Nov 25, 2014

Kid-Friendly Thanksgiving Table


This Kid-Friendly Thanksgiving table is bright and fun. I have never done a Thanksgiving Kid Table before. I had so much fun putting this table together.

The colors all coordinate from the fantastic paper products to the turkey banner to the turkey centerpiece. All of the little details are cute but perfectly functional for little rowdy hands.



The center of the table is brown craft wrapping paper. Totally fun and forgiving if it gets a wee bit messy. The place mats are these fun activity sheets.


Since we have brown craft paper and activity place mats, there had to be crayons. Then the crayons had to had there own little white pails.


The paper products are wackadoodle amazing. Who says paper products have to be boring? Not this girl. I chose coordinating colors in a variety of solids and prints. Pattern matching is kind of my favorite thing to do.





Setting every so cheerfully on top of those fabulous paper products is the cutest rock turkey name setting.


Since it is Thanksgiving and we are talking about the kid table, there has to be more turkeys. Including this amazing turkey pinata that I used as a centerpiece.




I also painted some small pumpkins to sit by the turkey.



I also strung up my paint chip Turkey Banner and a cute string of felt leaves.


My favorite part is our family's grateful paper chain. I cut so very many strips of paper strips. SO VERY MANY. Then on each strip we wrote things that we are grateful for.


I loved reading through the things that they wrote. 


I hung up the giant grateful paper chain right above the table. 


Now all that we need is for Thanksgiving to get here and for the turkey to be cooked and dished out. I am so excited for our family Thanksgiving this year.


paper products: Zurchers 
straws, place mats: Target
turkey pinata: Zurchers

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Nov 18, 2014

Turkey Banner Decoration: Give Thanks Series


This Thanksgiving we are celebrating at home with just our sweet little family. Since there will be four kids and only two adults, I am going for a little more kid-friendly Thanksgiving dinner experience.

Our Thanksgiving decorations include the Turkey Rock Place Settings that I shared early this month on Thirty Handmade Days and this paint chip card Turkey Banner Decoration that I am sharing today on Whatever Dee-Dee Wants as part of her Give Thanks Series.

This is a new sew project. These also might just be the cutest little turkeys ever.


Head on over today to the Give Thanks Series and see how I put these cute little turkeys together.

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Nov 16, 2014

Playing in the Snow: A Glimpse of Us


The snow has arrived. The weather is pretty chilly. However, I am not sure you are going to hear any complaints from our crazy crew.

While I still rather dislike being cold, these boys we are raising are going to be full blown winter loving kids.

I mean, seriously?! This kid is laying face down in the snow. FACE DOWN!



They all just bundled up and stayed out there for awhile. Only to be joined by me for a quick photo session.



Even Bean got in on the action. This is the first year he is really big enough to go out there with just brother supervision. He loved it. We had to bribe him with hot cocoa to get him to come in. We pretty much had to bribe all of them with hot cocoa.




Pretty sure this snow shovel is three times his size. That didn't stop him from pushing it around the yard.
 

When they all came in with rosy cheeks and cold noses, they shed all of their winter gear into a giant heap on my kitchen floor. I stood their looking back and forth between the huge mess on my floor and their happy faces. I decided, who the heck cares about the mess. These kids are creating some pretty amazing memories. Memories of time together.

Memories of growing up where it snows.


As a momma, I couldn't ask for more than that.


Nov 15, 2014

Potato Corn Chowder: Slow Cooker Saturday


Welcome to the long awaited revival of Slow Cooker Saturday. I have been meaning to bring it back for months and months and months, but obviously I couldn't get my act together.

However, I knew when I made this warm your belly Slow Cooker Potato Corn Chowder I had to bring Slow Cooker Saturday back to life.

This chowder is completely family friendly. All my boys devoured it. The heaping serving of bacon thrown on top of the soup probably helped their love a little bit. Just a little bit. Oh bacon. On Instagram (you know you want to follow along @larissa_anotherday) I referred to this as bacon with a side of soup. Ha. That is how we do things around here.

