Kickin' up leaves!

Here's some footage of my chickens foraging for grub in the fallen leaves. They just crack me up how they kick the leaves out of the way! It is so cute. I love watching them do this! The filming is not crystal clear because I took it with my digital camera, not my regular video recorder.

I love me some felt crafts!

Here is a Halloween wall hanging that I made about 11 years ago while I was a stay at home Mom and my first born was crawling all around the living room. I miss those days. Geez, after all these years, it still looks great.



It's one of my favorite projects I've made for Halloween. I really love working with felt and I am proud of how cute this turned out.



I display it every year and assume one day it will get passed down to one of my kids for their own house. The entire thing is made from felt and embroidery floss. I made a sleeve at the top to slide a dowel rod through and used a piece of black ribbon to hang it.



Felt is so easy to work with. Once you decide what you want to make, just cut out the pieces free hand or use your own hand drawn pattern.



Pin the pieces to the background and do some basic embroidery stitches to complete.


This isn't a tutorial...I just wanted to share this with you...





...and maybe inspire you to make your own felt wall hanging. Maybe I'll make one for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

scenes from my backyard

I am enjoying the beautiful colors and the cooler weather!

Brown Sugar & Spice Cut Out Cookies

Good morning! It's Thursday! Whatever that means....nothing really. I promised to post my new cookie recipe yesterday afternoon, but things got too busy.

I really like this recipe because it is not your typical basic sugar cookie cut out recipe! I do love a good basic cut out cookie recipe, but this is just fun because it's different and very Fall. I love the brown sugar and cinnamon in the recipe! Give it a try, I know your family will love it! My kids scarfed them down! If you have leaf shaped cookie cutters, all the more fun!!



Brown Sugar and Spice Cut Out Cookies

1 C light brown sugar, packed
1/2 C butter, softened
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
Plus:
1 egg white with splash of water, beaten, to brush on UNBAKED cookie to help adhere colored sugar BEFORE baking.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg, vanilla, and blend. Mix remaining dry ingredients together and add to butter mixture. If dough is too sticky to roll out, add another 1/4 cup flour. Also be sure to flour surface before rolling out dough. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thick and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Decorate with colored sugar. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. *Please read tip below

*Tip
This tends to be a sticky dough at first, but you can definitely work with it and cut out cookies with no problem. The original recipe calls for 2 cups flour, but I definitely had to add about a 1/4 C extra flour to dough so I could roll it out. Cookie dough will be soft and refrigerating dough will help. The dough has such a wonderful flavor it's worth dealing with the softness and adding extra flour. If your dough is just fine with the initial 2 C flour then don't add any extra flour! You don't want your cookies to be tough!








Enjoy!

no such thing as over the hump day

Good morning everyone! It's Wednesday...over the hump day. Ok, who even says that anymore? Not me, cause when you're a Mom, there is no hump, cause there is no end of the week...it's just one continuous week. That is definitely something I noticed when I became a Mom and didn't work outside the home...I no longer got excited about the weekend...because every day is the same...to me a weekday is the same as a weekend...it's all the same. Before children, it was always...it's Friday night, oh, we have to do something....just cause...it's Friday night and you're supposed to do something. Anyhow, at first, way back, it bothered me, but now, it's a way of life and I really don't care. Pretty much every day is a fun day for me now. I have a lot of freedom to do fun things when I want to and it is not restricted to just Friday or Saturday night. But also....my idea of fun has changed...drastically...I no longer think it's fun to go to a bar for a beer...I would rather not. I no longer think it's fun to go dancing all night, that would really wear me out and the music is way too loud! I no longer think it is fun to run naked through a corn field.....ha ha, got you there didn't I! No...I have never, ever run naked through a corn field....however, I have run through a corn field...only I was fully clothed and was on private property, was probably about 16 years old and hanging out with friends...it was very late, I'm sure my parents thought I was sleeping at my friends house...and I was having so much fun and laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. But I digress! Those were the REALLY good old days. We're talking like 1986 here! Sorry, just a little memory there~! The only corn fields I am running through now are the corn mazes at a Fall festival with my kids! I'm having fun now too! Only now, when I almost pee my pants, it's not because I'm laughing too hard, it's because I sneezed or coughed too hard! I'm laughing now! Can anyone relate? Really, I do love my life and I am happy! I have no humps to get over...at the moment. When the kids are grown and out of the house, I will be back to working full time and saying "Yes! It's Friday! Honey, what are we doing tonight? It's Friday, we gotta do something!" And so...I must go now and put the second child on the bus...the day is mine until 3:00! Fun!



P.S. Later today, I will be posting a new recipe for cut out sugar cookies. Stay tuned because these are no ordinary cut out cookies...they are brown sugar spice cut outs. They work the same as the traditional cut out cookies, but the dough is reminiscent of Fall. You'll love the flavor of this cookie and will have fun cutting out and decorating leaf shaped cookies.