Power tools

As I have spent the past two days in the kitchen preparing for Thanksgiving and a little get together scheduled for next week, I look at my two favorite "power tools" of the kitchen. My good ol' standby is the Kitchenaid mixer that is approaching it's 12th year of life. I love this mixer because it has the power to make loads and loads of decorator icing and I don't have to babysit it as it can go on forever by itself. My other jewel is the Cusinart food processor which replaced my Hamilton Beach one about five years ago. Talk about chopping, blending or slicing in just seconds. It literally takes longer to wash the thing than it does to perform the functions that I need it to do.

Today we kicked out two pumpkin pies (yes Tami, it's a Pillsbury crust :), a sour cream chocolate cake (which I called a 10 bowl recipe...the #of bowls that you dirty in making it) and a pumpkin cheesecake. All these goodies need tomorrow is some whip cream for the cheesecake and pie and some chocolate shavings for the choc cake. Don't worry, I am taking a broccoli casserole tomorrow too!

Yesterday was the pumpkin bread which is over half gone. Although it is low fat (only 140 calories per slice) made with yogurt and whole wheat flour, I suspect that my hips may show who has been sneaking a bite here and there when passing through the kitchen! No really, I did give one loaf to my neighbor as she has thirteen family members staying with her for four days and could probably use the viddles!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends that are spending today cooking and cleaning for company in their homes tomorrow. May you take a few moments to see what you are thankful for! I am thankful for you!

Ozark Christmas Parade

Last Saturday was the Ozark Annual Christmas Parade. Nikki was a candidate and got to ride in the parade. Isn't she gorgeous?

Clarissa made her headband, did her hair and makeup. You could say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in the creative department but not the hair and makeup. She got that from???

After a stressful time getting there in traffic we were able to get these shots of our candidate and then we walked down to the beginning of the parade and enjoyed the show. Does this mean that Christmas is near? Somebody please wake me up as I missed the summer!

Lakeside scrapping with friends.

The drive is beautiful, the weather was amazing and the company...undescribably wonderful. It was a weekend of scrapping with my November (we make believe it's February for Julie :) birthday friends at Suz's cabin on the lake. BTW, happy birthday to our sweet Lexi who just turned...well, you will have to just guess on that one unless she wants to tell! You know how we women are about telling our age! We ate lots of great food, drank different concoctions of hot and cold coffee, watch movies, listen to Christmas music, visited and slept very little. Why is it that I can stay up so late to scrap? Suz is the BESTEST hostest ever!

Alot of pages/projects came out of that cabin last night as we forced ourselves to pack and make the mass exodus back to our families 1 1/2 hours away. I had fun just doing some pages of my favorite pics, started a felt owl that I want to put on canvas and wound down with putting letters and Christmas papers behind glass blobs that will be receiving some magnets on them very soon. So looking forward to the next time that we can get together.

Take time to remember

I finally visited a local paper company's blog (Nikki Sivils) to view her new line of paper for Christmas. She was suggested by a very talented friend of mine who loves her papers.

Nikki had a challenge on her blog to create a page using her papers. Here is my feeble, rushed and trying to pack for a weekend of scrapping attempt!

A day too late!

My sweet father in law came for a visit last weekend. He usually has what he calls bagels and I call cinnamon rolls from our local grocery store. This time I had big plans to make him some myself! The weekend simply got away from me as our church hosted a Fresh Grounded Faith conference that I attended.

So, last night I finally got them done. Problem is he left for home in CA yesterday morning! Too bad because they are sooooo good!

Dressing my serger.

My serger finally got her matching dressing just like her sister, the sewing machine. I finally got to sew her final seams today after I put away the costumes for good...hopefully! I appliqued some felted wool pieces to the background fabric with a blanket stitch of DMC thread. I love this technique. I have the bug to make some more penny rugs now.

Not finished yet!

I went to practice last night to view the costumes and take a few pictures for a contest that I am entering. Picked up a few more projects to sew/finish so fire up the sewing machine!

Just a few sneak peaks at some of the costumes. Sorry for the blurry shots! I am going to Tuesday nights dress rehearsal complete with lighting and curtains down for the final shots.

It's going to be a really good show. These kids have amazing voices! I didn't realize how fast they have to change costumes and sets. I would be in pure panic if it were me!

How do you say FINISHED...I think!

Today I put the last sashes, head coverings and hats together for the play. I THINK that I am all done. It felt so good to pack up the left over material, thread box and misc stuff so that it can go back to the costume warehouse at school. My sewing room and our bar area are once again ours!

Here is a shot of what supplies I used to make the little hats with the rims. They didn't turn out as deep as I would have liked but they are cute, huh? My favorite is the barrel hats. I did notice when I was carrying them up that I orginally meant for the gold trim to be on the top of the hat. That is my signature on most of the things that I turn out of my sewing area. Almost everything has an "oh well" moment.

Tomorrow is the test drive for the costumes and the cast potluck dinner. I'll post a sneak peak of all the costumes then. How do you say relief?

Scrappin' in Washington.

It's been almost three weeks since I have returned from visiting my BFF in Washington State and I just got around to unpacking some of the scrapbooking stash that I took to work on. I recovered these two layouts to ad some sewing on them as I had brown thread in the machine while I was finishing up a brown vest for the play.

It's amazing what you can throw together with just a pizza box full of papers and embellies! We did have a guest teacher show us how to make the darling flower that I put up in the right hand corner of Maci's, our Parson Russell doggy, layout. I ended up taking advantage of the punches that she brought to make several flowers to use later.

Remember my new friend who lives in the stone house? I did these pages at her place. Must have been where the creative juices came from! Tami, I miss you and the fun we had at your house!

We're golfing in November! Only in Missouri!

One day is rainy and drab and the next is sunny and warm. This only happens in Missouri. The ol' saying goes, " If you don't like today's weather, just wait until tomorrow".

Hubby took me golfing today and thank heavens it was the sunny day and not the rainy one. The trees are losing most of their leaves but several hard maples were still sporting their beautiful veil of brilliant yellow, oranges and reds. Ahhh, I love the colors in the trees and will miss them until the bright green of spring.

All the things that make an afternoon of golfing in summer weather perfect are: stainless water bottle filled with iced tea, iced water from the clubhouse, orange golf balls are alot easier to spot in the leaves, orange tees to match the orange ball, Blackberry to entertain myself while in between holes and last but not least....some chocolate! Hubby laughs because I also keep lip gloss in my bag and I put it on periodically (when I have licked mine off from stress) during our 18 holes. I say that if you aren't good at golf, you might as well look good! Hope that we can catch a few more days like this before ol' man winter clamps down on us. Yes, this is what unemployment looks like!

Turning the big 90! Gma is Queen for a day.

Today we celebrated my step-Gma's 90th birthday at her church. She looks so pretty! She said that she felt as if she were a Queen which is just how we wanted her to feel.

Sandy, Norma and I got together yesterday to make the table decorations. Sandy might have a few blisters from cutting the tops off of ten pumpkins...one of which she thought was almost petrified! I volunteered to make the cake because I had envisioned a three tiered cake from the start. Clarissa helped my design and she decorated the top tier.

The day went fast with all the family and friends coming and going. I think that Gma really had a good time today and I am really glad as....This Woman Deserved A Party! She asked me today if I thought that she would make it to 100 and I said, "You Betcha".