Thanksgiving Rock Turkey Craft

I love setting the Thanksgiving table. One of my favorite things at the Thanksgiving table, besides you know the food, is a really cute name place card. This year, I made really cute Rock Turkey name place cards for the kids Thanksgiving table.

 

There were so easy and fun to make.  This is also a pretty kid friendly craft.

 

All you need is: rocks brown paint felt google eyes hot glue I started by spray painting all my rocks brown.

 

I cut out feather shaped pieces of felt in orange, red, turquoise, and yellow. I also cut out tiny beak shaped triangles.

 

Then hot glue the google eyes and the beak onto the rock.

 

Glue a yellow, turquoise, red, and orange feather together in a fan pattern.

 

Put a large circle of hot glue at the base of the feather fan and firmly press the rock onto the glue.

 

Let the glue dry to make sure it sets. You can be done here, or you can add a name tag to make it a place setting for the kids' Thanksgiving table. To add the name tag, just print off the name on a piece of card stock and cut into strips.

 

Set the Rock Turkey name card on top of a stack of cute patterned paper plates. This makes a place setting any kid will LOVE.

 

Napoleon Dynamite Halloween Costume

Best. Costume. Ever.

Also, I didn't sew one thing. Not a one.

In fact, all I did (besides gather and buy) was cut out and iron on the "vote for pedro" onto a ringer tee.

I found the t-shirt and the moon boot shoe covers on Amazon. I used Expressions Vinyl and my Silhouette to cut out the words.

I found the wig and the glasses at our local Zurchers party store. Aren't they pretty much perfect?!

We threw it all together with a pair of jeans and this boy's best Napoleon Dynamite face. 

Perfection, and by far the easiest costume I have put together. Woot!

The Best Cornbread

I am not feeling very chatty today. I am running low on sleep and patience. We have a sick kiddo in the house and while he might be responsible for the lack of sleep, it is the other Little Men who are responsible for the lack of patience.

Man, it isn't even Halloween yet either. They really haven't had any sweets yet, so I am trying to figure out why they are being so very special right now. There is lots of crying, whining, and complaining.

You know that moment when you are being bellowed at from multiple children all yelling "MOM!" and everyone thinks there catastrophe it by far the most important? That is what it is like around here today.

I kind of want to yell "MOM" back and see what happens. I am pretty sure it will just add one more voice to the chorus. It might make me feel better though.

A couple of wees ago, I made this, what I am deeming The BEST Cornbread, to go with our Potato Cheddar Sausage Soup. I am really wishing it was yesterday so that I could have a big old slice slathered with butter.

I feel like cornbread right now. Well I feel like any good and therapeutic chunk of warm carbohydrate. Bread fixes everything. Well, I guess unless you are gluten intolerant and then it is the problem.

But for me bread fixes everything.

And I could sure use some today.

I highly recommend trying this cornbread out. The reason I dubbed it "THE BEST" is because I have tried tons of cornbread recipes out over our 14 years of marriage. I always come away with an "eh". I never hate them, but I never love them enough to use the same recipe again.

The search has ended. This is the bread. I will use this cornbread forevermore. It is that good. Hence the me wanting it to fix my bad day.

So if you love bread or are having a rough day or are having a good day or are having soup or chili or tacos, you should probably make this cornbread too. (PS I know that sentence was grammatically the worst)

Here is to better days full of less whining, from both the kids and me!

Ninja Halloween Costume

Here is our family Ninja. This costume came about for one reason and one reason only. He wanted two swords. Ninja swords to be exact.

Once it was decided he could be a ninja and have two swords, he also decided that it was important that he wear all black.

I made an executive decision to put on this gold dragon. Turns out he was okay with wearing all black with just a touch of gold. Whew.

I drafted and made this costume up with no pattern. I used three different types of fabric. I used a knit, a sweatshirt jersey, and a rayon satin. I used the sweatshirt for the shirt and the pants. I used the knit for the mask. The satin was the sheath.

This ninja is pretty happy with his new threads. He was all ready for some ninjaing. That is totally a word by the way.

He has already taken his costume for a test run and it kept him fairly warm and got him lots of candy. Win. Win. The last costume of 2015 will be up tomorrow. So exciting.

Halloween Straw Banners

Halloween is in four days. Want a fun and easy Halloween project?

Slap some vinyl on a mason jar, of course in a jack-o-lantern style. Pour a little orange drink into said jar. For an extra bit of fun add a paper straw topped with this really cute and simple BOO banner.

Seriously the only work of this whole thing was cutting out the banner and gluing it onto the straw, and let's be honest that wasn't really work.

Our special orange drink was a half and half combination of mango Powerade and Fresca. I was told it was the best drink ever.

After you carve that last pumpkin and glue the last part of the last costume, you can put this little Halloween drink together. First download the Halloween Straw Banners HERE

Then add it to a straw to an orange drink and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!