Give Thanks

I did the Thanksgiving fireplace decorations last week. I'm mostly happy with the way it turned out. It feels a little too birthday bannerish to me (Happy Birthday, Joe! Congrats, Sue!), but not so much that wouldn't leave it up.

You can see my previous post for the details on this little fireplace project.

Here's a close up:

BOO!

We've been trying to figure out what to hang over our fireplace since we moved in this summer. We wanted something big enough to fill the space, but we didn't really know what. We definitely knew that we didn't want to spend a lot of money. Then one day we were sitting on the couch staring at the blank wall and this idea came to us. We hung three pieces of wire parallel to the mantle and then put mini binder clips along it. Now we can change the decorations with the seasons/holidays or whenever we get bored with what's up there.

This is my first attempt at decorating it. The BOO ghosts came The Long Thread. I've been meaning to add more bats, but never got around to it. I took pictures anyway because I really like the concept and with Halloween so close I don't think I'm going to finish it. I'm already trying to think of something for Thanksgiving. Any ideas, Internets?

Frosted Pumpkin Cookies

Yum! I needed some pumpkin to make some pumpkin granola a couple of days ago. Fresh and Easy only had a big sized can and it turns out that the pumpkin granola only had a couple of tablespoons of pumpkin. I had a lot of pumpkin leftover. So I went to my bookmarks and found these Pumpkin Cookies with Frosting. I had bookmarked them a few weeks back after seeing some frosted pumpkin cookies at the grocery store (that reminded me of those sinfully fabulous Lofthouse cookies) and going home to immediately find a recipe. And these taste just about as good as I had hoped. They are sort of like little, soft, frosted cakes. I don't think I baked all of mine long enough, though, so be careful about underestimating bake time.

Amy Butler Apron

I made my first apron and I am just pleased as punch with it. The pattern is from the Amy Butler book In Stitches. It went together pretty quickly, even for me and I am a very slow seamstress. I might have to make a few more of these.

If my friend Amber...

If my friend Amber ever asks you to babysit I highly recommend that you do so. Because she might surprise you with adorable goodies like this! She made us an adorable Halloween cookie mix that was almost too cute to bake.

Almost.

The Third Twin

Do you remember the letter applique shirts that we made for Morgan and Taylor's birthday? Well Abby does and she keeps reminding me that she is Morgan and Taylor's twin too. So I finally made her a shirt of her own.

The Lone Survivor

I did a little entertaining this week and needed something sweet. I'm tired of making the usual cookies and brownies lately, so I was pretty excited when I came across this recipe. It was pretty easy to make and was well received. I think it tasted like a Whatchamacallit candy bar (remember those?). The one problem I found was figuring out at what temperature it was meant to be served. When I served it cold the marshmallows were too hard, but when I let it come to room temperature the top layer got too soft. I think next time I might try using something like marshmallow fluff for the marshmallow layer. If anyone tries it and has good results let me know.

The recipe can be found here at Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats.