Pre Thanksgiving Fun Stuff

Tuesday morning bright and early! Almost turkey time! I'm going to be as productive as I can be today preparing for the big day. First on my list is cookies. I'm making three kinds--chocolate chip, chocolate, chocolate chip and peanut butter and I want to do them early, then it's on to my sweet potato casserole! 

In my last post I mentioned that Caitlin and her friend Ashley would be making Christmas ornaments and bowl fillers. Several of you mentioned or emailed me about the recipes I use so here you are:

Cinnamon Scented Salt Dough:  1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup cinnamon, 3/4 cup very warm water. Roll out and make shapes! You do not have to bake this; you can let it air dry overnight but if you want to be able to paint them or decorate them you can bake at 200 degrees for a little bit.
I use the cinnamon scented one as bowl fillers. I do barn stars and mini mittens. They make the house smell wonderful! I use mini cookie cutters for these.

Ashley and Caitlin did both ornaments and bowl fillers. I use a small straw to poke a hole for the string. they made quite a few cause I doubled the recipe but mostly had fun just playing with the dough! Here is the recipe for regular white salt dough:  2 cups flour,1 cup salt, 1 cup water. This little project can keep kids (and us adults!) busy for hours! I had other little things for them to do like paint some plaster ornaments and I had a Christmas movie with puppies...NOPE! They loved just making shapes and creating!

I've been going through some Christmas boxes as I plan to set upsome this weekend...except for my live tree of course. A little sad to see the leaves and pumpkins go in boxes but so much fun to the elves and snowflakes and other  Christmas decorations.
 My son and husband did the last of the leaves in our yard over the weekend...That's the rear of my house and my shed. 63 bags of leaves! And it was the second time they had tackled them. Now it's nice and clean and neat and ready for the snow! We are supposed to get some on Wednesday.

Carol the rooster was walking around supervising to make sure they did a good job. He's such a task master!

Here is my son taking a break. So hard to get a picture of him as he always says no! I got two :) I'm fast!

I let the bunnies out of the coop as well to run around. Even though the coop is large and they have loads of space it's still fun for them to run around outside around the outside of the coop. They like to dig holes and run in the grass. I took one out at a time but the funny thing was as each one had his turn, the others were upset that the other was out and would go crazy trying to see their brother! (They actually are all brothers)--Chestnut, Bandit and Lucky. Below is Bandit (the white one) and Chestnut.  They share the coop with Carol and Frankie and Carol was supervising them as well.

 Carol and Frankie were content just walking around pecking the dirt and watching Dad and Billy! But Carol would chase the bunnies like a shepherd if he thought they were getting a little too frisky!

We received this great box of candy as a gift yesterday for Thanksgiving. Did you ever see such a big box of Whitmans? Caitlin thought it was the greatest thing!

Before I go, just a reminder before the holiday season begins to enjoy it because it goes by so quickly!

But most of all don't lose sight of  the real reason to celebrate and be thankful....

Have a wonderful day!