These Three Miracles: Getting Ready!

We've been doing a few things the last few days to get ready for Thanksgiving....

Dyeing noodles for Eli's preschool class to make necklaces!

Loving to SHAKE!!!!

Making a practice necklace at home!

Making these AWESOME pumpkin muffins my friend Amy makes. They are incredible! If you like pumpkin pie, you'll love these!

Pumpkin Butterscotch Muffins

1 ¾ cup flour, sifted ½ cup light brown sugar ½ cup sugar ½ tsp ginger

½ tsp mace (or pumpkin pie spice) 1 tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt 2 large eggs 1 c. canned pumpkin

1 stick butter, melted 1 cup butterscotch chips ½ c. chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350Ñ. Mix dry ingredients creating a well in middle of mixture. In another bowl, whisk together melted butter, eggs, and pumpkin. Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans. Pour into well of dry ingredients and fold together just until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over mix. Spoon batter evenly into greased muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.

Yum!

Ready to take to St. Louis - if they make it there!

It's a long trip with 5 people in a car who LOVE these muffins!!!!

Madeline's Thanksgiving feast at school! We LOVE Mrs. Puckett!

Fun with friends - we miss our sweet friend, Frances who is out of town right now!

Can't wait until she comes back!!!!

Elijah, Eli, Miss Alyson and Nate:

Pajama wearing, pizza eating Pilgrims for Pp!!!!

We learned Pilgrims did not have buckles on their hats - but fabric instead!

Last year, we made cranberry sauce for the first time. My friend Amy told me how to do this, too -- as you can see, she makes wonderful, delicious treats! She has taught me so much - not just about cooking! She is a great friend I am thankful to have!

Ok, so here we are making cranberry sauce. ... 1 cup orange juice, 1 cup sugar, one package of cranberries! EASY!!!!!!

Starting to pop. Not such dramatic pops this year... you can see them splitting.

Let it simmer for a while! Yum!

Our last thing to make is the apple pie - Madeline requested apple pie!

This was fun, but not without incident. Don't know why the step ladder is so much more appealing than a chair, but we had some time outs over it!

The contraption we are using is the Pampered Chef apple peeler, corer, slicer. I got this about 11 years ago and used to use it in my classroom when we made apple sauce and to make apple pie at home! It's awesome, but I think it's about worn out. This time, the peeler part didn't work quite so well!