Gingerbread House

My daughter and her friend made a Gingerbread House from a Wiltons Kit. She wanted me to share the pictures with you. She said it was pretty fun and not to hard except the pieces didn't fit together that well. She had to improvise with frosting to cover the cracks up(-: Here are the photos.

Dinner

Thought I would share pictures of some of the food we fixed!
Here are homemade yams cooking on the stove. They were very tastey(-:

Here is the turkey ready to carve...Our bird was 24 pounds this year!

Here is the cheesecake cooking in the oven...

Cheesecake finished and ready for the Chocolate...

All ready to eat...


My Granddog Gus, bored out of his mind...

Enough Pumpkin for 6 Pies!

I cooked the two pumpkins I had left from Halloween. I have 12 cups of cooked pumpkin! I decided to make a couple pies today and give them to friends that I won't be spending Tday with. I will make 2 tomorrow, keep one and share one with another friend. I froze enough to make two more pies later this Holiday season! I didn't want to let the pumpkin go to waste! They smell yummy. I need to deliver them asap so I don't dig into them. I hope everyone is having fun preparing for their guests!!! Have a good day!

Preparing for the Dinner

I have the turkey in the fridge. All the ingredients are bought and ready to be used. So far we have 9 coming to our feast. I plan on making another homemade pumpkin pie. I have another pumpkin to cook and puree. I think I will work on that part tomorrow so it is ready to use. Does everyone decorate their tables or just use paper? I plan to bring out the Thanksgiving dishes. At first I was not sure how many people were coming but now that I know I will have plenty of dishes to use. I did buy Thanksgiving paper plates and napkins for the desserts. I can't wait to get started. I have the whole week off to relax so this should be a fun week!!! I hope everyone is doing well and having a great time with friends and family!

Violet Progress

Here is what they looked like when I got them:

As you can see the violets have all pretty much done good. Except there are two that have not grown any new leaves at all. I started these leaf cuttings on April 3rd of this year. It has been an interesting experience to see them grow or in some cases not grow. Now I can't wait to see them bloom! Stay tuned for the continuing Violet Drama(-:

Violet Revisited

It looked so pretty last night I had to take a picture. It sure has grown since I bought it last spring! It was a scrawny little thing and the leaves were almost white. It has really done well since I repotted it and gave it some fertilizer! Its my favorite plant of the bunch. By the way the leaves I bought last spring are also growing and doing well. Only two leaves have not produced babies yet. It seems like a long time to me but I am still watering the leaves and waiting. I think today I will take a group shot of the differences in the plants. Funny to see them that way when they all started at the same time and were just leaf cuttings! I will post a picture tomorrow(-:

HaPpY 24th BiRtHdAy To My SoN

Today marks the 24th birthday for my son. I can't believe how fast the years have gone. Its been amazing. We had a bbq here with the family. We all ate to much. It was so hot I had to turn on the air-con. Not sure what the high was for the day but it was 80+. Very unusual for this time of the year. The year my son was born it was a freezing, rainy day. Usually every year since he was born it has been very cold out and we have had frost by now. It sure was nice though to have a warm sunny day today so we could bbq and enjoy the weather(-:
Things are calming down around here and getting back to normal. Or what we can call as normal as we can for what has all transpired over the last week. One day at at time right?(-: Well its time to go lock up the chickens before the varmits get them. I hope you all have a great evening!

Jack gets cake too!

Fall...A Time for Falling

Falling Leaves,
Falling out of love.
My daughter and her newlywed husband have called it quits. We spent the last few days moving her home. It has been time filled with many tears and many unpleasant feelings. Bottom line is her husband of 11 months decided he didn't want to be married. He wants to be free as a bird to do whatever his heart desires. I am glad. I never wanted my daughter to marry him in the first place. She told us on Christmas Day last year that they were getting married on New Years Day. It was a shock to say the least and the way it was handled totally devastated me. Instead of a happy day I was completely depressed, although I did try. No one in the family approved of her husband or thought they should marry in the first place, so its not a surprise to us that its over. It is just hard to deal with and we are all very sad for her.
I spent the months that followed her marriage re doing her bedroom into a guest room. I did enjoy that and it kept me busy and thinking positive. But all that stuff was moved out so we could move her back in!
Of course now I have a whole new load of emotions. One thing for sure is I am thrilled that she is back. But on the other hand I am stressed with having her back. Does anyone understand that one? Of course her coming home means my granddog is also moving back home. So that is fun too.
She has finals coming up for college so is waiting until after that to file for a dissolution of marriage. I hope it all goes smoothly.

Frost is Near

I have begun moving my tender plants that I want to save, into a safe location. I brought my beautiful begonia inside to stay for the winter. I hope it will survive. It did not start blooming until a couple weeks ago. It never grew at all this summer. How weird is that? Now it is showing off on my kitchen table(-:
I have an elephant ear plant I moved up against the house. It survived last winter just fine so hopefully it makes it through again. It is so pretty. It was very late to get started growing this year though. Our low temperature here is usually in the 20's if its a clear night. It has gone into the teens before though.

Halloween Costumes

Halloween Party Last night...
Me and DH

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

I bought an organically grown pie pumpkin and cut it in half, removed the seeds/strings and cooked it. After it was cooked I cut it up, minus the skin, and put it in the blender. I blended it until it was a nice smooth texture. It made 4 cups of cooked pureed pumpkin. Enough for two pies. (-:
The pumpkin pie recipe for one pie was...
2 cups of pumpkin,
2 eggs,
2/3 packed brown sugar,
three teaspoons of cinnamon,
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg,
1/2 teaspoon of salt,
1 cup of cream.
I mixed everything in the mixer and poured it into the crust.



I make my own crust from 2/3 cup of shortening. I like Crisco Butter flavor. 2 cups of flower and 1/3 cup of cold water.

This is the pie baking in the oven. I baked it at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 10 mins. It was time to leave for our Halloween party after it came out of the oven so I did not get another picture. It sure was yummy though(-: