Thanksgiving is just a memory

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and I am still stuffed!!  We had a very nice Thanksgiving at my home yesterday.  My sister spent the night with us on Wednesday so she & I got a head start on our cooking when we woke up.  We had done most of the work beforehand so just had to make a couple of salads, pies and casseroles and figure out the timing of cooking it all!  This is the only time of the year I wish I had a double stove!!  We cooked the turkey on high heat and it only took a little over 3 hours .... the only drawback is every time the oven was opened, it got smokey in the house!  We had the doors open and a fan in the window.  Luckily, it was in the 60's and a beautiful day.  Our friends and relatives started arriving about noon and we munched on hors-doerves cheese and crackers - while waiting for dinner.  The guys went outside and played a little football.  After dinner, we sat around the table and played "Table Talk", a tradition I started last year.  It's a game of thought provoking questions.  I put 3 under each person's plate and they can pick one of them to answer or answer them all if they so choose.  The questions are like "What event in the past, present or future would you like to witness?"  What is your favorite childhood memory?"  It's a great way to get to know someone and sometimes you find out more than you wanted to know!!

Here's a pictorial tour of Thanksgiving at my house!

Our table setting .... BEFORE all the food!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn't this centerpiece gorgeous?!!  Our friends, Sharon & Bob always order the centerpiece for the table since Sharon doesn't cook!!

Marianne's oldest son, Derek, catching the football!

Harrison going for the ball .... if he doesn't lose his pants first!!

This beer's for ..... Marianne!!  Go Steelers!! 

My daughter, Ashley and her friend, Drew who joined us.

My sister & my husband.

Girlfriends!

 

Both my sisters on clean-up detail!!

After dinner snooze!!  My daughter's friend Drew and my mom.

Some Interesting Thanksgiving Trivia!

Three towns in the U.S. take their name from the traditional Thanksgiving bird, including Turkey, Texas (pop. 465); Turkey Creek, Louisiana (pop. 363); and Turkey, North Carolina (pop. 270).

Originally known as Macy's Christmas Parade—to signify the launch of the Christmas shopping season—the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade took place in New York City in 1924. It was launched by Macy's employees and featured animals from the Central Park Zoo. Today, some 3 million people attend the annual parade and another 44 million watch it on television.
Tony Sarg, a children's book illustrator and puppeteer, designed the first giant hot air balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927. He later created the elaborate mechanically animated window displays that grace the façade of the New York store from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history. As the Flying Ace, Snoopy made his sixth appearance in the 2006 parade.

The first time the Detroit Lions played football on Thanksgiving Day was in 1934, when they hosted the Chicago Bears at the University of Detroit stadium, in front of 26,000 fans. The NBC radio network broadcast the game on 94 stations across the country--the first national Thanksgiving football broadcast. Since that time, the Lions have played a game every Thanksgiving (except between 1939 and 1944); in 1956, fans watched the game on television for the first time.

Though many competing claims exist, the most familiar story of the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621. More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. Congress finally made Thanksgiving Day an official national holiday in 1941.

Sarah Josepha Hale, the enormously influential magazine editor and author who waged a tireless campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday in the mid-19th century, was also the author of the classic nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Minnesota is the top turkey-producing state in America, with a planned production total of 49 million in 2008. Just six states—Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri and Indiana—will probably produce two-thirds of the estimated 271 million birds that will be raised in the U.S. this year.

The cranberry is one of only three fruits—the others are the blueberry and the Concord grape—that are entirely native to North American soil, according to the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked weighed 2,020 pounds and measured just over 12 feet long. It was baked on October 8, 2005 by the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers in Ohio, and included 900 pounds of pumpkin, 62 gallons of evaporated milk, 155 dozen eggs, 300 pounds of sugar, 3.5 pounds of salt, 7 pounds of cinnamon, 2 pounds of pumpkin spice and 250 pounds of crust.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving wherever you plan to spend it. I hope that you are with friends and family who appreciate you.

