The Holidays Right Around The Corner!

Yes I chose this picture for my kids. They love the Peanuts shows when they were little.

I can't believe it is this time of the year already. Thanksgiving just two weeks away. I am not ready for the Holidays yet.

I still have to do the shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year we went up north for the Thanksgiving. This year with me working we have to stay home because I can only get one Holiday off. So we are going to have are own Thanksgiving dinner at home this year. My older daughter has to work and my son may not be able to make it with my granddaughter. My boyfriends family will not be around either his parents are out of state and his sister is busy with her in-laws.

If I do have to work my boyfriend and my daughter are going to have to make sure that dinner gets done. I will have some of it done the day before so they will not have so much to do. I really like to make the homemade stuffing because it tastes a lot better then the stove top.

Then a month after Thanksgiving is Christmas. That means a lot of baking for me.

Between working and trying to make my Christmas Cookies and keeping the house clean it is going to be crazy for me this year. But it is always worth every minute to me to make my family happy. I did forget one more thing shopping for everyone's Christmas presents.

I will just have to take one day at a time to get this all done. Then when this is all done it is always worth it. Because I feel better when I am baking my Christmas Cookies. I have two taste testers for my cookies to make sure that they taste good that is my boyfriend and my daughter. Some of the cookies are not easy to make so I tell them to stay out of the kitchen when I am making them.

There is one thing I have never told anyone and I want to put it on here. That is I always miss one person every year for the Holidays and that is my dad. He loved this time of the year because of all the decorations to go and drive around and see. He has been gone for about fifteen years now. But for me when this time of the year comes around it is always the hardest for me. I was always closest to my dad and that is probably why it is still so hard for me and also why I decorate my house. I am trying to keep my dad with me for the Holiday.

I will see my kids for Christmas with all the rest of my family. Christmas Eve we will be with my boyfriends family and Christmas Day is with my family. This is all up north and a lot of driving to do but all worth it.

Halloween storage

Every year, prior to Halloween, I go down to the basement and try to locate my Halloween "stuff." It usually takes me awhile because of my disorganization. This year I decided I really needed to do better and I had a creative six-year-old for a helper.

Actually, he was kind of sad when I started taking down and putting away the Halloween decorations (Do we have to take down the spider web?) so I told him it just had to be done but we would put it in a storage box so we could keep it all together for next year and this seemed to cushion the blow.

After we had gathered everything, including his favorite huge spiders from Halloween City, I handed him the Sharpie and asked if he wanted to write his name on the box. I suggested he label it Eli's Halloween Stuff, which he did.

The next day I noticed that at some point he had embellished his work and added his brother's name as well. I never expected him to have so much fun with a storage box and a black Sharpie but this is a bit of artwork we will always cherish and next year I will know exactly where to look for Halloween decorations.

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This post was obtained from www.moneysavingmom.com. 
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The days have been so beautiful lately. Fall is really my favorite time of the year. My reasons vary, depending on the day and the weather, but one thing I really love about fall are the great pumpkin- and apple-flavored teas and products that are on the market, just for the season.

Above, my favorite tea company, The Republic of Tea always offers some hot and spicy tea flavors. One I picked up at a recent trip to World Market, Pumpkin Ginger Tea. The other, Hot Apple Cider Tea I think is a leftover. I only had a few bags but if they have this one, buy it, it IS even better than the Pumpkin Ginger Tea.

I also picked up this jar of Pumpkin Butter and I plan on making some pumpkin scones to serve with an all-pumpkin afternoon tea. I know the teas are great. I will have to let you know about the pumpkin butter. I can tell you I love the jar. I feel sure I will love the pumpkin butter.

Another favorite are Pumpkin Spice Lattes you can get at Starbuck's and at all our local coffee shops. It's just another thing to love about fall.

Then there's red and yellow leaves, acorns, fall gardening, apples, spice cake, tailgating ...

Bears Week #9

Yes the Bears Beat the Eagles 30 - 24. The first quarter I thought that the Bears were going to shut them out. But then the defense was not doing to good. The offense was on fire for the first quarter then somehow they lost it until the fourth quarter.

Cutler was on fire with his passes but the receivers just kept dropping them.

Then Forte went a year and a half with a fumble until last night. That I think was awesome going with a fumble for that long. But why did he have to fumble last night of all nights.

