More NC Fun Times and Thanksgiving

 We have been busy here in NC and the time is just flying by! .

 Chris and I packed up the truck and sent him back to MI for a week or so.  

He will be flying to Phoenix for a week for a church retreat then driving back here to finish out the year.  So let's catch up.

 We were driving and I spied 2 huge cotton fields. 

 I have never seen them in person and it was so beautiful. 

 Fabric seeds as it were, LOL.

Our eldest daughter came to NC to deliver a few peafowl to a farm here.

We all got to see her when she was here which was really nice. 

 Had a mini Thanksgiving at the camper with the whole crew. 

 She was heading back to the farm in Bullock to pick up a male peacock to use in her breeding.  

We got up early one morning and met her at the farm.  

I loved the teal peafowl, but she was taking home a purple male.  

She will have him for at least a year then return him to their farm.  

Some of her birds that I knew were at the farm.  

It was nice to see them again and very nice for the owners to give us a tour!

On the day before Thanksgiving we drove to the mountains to Brevard.

We got to spend it with our SIL's family

I made the stuffing and Chris cooked the turkey.

It was such a fun day and I'm happy that we were able to get some family pics.

It was us, BOTH of my SIL's grandmas, both of his brothers, his brother's wife, Nick's parents, Kelsey, Nick and of course Avery!

I love this little guy SO much!

Grammy, Pop, Papa, Gigi and Avery

I LOVE this pic of Kelsey, Nick and Avery!

It was such a fun day!

Hoping maybe we can make it a tradition going forward.

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I hope all my friends had a great Thanksgiving weekend.  

Ours was pretty low key but nice. 

 I made a new recipe using brussel sprouts and butternut squash in a Maple-Soy glaze that 

turned out great!

What special recipes do you and your family make for Thanksgiving?

I managed to get quite a bit of stitching done this weekend, 

but much of it I can't share at this time as it is for gifts, sad I know.

My daughter in NC sent this photo of her and her boyfriend and their dog, Max.

Cole seems to disappear in the lap of my oldest daughter.

I took a couple of photos of my son and Finny and isn't this amazing? 

 I love how this picture came out.

I made a chenille blanket.  

This is what it looked like after cutting it but prior to washing and drying it.

Once in the washer and dryer the magic happens!  

If you want more info on making a chenille blanket go to the tutorial section in my header.

Look how big Cole is getting!!  That is a 24" mat.

Also, he and I play "fetch the ball" every day. 

 He was jumping up on my sewing table all weekend and dropping his ball for me to throw.  

I store batting behind my door so it doesn't open very far.  

I have to "thread the needle" through the space to throw it for him to go fetch. 

 I finally managed to get a good video of him doing it.  

Enjoy

Please take a moment and show us what you have been working on.

Use the linky button to add your current WIP.

~XOP

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to take a minute to wish all of my family and friends a

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope that you all get a chance to spend time with the people and pets that you love.

God has certainly blessed our family this year.  

I am very thankful for all He has provided.

May God bless each and every one of you today and always.

My Best,

Pam x

Thanksgiving at my House

I hope all my American friends had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  

Ours was busy leading up to the dinner but relaxing after that.  

We cooked a turkey that our daughter raised and it was so good! 

 (Pay no attention to the rip in the skin)

My son came over with our (now his) dog.  

My daughter brought her peahen, Beep, who dined with us.  She loves mashed potatoes!

She doesn't really like my hubby so this is a rare photo!

All in all a good time was had by all.  What did you do on your turkey day?

~XOP~

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. 

 I hope, for those of you that celebrate it, that you did too.  

I made way too much food (but sent most home with my kids)  

This is what the "pre" Thanksgiving table looked like.

It was a pretty typical Thanksgiving day with all but one of my kids home. 

 The dog and the peahen seemed to enjoy the festivities!  Doesn't everyone have a house peahen?  

Of course the superstar of the weekend was our turkey.  

You may have seen the photo of my husband wrestling with this monster in an earlier blog post.  

Out daughter raised several turkeys this year.  

This was our spread for dinner.  Everything was so good. 

 I tried a new orange bread recipe and think I was the only one that liked it 

(probably too much!)  

And of course, my beloved Spartans won their football game clinching the division title,

 now on to the game against Iowa for the BIG championship game!!

I did manage to sneak in a little sewing too but will save that for another post!

How did you enjoy the long weekend?

~XOP~

Thanksgiving Weekend

I can't even begin to tell you all the things that happened last week!  

Hubby had kidney stones.  

That was not fun for him at all. 

It was not fun for me either. 

I took the bus to work that day so had no car to go home and get him.

I called my son and he drove hubby to the ER, then I walked over to the ER.

Upon release, I met my daughter and got her car keys, went back to the lab to get my things, got the car and drove to the ER to get hubby.

Then we dropped off his prescription and dropped him at home.

I went back to get the meds, and do the Thanksgiving shopping, drove home, put away the food.

Then back to work to pick up my daughter and then back home so she could drop me off.

She and I ended up going to see Mocking Jay part one and it was fabulous!

Hubby seems to be ok. 

We think they passed as the pain is now gone.  

He goes to the doctor on Wednesday to see how things are and hopefully get cleared to fly again.  

We only had our eldest daughter and son for Thanksgiving at our house so we had a small turkey.   

It was actually one from our daughter's farm.  

