Pumpkin Waffles

With a leftover can of pumpkin puree I was able to spice up my Saturday morning waffles and boy were they tasty! I used Aunt Jemima pancake/waffle mix and made a batch according to the directions. After that I added in about 1/2 a can of pumpkin puree, a tablespoon or so of cinnamon, and about a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Mix it all together and you're good to go. The aroma of the cinnamon and brown sugar was so amazing. After the waffles were done I topped them with some leftover cranberry relish and they were good to go.

{Then I had a little too much fun editing the photo with the PictureShow iPhone app}

Enjoy!
Julia

Holiday Crafting

All the blogs I've been looking at have some great holiday craft ideas, but this tutorial for felt ornaments from MADE is one of the only ones I've had time to try yet. It's simple, quick, and cheap. All the things we need in our life right now!

Here are the ornaments I've made so far.

K for my friend Katie and M for her cute pooch Mason.

All you need for the project is felt, embroidery floss, hot glue gun, thin ribbon, and some batting. -Cut two circles out of the felt.
-Cut out your letter and glue onto one circle.
-Sew a loop of ribbon onto the other circle of felt so that you can hang the ornament.
-Start sewing both circles together. Sew around 3/4 of the way, stuff the ornament and finish sewing the circle closed.

Easy as pie!

Julia

Thanksgiving Dinner

Oh man, I am still full from Thanksgiving dinner! Cooking for everyone wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Things ran pretty smoothly...nothing was burned, the food was hot, and it was all super tasty!

The table set with my regular dishes and some really cool, vintage glasses from my great grandfathers general store.

Fresh cranberries cooking down with sugar and the juice from two, fresh squeezed oranges. So simple and tasty and way better than anything canned. The fresh, tart taste was a great compliment to the heavy flavors of all the other dishes. And...while the cranberries were cooking down I could hear them pop open in the pot. :)

Caramelized onions for the stuffing. Mixed with chunks of Italian bread, fresh chives, and thyme. I forgot to take pictures of the other main dishes, but take my word that they were tasty. My 10 year old brother-cousin ate a few brussel sprouts, scarfed down turkey, stuffing, and rice, tried the sweet potato casserole {which he loved}, and then proclaimed that it was the best Thanksgiving ever {yay!} ... and he said all that before dessert!

Speaking of dessert...flourless, chocolate cake...mmmmmm. So tasty with a scoop of homemade whip cream, but soooo not good for you at all. I won't tell you how many sticks of butter are in the whole cake. Trust me, you don't want to know {but if you insist, here is the recipe}.

I hope you all had a lovely dinner with your friends and family. My day was quite relaxing and calm, even with all the cooking. I enjoyed spending the day with part of my family, missed the rest, but am thankful that I have them in my life.

Julia

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've got a lot of cooking to do today and tomorrow! I'm staying in town this year and having my dad, stepmom, stepmom's mom, cousin-brother, and baby brothers over for Thanksgiving dinner. It's my first time cooking the whole meal by myself, but I'm super excited about it! Here's the menu...which had to encompass vegetarians, meat eaters, and gluten free diets. That's a lot to think about for one meal!

Tofurky - no, it does not taste like turkey, but it does taste good in a fake meat way...
carmelized onion and herb stuffing {find it here}
roasted brussel sprouts
sweet potato casserole with gluten free cornflake and pecan topping
wild rice
cranberry relish
flourless chocolate cake {find it here}
cherry pie
vanilla ice cream with cranberry compote {find it here}

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Enjoy your day with family and friends!

Julia

4th of July fun

Yes, I do realize it's about a week after the 4th...but I still had to show you the apron I made that was "4th of July" themed. I found this fabric in my mom's huge stash and thought I could make something fun with it. The apron pattern I used is from One-Yard Wonders which is my favorite new tutorial/project book.

Can you see the upside down 1176 and little George Washingtons? Hahaha. Too funny.

I also made a little pouch with the same fabric and some red jersey from an old t-shirt. I still have a bunch of the fabric left...maybe I'll save it for next year and make a 4th of July outfit...

Another thing I love about seeing family over holidays is little cousins that will play with your hair...

and keep playing with your hair...

and are still playing with your hair 20 minutes later...

She's such a cutie...and it's so nice to have your hair brushed and played with for half an hour. :)

Night,
Julia

Things I loved about the weekend...

1. Snow - so pretty! Here's the little snowman I made. He was about 10 inches tall and melted by the next morning. Oh well!
2. Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from 3 Wishes Bakery. Sooo tasty!

3. Spending some quality time with my roomies in the snow and watching movies in our nice, warm living room.

4. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I've really been into young adult literature lately and this movie was a good adaptation from the book by Rick Riordan. Enjoyable if you haven't read the books and close enough to the book for those that have read it.

5. Brunch at Sun in My Belly. French toast with bananas foster. Tasty, tasty. AND with the Scoutmob app for my iphone our meal was 40% off. Have you checked out Scoutmob yet?? It's great! My BF and I see no reason in going anywhere without a Scoutmob deal.


Hope you had a lovely weekend. Happy Valentine's Day!

J Squirrel

It's Christmas time...

My roommates and I got a Christmas tree! We're such grownups now. We got him from a the First Christian Church in Decatur. They won out because they advertised FREE delivery for people in Decatur. We like free and we really like not getting pine needles and sap in/all over our car (we got a little heated talking about whose car the tree was going in...).

Isn't he so pretty?! We haven't named him (or did we...Allie, Jane??), but we definitely know that the tree is a he and that he will not listen to us and stand up straight! Here he is all decorated.
Can you tell he kind of leans? Oh well.

Next on the schedule is making wreaths and garland out of leftover branches that Lowe's will give you for free. Wish us luck!

Night,
J Squirrel

Family

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got to visit with all sorts of people you love -or at least can stand. :) I was up in North Carolina stuffing my face with sweet potato casserole, tofurky (fake turkey), stuffing, squash casserole, homemade bread, cranberry sauce and all sorts of other yumminess. Mmmmm....

We've started a new tradition on my dad's side of the family called "cousin bowl". Anyone that is in town and "agile enough" gets roped/teased/talked into playing football/baseball/basketball/etc. with the very young, competitive cousins that need to get their excess energy out. This year, my Uncle surprised us with t-shirts for cousin bowl since everyone was in town. When everyone is in town we really can field our own football team - all 28 of us.
We all escaped with minor bruises, scrapes, and pulled muscles. A few tears were shed in the heat of the battle, but soon after our tailgating lunch was set up, all was forgotten...

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We'd love to hear about any family traditions you have during the holidays (or non-holidays).

Until then,
J Squirrel