I will have a full house tomorrow and just hope my turkey is thawed in the a.m.!! I spent today making my potatoes, apple pie, green bean casserole (2 different kinds!) and tomorrow will work on the cranberry salad and pumpkin/pecan pie. I'll let you know how it all turns out!

Stuffing the Turkey

Before you stuff your turkey ....... read this!

The Turkey Shot out of the Oven
by Jack Prelutsky

The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there'd never been turkey before.

It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn't a way I could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped.

Holiday Extravaganza Sale

Stampin' Up has tons of bundles on sale. Click HERE to see the flyer. Start making your list as these bundles are only available while supplies last. Check it out & give me a call or e-mail me with your wish lists. This sale starts Nov. 26 and will end Dec. 1 so there's not much time to take advantage of these great prices!

Crafty Monday

My sister and her girlfriend came over this morning and we played in my stamp room ALL DAY!!  So much fun!!  To begin with, we each picked out a Color Challenge from Splitcoast and a Sketch Challenge.  I gave them my notebook full of stamp sets & let them pick any one they wanted and we sat down and each made a card!!  They turned out great and they learned they don't need my guidance every step of the way and they could do it on their own!  Here are our cards -

 

This is Sharon's card (Girlfriend!).  She is sending this to a friend who is her final fight with cancer.  Very simple but pretty, don't you think? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my sister's card.  She used a stamp set from Great Impressions.  (She loves snowmen cards!!

This last card is mine.  The stampset is actually one Marianne brought over that I thought was soooo cute!!  And the "Happy Holidays" is a retired SU set that I bought at a sale this summer.

After doing our challenges, they made several Christmas cards from my Tuesday night class.  When I put away all my supplies from my class this week, I kept out 2 sets of each card kit just for this purpose.  So, they were able to work on the cards while I finished up some calendars I am trying to get done by Thursday!!   My sister also went through some of my card samples and found a snowman one (done by Wanda!) and made about 5 cards like it.   It's so cute and easy to do.  We used my Nesties for the Snowman circles and Dazzling Diamonds embossing powder for the sparkle.

 

I snapped this picture while they were working.  They didn't even know I was taking it - not real flattering but you can tell they are hard at work!  I kept trying to clean up their table for them and put things away but they liked cluttered like that .... would have driven me nuts!  Also, notice the quilts in their chairs!  I like to keep my house a lot cooler than most people and they usually freeze & complain!!  I just tell them to put their woolies on and come prepared!!  I actually turned the heat up today for them and I had on short sleeves!!

 

Tomorrow they will be back and we will be working on Christmas Organizers.  I'll post the finished product. 

Sharon

Whew am I tired! Marianne, "Girlfriend" (her friend, Sharon) & I spent ALL day at the Southern Living Christmas Show today. It is a tradition with Marianne to attend the Christmas show every year. She used to take our Mom, but she is just not able for us to drag her around that place. She wants to stop in every booth and "touch & feel"!! We arrived at the Merchandise Mart at 10 a.m. and left around 5!! Boy, do my feet hurt - that darned old plantar fascitis is acting up again and that concrete floor did not help it! But, I got a few items toward Christmas - a few things for Ashley and my grandkids. I got Jayce a book that will be written with his name in the book - all about animals. Can't wait to see it - they were out of it at the show and will mail it to me.

Speaking of Jayce, Darcie had the funniest story on her blog this week. It seems whenever Jeff goes out of town, something seems to happen to her. They live in Tucson so it usually has something to do with the animals in their area. This time, she was jogging with Jayce in his jogger stroller & he spotted a snake. Turns out, it was a baby rattler ... fortunately, a dead one. But, Darcie thought if theirs a baby, there's probably a mama around somewhere close. Later in the day, she was returning from taking Cassidy to school on one of the desert backroads she has to take & a "cat-like" creature crossed in front of her car. She stopped and saw it staring back at her in the woods (or I guess there it's the cactus!). She thought it might be a bobcat. When she got home, she googled it and it didn't look like a bobcat, so she googled another animal, and guess what it was!! A baby Mountain Lion!!! Seems she's always telling Jeff she's afraid to jog in the morning alone in case a mountain lion gets her and he laughs at her and tells her they don't have mountain lions in their neighborhood, but she better watch out because the sky might fall on her. Guess who's having the last laugh this weekend????

