Christmas Fireplace

Here is this years fireplace all decorated for Christmas!

Here are some of the ones from years past:

2012

2013

 2014

2015

Family Room & Front Porch Christmas Trees

Here's the family room Christmas tree:

I added the red snow flakes this year.  Other than that it's about the same as last year.

The front porch is pretty much the same as last year as well.

Friendsgiving - Thanksgiving

We had a Friendsgiving on Sunday November 29th.  We have friends and their kids over.  There were 14 of us all together. We put a sheet of 4x8 plywood over the table and squeezed around it.  12 is great with that but 14 is tight! :)  It worked great though!

We did a bacon wrapped turkey.  The turkey was just over 15lbs.  I stuffed it with a lemon, onion, celery, fresh sage and rosemary and some thyme. The turkey turned out so good.  I totally forgot to take picture after it came out of the oven!!

On Thanksgiving we spent the day at my inlaws!  We had a wonderful time.  Now bring on all the Christmas fun!!

Fall Dining Room

I am loving this table runner my mother in law gave me for my birthday!!  The colors are so vibrant and fall like!  I believe it came from Pier One.

Here are some pictures of the dining room all set for fall!  Sorry about the bad lighting.

The Thankful banner was from Lowe's this year.
The glass pumpkins on the buffet  and goblets were from JoAnnes a few years ago.
The amber bubble glass goblets can be found on Amazon.
The plates are Sandwich Amber by Tiara.  My mom and dad received them as wedding gifts and my dad gave me the 6 plates that he still had.  I have since added another 6 that I found on replacements.com.
The pumpkins on the table were from Target this year.
The battery candles and wood slice were from Homegoods.

Nathan's 12th Birthday

Nathan had a great 12th birthday!  Hard to believe he's 12 already!  He's so cute you can see his "stash" coming in on his upper lip.  :)

This child is OBSESSED with kangaroos!  He wants to own kangaroos.  I just told him he could pretend our 3 dogs are kangaroos and now he calls Dixie the yellow lab "Kangaroo"  sadly she answers to it! :)

Halloween 2015

The boys had so much fun.  Jacob and Nathan went trick or treating at my inlaws subdivision.  Then we had a bean soup for dinner that was kind of like chili and really good!

This is the Dexter Mill in town.  I went grocery shopping today and saw this so stopped and took a picture on my way home. 

I hope everyone had a fun and spooky Halloween!!

Pumpkin Chai Tea

Here is a much quicker way to make pumpkin chai tea than the crockpot recipe I posted a while ago.

Pumpkin Chai Tea

1 chai K-cup or 1 chai tea bag
1-2 tbs pumpkin puree
pumpkin pie spice
Truvia (or sweetener of choice)
Heavy whipping cream or premade whipped cream.

I usually freeze any left over canned pumpkin into cubes to they are handy to use for later on.
I used 2 cubes which is about 2 tablespoons total. I defrosted them in my cup in the microwave for 30 seconds.   Then added 2 packets of truvia.  I brewed the chai tea k-cup on the 10oz setting.
While that was going on I whipped a little bit of whipping cream.  I poured maybe 1/8th cup whipped cream in a small bowl with a packet of truvia and used my hand held mixer to whip it up real quick.

Once tea is brewed mix it well then top with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice.

Enjoy!