This time of year....

I'm riding the Tuesday Train.

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Well, we are officially heading into my favorite time of year. I love October through the end of December. There is much going on and lots to look forward to. My top 10 list this week are my 10 favorite things for the last quarter of the year. See how many of my items are on your list as well:

1. The changing colors of fall and the fallen leaves: I love the smell of fresh raked leaved and the smell of leaves burning.

2. Trick-or-Treat: I love helping out in our Trunk-or-Treat at church. There is always something fun going on. I usually bake and donate candy so I'll be free to enjoy the evening. I also love actual trick-or-treat night. I love seeing the children from the neighborhood come by in their various costumes. Of course, most of the neighborhood children are now teens and we only get a one or two to come by on Halloween. I'm very excited about this year because our new neighborhood will be more accessible and there are more children around that area. Not to mention, I will now have a front porch I can sit out on to hand out candy.

3. Once Halloween is over, we get to look forward to Thanksgiving. The big turkey hubby fixes every year, the multitude of side dishes guaranteed to tempt your taste buds. We always make enough to have left overs for the four day weekend. I go crazy with baking because I never know what anybody will be in the mood for.  Thanksgiving is also a time for celebrating my daughter-in-law's birthday. So one of the desserts is always her choice. Her birthday is close to Thanksgiving so we celebrate it when we are all together that day.

4. Of course, the day after Thanksgiving is one of my absolute favorite shopping days in the whole year...Black Friday. Bargains galore. Thanksgiving evening after the dishes are done, the food is put away, and the families have returned to their own homes, I sit down with some no-bake oatmeal cookies and a cold glass of milk and go through all the Black Friday sales papers and make a shopping list and itinerary for the big day. (If you are aware of my love for lists, this shouldn't surprise you).

5. Putting up the Christmas tree ranks right up there on my list of favorite things about this time of year. I love getting out all my Christmas decor and deciding what is going to go where. I'm one of those "multi-lights, assorted ornaments, tinsel and icicle type persons", as you can tell. There are certain things that are very sentimental to me and they get put in a prized location. One is my little poinsettia basket Mamaw Eden bought me. One is a ceramic Christmas tree that my oldest grandson painted me years ago. It always sets with a ceramic reindeer that my mom made for me about 25 year ago.

6. The next big excitement comes somewhere between or around December 10th - 13th. My twins (aren't they just adorable) and I celebrate our birthdays together since their birthday is just 3 days before mine. That is one of the main reasons I like to get my tree up early. I love having the house decorated for my birthday. I always have. I may get a real tree this year. The discussion is still up in the air between me and hubby. I think I will probably win this battle. He seems to be softening. Although, to be honest, his main stand on the issue is "Whatever you want.", which sometimes means it doesn't really matter one way or another to him. So I'm apparently the one on the fence about it.

7. Amidst all the family functions, I also have our church functions to look forward to. There is the church Christmas program, the church dinner, our Sunday School class dinner, and Secret Sister Christmas exchange. Lots of fun and tons of great food.

8. Then comes the magical night of all time. Christmas Eve. Our family gathers together for a feast of sauces, dips, cheeses, bread stix, just tons of good stuff. Not to mention, as always, a variety of desserts. We exchange gifts and just enjoy being together. I normally track Santa on Norad Santa Tracker. It's cool. You can see where he's been and exactly where he is. The grandkids are usually pretty excited that night so it just brings magic to the night. Of course, I'm always a little let down when they leave because it makes me miss all those years when my children were little.

9. Christmas Morning. Unfortunately for my hubby, I'm still one of those that gets excited and can't sleep good on Christmas eve. I'm usually up bright and early the next morning. But I try to lay in bed until a decent time so he doesn't wake up. It usually doesn't work. We have maintained many family traditions, even after the kids got married. Santa always filled stockings and put gifts under the tree. We never went into the living room until everybody was up and we would go in together. Hubby and I still exchange stockings and gifts and we still wait and go into the living room together. Over the years, the gifts have gotten less expensive and we don't buy as much as we used to, but it's just the thought of keeping up our family tradition.

10. New Year's eve is another tradition that we do every year. Our first year as husband and wife, I pulled my back out trying to move a couch by myself. I was hurting pretty bad and had never been one to party on New Year's eve so we opted to stay in. My mom wanted the kids for the night, so we tried to think of something fun to do to make New Year's eve special. We got out the Monopoly game and decided on a nice friendly game. We fixed fruit and cheeses for a snack. Hubby had a glass of wine and I had chilled grape juice. It was so much fun that it became "our thing" on New Year's eve. Thirty years later, we still ring in the New Year the same way. Of course, I'm ashamed to say that it is also a tradition that he wins the game....every year. I think I won one year, but I'm pretty sure I acted pathetic enough that he let me win that year. 

Well, that's my top 10 for Tuesday. Hope you have an awesome day.

Before, during and after......

Is there anything more delightful than a 1 year old with their very own birthday cake and parents who say "Have at it"?

Colby really enjoyed his first birthday party. He had a great time, but nothing pleased him as much as his cake.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER



A Saturday night and four cakes

A friend of mine recently gave me a starter and recipes for Amish Bread. There are many different types of Amish Bread recipes, but this bread is more like a dense pound cake.