Tomorrow, I need to finish up the Calendars I'm making for the gals for Thanksgiving - 3 down & 5 to go!! And next week, Marianne & Sharon will be coming over for Cardmaking 101 so I have to come up with a few projects for them. PLUS .... get working on my Thanksgiving placecards & napking rings, PLUS my menu & grocery shopping.

Have a wonderful weekend!

These cute little boxes are easy to make. Here's the pattern to make the box. Wouldn't they be cute with some little Christmas candy in them? What are you waiting for? Get busy - select your paper - cut out your pattern!!!

Christmas Cards, Part 3

Well, I had my Christmas Card class tonight and I think it was a big hit to the ones who were there.  I had 3 "no shows" - they just don't know what they missed!!  But, I still had a good manageable crowd - about 12 gals and only 1 "newbie" stamper.  My sister took her under her wing and helped her with her cards.  Thanks Marianne!! 

Here's a couple more of the cards we worked on.

 

This one was just not a hit!  I don't think anyone did this card and I like it because it is different.  Judy helped me clean up and commented on it at the time, saying it was really cute in person.  The "pot" is made with punches (square and word window) and I used the star punches for the tree.

 

 

 

 

Believe it or not, but I got this reindeer stamp on Saturday at Michael's in their Dollar Bin!  I liked the reindeer in the SU set, Winter Post, but just wasn't sold on the whole set.  So, when I saw this little stamp, I grabbed it!  It had "Bliss" on the stamp also, but I used my Exacto Knife and cut the word off and put it on the side of the stamp. 

I used the scallop punch for the silver paper and the Curly Label Punch for "Merry Christmas"

Enjoy!

Sharon

More Christmas Cards

My Christmas Card workshop is tonight and so far, my count is for 14 ladies!!  Woo Hoo!! 

Here's a couple more of the cards we are going to be making.

 

This card uses Season of Friendship from the Holiday Mini.  The darker tree is embossed with Copper Embossing powder.  "Merry Christmas" is a rub-on (on sale!!) and the designer paper is from Ski Slope in the mini.

 

 

 

 

 

I think this may be my favorite!!  This card also uses the Ski Slope designer paper.  I used my Top Note die for the white & Baja Breeze piece and embossed the saying in the corner.  I punched out a Sizzix snowflake and put a crystal in the center.  The ribbon is some I found in my stash and I used a little gold cording to gather the ribbon in the center & wrap around the ribbon also.

Sharon

Let's Make Some Christmas Cards!

I've been busy all day getting ready for my Christmas Card Class I am having for my neighborhood on Tuesday night.  Are you coming? Whaddya mean you don't want to hop on a plane, fly hundreds (if not thousands) of miles, rent a car, get a hotel room, just to come?  Oh, well...I know you can't all make it, but a girl can try, can't she? 

I've made 10 different cards to pick from and I'll be posting them this week for you to drool over!  I'll even give you directions if you want to make some of them on your own.  The gals will be making 7 cards out of the 10 so I've tried to do some different things.  It's always so hard to decide!  I've done a lot of the stamping and cut everything out since I don't know what level some of the ladies are on with Creativity!!  Better to make it easy than to spend the night at the Clubhouse!!

This first card I'm sharing with you is actually using retired colors and paper with the little Christmas tree from Punch Pals.  The circle actually swings free (just a glue dot right below the knot so it can be used as a little Christmas ornament for the receiver!  Cute, huh?  I used my Nestabilities to cut the Cranberry circle; my Scallop punch for the green circle; and my 1 3/8" punch for the River Rock (tree) circle.  The holly leaves are actually one of my clear stamps.

 

Sharon