Thanksgiving Sour Cream Packets

I came across the cutest craft on the internet for making Christmas sour cream packets and filling them with candy.  Loved this idea so I thought I would make some Thanksgiving packets, fill them with candy corn and give them to family, friends, my husbands co-workers, and the ladies I visit teach.

I made a little over fifty of them.  Once I got in the groove of printing, cutting out and putting them together, it was actually quite fun.  Instead of using glue, I used a double-sided, permanent tape runner, making the process pretty easy. 

To assemble, you run a strip of tape, on the back side of your pattern, down both long sides and on one short end.  To do my taping, I got an old magazine to lay my pattern on then ran my tape strips.  By doing it this way, it didn’t matter if I ran over the edges a bit and after making a few, I just turned to a clean page and glued a few more.

After placing your tape, you need to roll the short ends together, so it kind of resembles a toilet paper roll.

Now mash the ends together, starting on the end with the feet.  After mashing the feet end flat, put in your treats of choice and then mash the other end in the opposite direction, making it look like a sour cream packet….like the kind you get at fast food restaurants.  That’s it…………..all done.  Easy and a fun gift to give!
  

Praline Crack

I found this recipe for Praline Crack from THIS SITE (Cookies & Cups).  She called it Praline Crack because she said it is so addicting.  I made some last evening and if you want a fattening sugar rush, then this recipe is for you.  All it contains is graham crackers, butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, and nuts.  A lot of butter and brown sugar, really.  Now you know why she said it is so addicting.  I am sitting here, right now, eating a piece as I type.  Yummy.  It is a super easy recipe and takes very little time to make.  You just line a cookie sheet with graham crackers, make the buttery sugar sauce, pour it over the top of the grahams, sprinkle with nuts, bake for 10-12 minutes and you’re done.  That’s it.  Enjoy!  I put the recipe below, but you really should go to her site and look at the step-by-step pictures, showing you how to make it.  Her pictures are great.  A lady added a comment to her blog stating that she even topped it with chocolate chips when it came out of the oven.  Another lady said she puts crisp, crumbled bacon on the graham crackers before adding the buttery sugar sauce.  Mmm, mmm, mmmmm.

Beaver Dam On Houston Road

Three, maybe four weeks ago as I was traveling along Houston Road near the bridge, I looked to see if I could see a beaver dam in the river.  I’m not sure who told me about it but at that time, there wasn’t much to see.  Today as I was heading home, I remembered the dam and decided to go and take another look.  My goodness, someone has been a Busy Beaver.  The dam was all across the river.  It’s amazing how these little animals can block off water.  How do they get the first stick and every other stick solid enough to hold back the water while they continue to work on their dam.  AMAZING!  Wikipedia (the Free Encyclopedia) states this about the beaver: Beavers build dams to provide ponds as protection against predators such as coyotes, wolves, and bears, and to provide easy access to food during winter. These structures modify the natural environment in such a way that the overall ecosystem builds upon the change, making beavers a keystone species. Beavers work at night and are prolific builders, carrying mud and stones with their fore-paws and timber between their teeth.  To read more, GO HERE.

Pecked Pumpkin

For the month of October, I bought some cute little pumpkins to set out on the back steps.  And actually, pumpkins must be pretty hearty because they have not frozen, yet.  Anyways, back to the subject I was on…… I was looking at my pumpkins a few weeks back thinking how cute they looked adorning my back steps. 

Upon closer observation, I noticed that the pumpkin on the bottom step had a few marks on.  Then it happened……….a few days later, while standing at the kitchen window doing my dishes, I noticed a magpie hopping up to the steps.  He was caught, red-handed, pecking at my little pumpkin.  It better not have been Gus.

Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving Entryway Decor

For my Fall decorations on my entryway desk, I added acorns and some nuts from one of our maple trees.  My brother gathered some acorns for me a few years back and I decided to paint them with clear fingernail polish to make them stand out a bit more.  There were a lot of the acorns that had worm holes (I’m guessing/hoping they were worm holes) in them and a big portion of the caps had fallen off so before giving them a clear coat of polish, I separated the ones with holes from the good ones and hot glued all the caps back on.

When my visiting teacher came this month, I had explained what I had done with the acorns and she said that the ones with holes in would add charm to my decorations.  So with that in mind, I decided to us the ones with holes in, too.  When I got the container of acorns, I noticed a bunch of brown stuff in the bottom.  It was coming from the holes in the acorns.  I shook one and more brown stuff came out so I decided while they were in the container I would shake them and get all the stuff out.  Well, I’m here to tell you that I think I shook the “Charm” right out of them.  I shook, shook and shook some more (45 minutes) trying to get rid of what I will call “Charm Dust”.  I’m sure there is more but I was just about shook out.

Look at the size of “Charm Dust” in comparison to the size of the acorn.  For sure, there was a whole lot of shaking going on!

Hoover House Halloween - 2014

On Halloween, the talk of the town is the Hoover house.  Mr. Hoover is a genius when it comes to Halloween.  He has this knack for making Bone Creatures.  I wanted to take pictures of their house because it is always decked out for Halloween.  I went past their home a few times on Halloween day to get pictures but Mr. Hoover was still working on his masterpiece so I thought I would just come back the following night.  Sad…………..the following day we had lots of wind and rain so Mr. Hoover didn’t have a lot of his Halloween stuff up but I did get pictures of what he did have.  Even without all the special effects, it was still amazing to see.  Some of it is pretty gruesome but it’s a big hit for the kids.  Be sure to scroll through all the pictures so you won’t miss the “Bone Creatures”.

 

Now comes the GENIUS part…..well, it’s actually all genius.  Take a look at the awesome bone creatures that Mr. Hoover makes.  AwEsOmE!

 

The following bone animal pictures were taken on Halloween day…

WOW, can you imagine the hours of thinking, creating pieces and constructing each one of these Bone Creatures.

Halloween 2014

We had two days of Halloween this year.  The reason being is that our girls had State Volleyball Tournaments and wouldn’t be home on Halloween night so they had the school Halloween carnival the following night – November 1st.  Halloween night was beautiful…you couldn’t have asked for a better night for the little Trick-or-Treaters.  Here are my usual decorations that I made and painted years ago and I put them up every year, with a few newer additions.  I only took a few pictures of Halloween decorations (most the ones posted were taken a few years back) cause………….well, I actually don’t really know why I didn’t take pictures this year. 

We rarely get Trick-or-Treaters but this year we actually had “FIVE” children come to our home.  I love seeing the children all dressed up.  Halloween is one of my most favorite times of the year.  Even though we don’t get many Trick-or-Treaters, I still have something on hand……just in case.  This year I made some Twix or Treat tags and taped them on a miniature Twix candy bar.  On the plus side, if we don’t have anyone show up, the hubs and I have treats for a few days.