This soup is easy to throw together and is altogether so very yummy on a cold day.


You will not be sad you made this soup.

Okay, now to the recipe.

First, I am trying something new with how I get recipes to you. Since I am still in the dark ages and still use blogger I do not have access to a recipe widget that will make printing recipes easier for you. I am fully aware that makes getting recipes from my site more than a little annoying. So until I make the big girl step to switch over to Wordpress and to actually install a .com, I have come up with a format allowing you, the reader, to have a print friendly recipe.

I am going to offer the recipe in a jpg and pdf form. So you can either right click on the photo of the recipe and save it OR you can click the PDF link. The choice is yours. Either way, you will have a printable recipe.

Hope that makes life a little easier. Let me know what you think. LOVE YA.


Get printable recipe HERE

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Nov 14, 2014

YW 2015 Theme Printable


Every year the youth program for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assigns a scriptural theme for the year. The theme is encouraged to be incorporated in each young man and young woman's life.

The Youth Theme for 2015 is "O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve Him with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day." -Doctrine & Covenants 4:2

I serve with the Young Women at church and I thought it would be fun to create a few free printables of the YW 2015 Theme. This theme is not specific to just Mormons, this motto of serving God is a great moral commitment to have for anyone who is devoted to a life of serving our Heavenly Father.

I made three different color versions of the same design. There is a turquoise, coral, and mint version of the printable. To save your own copy, simply right click on the image and save to your computer as a JPEG.



I hope you enjoy and that the message resonates with you, like it does me.

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Nov 13, 2014

Harvest Fruit Salad: Thanksgiving Side Dish


This is one of my favorite Fall fruit salads. In fact, I just made it for Middle's Woodland Theme Baptism Luncheon. This also makes a great side dish on Thanksgiving, because let's face it one of the hardest things about Thanksgiving dinner is deciding what sides to make. I mean we all know the main players. That is a no brainer.

Turkey-Check.
Potatoes-Check.
Gravy-Check.
Rolls-Check.
Pie-Check.

But alas, what to do with the other sides. There are so many to choose from. How does one narrow down what to make?

Well I am gonna help you at least narrow down one. This salad is nice to have on the Thanksgiving table. It pairs up great with my favorite Spinach Apple Salad.

This Harvest Fruit Salad is a great addition to Thanksgiving dinner.

Harvest Fruit Salad

6 cups diced apples
2 cups halved red or black grapes
1 pomegranate, seeds only
1 cup walnut pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 water
1 Tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla

First prepare all the fruit.



Aren't pomegranate seeds gloriously lovely??


Place all of the fruit into a large bowl.

Now make the sauce.

Combine the sugar, flour, and water in a saucepan. Heat over medium high heat until it boil lightly and starts to thicken. When it thickens, remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.


Let it cool for about 5 minutes. Then pour it over the fruit and evenly coat.


Then stir in the walnuts.


With everything all mixed and pretty all you need to do is serve it up.


Now that will make your mouth happy and your Thanksgiving dinner complete.

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Nov 11, 2014

Woodland Theme Baptism Luncheon


We just threw this Woodland Theme Baptism Luncheon for Middle. The decorations were simple and easy to pull together. There was wood, pine cones, burlap, and lots of hunter green (my new favorite color for Fall and Winter).


The menu for the luncheon was full of yummy Fall inspired food.

The Menu:

Harvest Fruit Salad
Apple Cider
Apple Juice Boxes









One of my favorite decorations at the luncheon was this giant photo number eight.


I cut a number 8 out of foam board. Then I wrapped it in burlap strips. Then I hot-glued down square photos of Middle. I printed out these square photos at Walmart. Did you know they do that now? Well they do. The process was super easy and I had them in just over an hour. Woohoo.


The Woodland Theme Baptism Luncheon all came together perfectly because it all came together easily and that is always a good thing.


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