other little decorations. We use little LED tea lights for all our decorations and the light they shine through these votives is warm and welcoming. I can't wait to arrange them on the table when our friends join us for Thanksgiving dinner.

DIY leaf votive holders
Materials

• silk leaves
• plastic punch cups
• Mod Podge
  

Directions

• Brush a generous layer of Mod Podge onto a clear plastic cup.
• Add a leaf to the cup and hold it at the top while you add another layer of Mod Podge to the bottom half of the leaf. It's tricky and messy and the leaves wiggle around.
• Continue to add leaves, one a time, giving each one a healthy dose of Mod Podge.
• Set the finished votives aside and let them dry for a couple hours.
• Add LED tea lights and let your candle holders glow!

So, Mod Podging the leaves to the cup is messy. The leaves wiggle a lot and slide around. But the Mod Podge holds the leave well once everything is dry. We only glued the bottom half of our leaves down so that the top half was loose and could fan around the outside of the plastic cup.

Have you worked on any Thanksgiving projects so far this month? Next week, I'll have some great projects to get kids involved with planning for Thanksgiving dinner. Come back and join in the fun!

Linked up at Busy Being Jennifer, Jenny Marie, Texas Women Bloggers, SITS Girls, Home of Malones, Juggling Act Mama, Nancherrow.

Strawberry Applesauce

This post contains Amazon Associate links. It doesn't cost you a thing to click or shop through the links, but it does help me keep the blog up and running.

To say that Phee loves applesauce would be an understatement. There are two things we always have in the house for snacks: applesauce and yogurt. She'll eat it plain,with cinnamon, blueberry, strawberry, chunky, smooth... I think it's the only food about which she isn't picky in the least.

Just before she and Doug got home from New Hampshire with fresh apples a couple weeks ago, I made up a batch of applesauce to use up the apples we had. I was cleaning out the fridge and had a container of strawberries I hadn't finished up. And so, fresh strawberry applesauce.

This isn't any harder to make than regular applesauce. And it has a pretty pink color. The strawberries add just a bit more sweetness to the apples. It's not overpowering at all. The berries pair beautifully with the apples and cinnamon.

I think we'll make another batch for Thanksgiving this year. I love to have applesauce on the table to go with all the savory dishes. Doug's mom often makes her fruited jello as well, but with a smaller group, I usually just stick with the applesauce. This one will look nice on the table and it will be delicious with all of our regular Thanksgiving favorites.

Strawberry Applesauce
Ingredients

• 2 lbs apples, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 lb strawberries, hulled and sliced
• cinnamon to taste

Directions

1. Put your peeled apple chunks in a large pot and add just a little bit of water.
2. Add cinnamon to taste.
3. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until apples are soft. You can cook the apples for more or less time depending on how chunky you like your applesauce.
4. Using a blender, immersion blender, or food processor, puree the strawberries.
5. Puree or mash the applesauce (I pureed because I prefer smooth applesauce and I think the berries mix in better this way).
6. Add the strawberries and mix well.

What are your favorite Thanksgiving side dishes? Do you have a twist on an old standard this year?

Looking for great Thanksgiving foods and ideas? Shop Amazon - Thanksgiving Dinner and Desserts - Prepare the Perfect Feast.

Thanksgiving Tree

For Thanksgiving this year, we're working on a month-long project focused on things we're thankful for. We created a tree in our dining room and every day we add leaves to it, decorating the tree, brightening the house, and taking a little bit of time to think about the good things that have happened.

This is such a fun project. Phee helped me create the tree trunk and branches. Then, I dug out some pretty scrapbook paper and cut out a bunch of leaves. She is so excited to add her leaf each day and find the perfect spot for it on the tree.

Taking a minute to think about the good things that happen during the day isn't new for us. Every night I ask Phee about her three good things for the day- good things that happened, that she did, or that she saw someone else do. Our schedule has flip flopped again in the last few months and we've gotten out of the daily habit of three good things, but this beautiful tree is giving us an opportunity to keep that little tradition alive.

I'm looking forward to pulling our regular table out of the dining room on Thanksgiving and making space for our large table when friends join us for dinner. Our tree will add wonderful color and decoration to the day.

What ways do you highlight gratitude and good things in your life? Have you found a way to bring that same awareness to your kids?

Thanksgiving Tree
Materials

• construction paper, brown paper bags, brown wrapping or craft paper
• fall colored construction or scrapbook paper
• leaf templates
• scissors
• tape
• marker

Directions

1. Tape construction paper together to form a long column, or cut open a brown paper bag, or unroll a length of brown craft paper.
2. Draw, or freehand cut, your trunk shape.
3. Add branches of different sizes.
4. Arrange and tape everything to a wall.
5. Trace, or freehand cut some leaf shapes.
6. Add your leaves to the tree every day and watch the Thanksgiving Tree grow!

Linked up at Busy Being Jennifer, Nancherrow, Just Us Four.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last minute crafts

If you're home with your kiddos today and need to keep them entertained, here are a few fun crafts and projects.  They're all easy and come together fairly quickly.  Plus, wouldn't it be fun to eat your Thanksgiving dinner off of a homemade, one of a kind piece of artwork?

 Thanksgiving place mats

Fall trees

A tree for the wall that can be adapted to lots of season and holidays

Thanksgiving dinner favorites

In the fall of 2004, we moved across the country from New Hampshire to Texas. We didn't have the time or money to turn right around and head back to visit family for Thanksgiving. We were lucky that we had one friend not too far away who came to spend the holiday with us while her husband was deployed. We were also lucky that she had a baster because we did not. These are the things you don't think of when you're making your very first turkey.

{my trusty guide}

I was excited, but nervous, to make my first big Thanksgiving meal. I hit the jackpot when my mom sent me an extra copy of the November 2004 issue of Family Fun magazine. As I flipped through, I discovered recipes for a full, tasty, yet simple Thanksgiving meal. Every year, these recipes and even that magazine have been my template for Thanksgiving. The magazine sits tucked in with my cookbooks and recipes, just waiting for November to roll around again. Then, it's time for the recipes to shine again.

So, without further ado, here are the delicious recipes that make up our Thanksgiving feast.

Herb Roasted Turkey (mother-in-law tip: while it's cooking, baste the top with a stick of butter a couple times)
Mashed potatoes (the one dish I'd made before)
Savory Sausage Stuffing
Gravy with Red Currant Jelly

Cheesy Gratin of Brussels Sprouts (only made once, but very tasty!) 
Cider Cranberry Sauce
Peanut Butter Pie (always look at the recipes in the ads... you might find something like this gem!)

What's your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Do you have a specialty that you make every year?