The starter is stirred daily for 10 days and you "feed it" on two of those days. On the 10th day, you have four cups of starter which can be used to make the bread. Each starter makes 2 loaves. You can save some starter for yourself, give it away to friends and family or you can do a mixture of both. With my four cups of starter, I kept one so I could make more cake in 10 days, I gave one to a friend and I made 2 different recipes. So now I have four loaves I can enjoy.

It is very simple to make and you don't dirty half your dishes in the process. You just need 2 mixing bowls, a liquid measuring cup and a dry measuring cup, teaspoons, a spatula or spoon and a mixer. Well, of course your loaf pans.

I opted to make the cinnamon sugar cake and the lemon cake. It is so simple because the basic recipe is the same and you just change out your flavoring. For example, the cinnamon has 2 packages of vanilla pudding in it. On the lemon, I switched that out for lemon pudding. The cinnamon has vanilla extract and I put lemon extract in the lemon. The cinnamon has a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon as a coating on the top. The lemon has raw sugar as its topping so it provides a little crunch.

I put a little twist on one of my cinnamon ones. After I filled one of the loaf pans, I added some Pampered Chef Sweet Apple Sprinkle to the mixture for the other loaf pan. I added it in the batter itself and in the cinnamon brown sugar mixture as well. The result was a nice cinnamon apple flavor. I tried a piece with warmed caramel topping on it and it was delicious as well.

Now I'm excited for 10 days to be over so I can experiment again. I know one of the next batches is going to be an orange loaf with orange glaze.

I'll keep you posted.





A most precious gift...

It's hard to believe a year has already passed us by. One year ago today, we received a most precious gift, our youngest grandchild, Colby James.

We thought both of our children were done having babies, but God thought otherwise. He blessed us with this precious little bundle of joy on October 1, 2010. Check out that head full of hair.

Like most all my grandchildren, he wanted to make an appearance way before it was time for him to arrive. But his Mommy followed the doctors orders and was able to keep him safe and sound until they determined he was ready to be born.

This past year has been such a joy having the new addition in our lives. Our grandchildren are the best gifts our children have ever given us.

He is such a good baby. I love this picture. He was ready to go to church with Mamaw and I couldn't resist snapping his picture.

He always has a happy smile on his face. He really enjoyed his day at the local drive-thru zoo. The potbellied pigs that roamed free kept fascinating him.

It's easy to tell he's crazy about his big brother. Garret can get him happy just by talking to him.

He also adores his big sister. He loves to grab a handful of her long hair. Which, by the way, she just got cut at the shoulders.

He is a typical little boy, loving anything that rolls. He can get into the toy box on his own now and had a blast exploring all the cars he found. It touches my heart to watch him. He is so special to me as they each are in their own ways. But he's the last so he will always be Mamaw's baby no matter how old he is.

Happy 1st birthday, Colby. Mamaw loves you so much.

A new kitchen theme....

 

As we prepare to move, I was packing up some of the kitchen decor. It dawned on me that I was really over the color scheme in my kitchen. There are a lot of things different in the new kitchen and I think I want to change my decor. I started thinking about different color schemes and what would go good together and what I am in the mood for. But I wasn't sure if I was on the right track. So, I did what any woman would do....I called my big sister.  

I ran my ideas by her. You see, I am falling in love with blue and green together. It is so light and airy and so different from my current kitchen. And since we are going to grow herbs in the kitchen window seal, I thought the blue and green would be a good way to go. But my dilemma is that I have some roosters and sunflower items that I love as well. My sister, who's house looks like something out of Country Living magazine, told me I can incorporate a few roosters and sunflowers into the blue/green theme so it adds some "pop". I loved the idea so I checked out the Internet (as usual) and found that French Country decor (which I love) incorporates a lot of blue, green, red and yellow. Here are a few decor ideas that hit my fancy. 



This touch of yellow in this one does add that extra zing.

I love this rooster and sunflower together. The rooster has the colors I want to use in it and they do look pretty good together.

 

After I saw a bunch of blue/green kitchens and realized that I definitely am going to go that route, I decided to check out Etsy for some blue/green kitchen items. Here are some of the things I saw that I would like to incorporate into my new theme. 

I'm loving this cookie jar. I always have cookies or candy and could use a new cookie jar. I may have to add that to my antique shopping list. 

 I have a recipe box that I have been using for close to 30 years now. I think it is time to change to a new one. This incorporates my new color scheme along with my herbs.

 I have one cabinet in the new place that has a frosted, etched glass front so I thought about displaying any vintage bowls in that cabinet. This one would be perfect.

 I thought this was a cute canister set, but it wouldn't be good for me. As much as I bake, I have canisters that hold 5 pounds of sugar and 5 pounds of flour.

I love this little juice pitcher.

I need to get a cream and sugar set so I'm going to look for a vintage one when I go antique shopping later this month. This one was cute. It kinda goes with one of the bowls I liked.

Well, now I've gotten myself in the mood to go shopping. Since I'm heading out tomorrow to birthday shop for my grandson Colby, I think I'll make a stop at Kohl's to check out tablecloths. They are one of my major weaknesses. You can change the whole look of a room, simply by putting out a new tablecloth. Hope everybody has a great weekend.



The Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year when our minds start turning to pumpkins. Fall is officially here and Halloween is just arond the corner. Then before you know it Thanksgiving will arrive.

I have been noticing a lot of different decor where pumpkins are being used for more than pies and jack-o-lanterns. I searched the internet to find some of my favorite pumpkin decorations and thought I'd share them with you today. Whether they are real, handcrafted or store bought,  I'm loving the new and unique way pumpkins are being used.