Urlacher was on fire last night too. The way he was slamming the Eagles offense down.

The Eagles lost two players first quarter.

I would really like to hear what you thought of the game last night. I thought is was a really good game.

Cute Turkey Cupcakes

Here is another idea for Thanksgiving cupcakes. This is a cute and sweet treat that every child (or child at heart) who saw these turkey cupcakes just loved it. And boy was it easy!

These cupcakes were made from Patty Gironda's Hummingbird Cupcake recipe from our latest issue of Newnan-Coweta Magazine (see the recipe, starting on page 40) but you can make any kind of cupcake you like. I used a butter cream icing, but Cream Cheese frosting will work. If using it for decorating, use only half the butter in the original recipe (1/4 cup butter rather than 1/2 cup). That way when you add the brown food coloring, the frosting will be a little thicker and will hold up better. I just mixed the brown food coloring until it was the color I liked.

You could always use a cocoa butter cream frosting recipe if you make chocolate cupcakes. Just tint the frosting brown or use chocolate frosting. For decorating purposes, the insides of the cupcakes really don't matter.

The turkey is really, really simple. Use a large icing bag -- at least 16 inches and a large tip coupler with a large star tip. Make large stars all over the tops of the cupcakes.

To make the head, nose and wings. Use two or three small (or mini) vanilla wafers and trim each wafer with kitchen shears until it is the perfect oval shape. The head is one wafer and the wings are each a half-wafer. You can save the "shavings" (which is what you will have) when you trim the cookies into the perfect shape for other recipes.

Some of the cookies broke and it took a couple of tries for me to create the perfect shape but after I made one of each, I got the hang of it.

The nose is a candy corn. I placed the large end of the candy corn underneath the edge of the head.

The wattle is a piece of strawberry fruit roll up, carefully cut with kitchen shears, or a sharp knife into a large teardrop shape. It was gently laid over the "beak" and part of the face.

I drew the eye on with a food coloring maker, but a mini chocolate chip could be pasted on with a tiny bit of frosting.

I put two rows of candy corn in the icing for the tail feathers. First I put five in the back row and then alternated with four pieces of candy corn on top.

I was very pleased and amazed that my turkey looked so good, using such common ingredients.

Perfect turkey for a Thanksgiving tray of cute cupcakes. I will have more cupcake decorating suggestions for you between now and Christmas.

Cupcakes!

We are so excited today because the new issue of Newnan-Coweta Magazine is now out and that means it is time to get ready for the holiday season. The adorable child on the cover, Alyssia Brantley, is holding some of the holiday cupcakes, featured in this issue.

Four local women, known for their baking skills sent us a favorite cupcake recipe to share and editor, Angela McRae and I, made the recipes with great success. The people in our office really enjoyed them!

Bob Fraley took some great photos for the magazine and Angela, a talented photographer with a good eye for design, took photos for me, including the photo at the top.

I invite you to pick up a copy of our magazine for the recipes, and I will be sharing some decorating tips for cupcakes here on my blog. The first tips will be for the fall cupcake, pictured above.

I used the recipe by Patty Gironda for Hummingbird Cupcakes and used her recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting. To decorate, I used a 16" pastry bag and a large tip coupler with a large star tip to frost the cupcakes. I iced them in a circular motion from the outside, finishing in the center and building the icing to a peak in the center. I then dusted the  cupcake with chopped pecans and sprinkled on sugar leaf decorations, then added two candy pumpkins on top. It was easy and didn't take but a few minutes to decorate each cupcake.

I used Wilton cake decorating supplies available at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and WalMart. The large bag, coupler and tips are very important when decorating cupcakes because if you want to give the cupcakes a "bakery" look you will need the big tips. It takes roughly twice the amount of icing when you use large tips but the finished product will have everyone oohing and aahing over the results.

The sugar leaves I found at Kroger in the baking section. This is a great recipe for fall and especially for Thanksgiving and the recipe is included in our November/December issue.

There are a number of other decorated cupcakes in that issue and I will be posting the how-to instructions for each one for the next couple of weeks, beginning with the Thanksgiving cupcakes.

For out-of-towners here is the link for the digital issue. The cupcake recipes begin on page 40.