We decided to cook it open over the stuffing (we saw that on tv) and it was fabulous! 

 This is what it looked like.  

I don't know about you but I like the stuffing inside the bird the best (the other is often dry) and

 this way all of the stuffing had juice from the turkey and it was amazing!

On Friday we did not go Black Friday shopping in stores, but in the afternoon we did go to the farm for awhile to help replace the roof on the chicken coop (an old Rubbermaid shed).  

Then we went to Depot Town and walked around.  

There was a fly shop hubby wanted to go visit.  

We went into some antique/thrift shops too. 

 In one of the shops they had these amazing Kit Kat clocks.  

I had only seen them in black so was super excited to see one in turquoise! 

 Wouldn't this be adorable in my aqua sewing room?? 

 Maybe I will have to ask Santa for one for Christmas?

Then we hunkered down and did some online shopping. 

 I did order a roll of batting from Joann while it was on sale and a few other things from a few places.  As I was ordering, Aiden decided to do some kitty lovin' on my.  

It was so cute I had to take a video to share.

I did finish a few things this weekend also but will save those for another post. 

 I sure wish the weekends were longer.  

We started cleaning and bringing in the Christmas stuff. 

 I hope to have the tree up this week! 

 How are you coming along in your Christmas decorating?

~XOP~

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends that celebrate here in the USA!!

Today has been a great day.

I made pies last night.

Then I asked Shelby to bring eggs from her farm and she brought me eggs from her farm,

 including some of the blue eggs!  

So pretty!

I know that most of you have turkey for Thanksgiving but we had a peacock visit us.  

Gizmo was our guest. 

 Here he is playing baby peacock.

Gizmo

 I was going to make Buffalo Chicken dip but I did not have any of the buffalo sauce, 

so I decided to make it. 

 Here you can see the buffalo sauce as I was making it!

 It was super simple to do.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day today and

 had time to reflect on all the things they are thankful for in their life.

I am thankful for my family and all my wonderful friends.

I did get to talk with my dad tonight too.  

For the first time in a long time he was very lucid and so much "himself" 

which was so wonderful and I am thankful for that!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

~XOP~

Shop Till I Dropped!!

Yes, I was up at 5am and there was almost no lines today.  I think opening up at midnight made the lines at 6am non-existent!!  I went to JAF and got some flannel for my chenille blankets for $1.49/yd!!!  Then I got some other bargains and I got an additional 25% off too.  It was a good morning.  I went to Kohl's and got some great stuff there too.  Sweet Christmas gifts there.   I went to Meijer and got a Pyrex bowl set to use (not for Christmas) and that was great too.  Then I came home and spent time with the family, took out the neighbor's dog and drove DD2 to a friend's house.  I also went to the gym and the Salavation Army store and got an ugly Christmas sweater for DD2's BFF for an ugly Christmas sweater Christmas card they are planning on making together.  I also got some new creepy elves to add to DD2's creepy elf collection.  Someone had randomly tied them to a really ugly basket!! 

I have to go pick up DD2 and all her friends after the bar tonight so I need to get some sleep soon so I will be able to get them at 2am or so!  HAHA at least they are being responsible!!!  I will be snuggling up with a cat or 5 and will look like Hallie does here. 

I hope you all got some shopping done today too. ~XOP~

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

I'm just about ready to begin the food prep for our Thanksgiving dinner.  I was able to work on that project I have been teasing you all with too and although it is not finished yet, it is at a stage where you will now know what it is.

I would like to introduce Ruby Turkey!

I need to stitch all the dresdens down and stitch all around him as well but that can wait for now. I love him and am excited to share him with you. I saw Mary's and new I wanted to make one too but in non-traditional colors. I need to figure out something for a border too, and since it is a rectangle I may cut some of the top and bottom off to use for a second one (yes I have enough, just barely to make a second turkey using a plain back.) The pattern can be found here at The Missouri Star Quilt Company. I would love to know what you guys think of him. I considered making him into a peacock for DD1 but maybe using terrain or some other line with purples in it. It was super easy to make (as you can tell by how quickly mine came together!) Although I had a little help.

So there you have it, my Ruby Turkey. I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!! Take a minute to be thankful for family, friends, health and having the things you love in your life (maybe even the trials and tribulations as they make us into the people we are today!!) I am thankful for all of you my dear blog friends!! ~XOP~

Thanksgiving on Friday??

YESSSS, we are celebrating today. I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed day yesterday. More tomorrow...XOP

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful turkey day and got to spend time with your family and friends. Our day went kind of awry. I got up early to bake the pies and DH went to the garage to get the turkey. Imagine our surprise to learn that it was still frozen! No turkey dinner for us today. It's OK though. DD2 wasn't here today as she was at her boyfriend's parents house. We made the decision that we will just make our dinner tomorrow. We all kind of sat around and watched movies and I got to do some sewing.

I thought I would work on my reindeer blocks. I guess I looked like I needed help so Autumn came to help.

I tried to distract her with a plastic bag but it didn't last too long.

I did manage to get one of the blocks finished tonight. I would have done them both but I realized that the buttons I had planned to use for the eyes were blue and not black. I will have to get some black ones to use on the block. I do like how this one came out though.

So that's all the excitement going on here. I am planning on some shopping tomorrow but I don't go out as early as some people do! We decided to downsize this Christmas so I just have a few things to look for. Wish me luck!!
XOP