Thanksgiving Tradition - Family Trivia

This traditions requires a little prep work...like today or tomorrow, but it's so worth it and so much fun!  We have to celebrate our holidays without the warmth and loveable chaos that most families do becuase we live 2000 miles away from everyone, but we did this in the past with our extended family and it was the highlight of the day! 

Send out a questionnaire to everyone that will be attending Thanksgiving together...even those who may not attend in person.  Plan questions so that they answers will reveal funny tidbits of your family history that not everyone has heard before.  Make sure everyone brings their answered questions to Thanskgiving so you can have yourselves a Family Trivia game! 

Need some question help?  www.families.com has a great list of questoins and ideas!!  See below -

Family: These questions should be about family members, alive or deceased, their accomplishments, favorite things, or birthplaces. Second cousins and great greats can be included in the harder questions.

History: Look at your children's history homework for ideas. Also consider questions about historical places you've visited on vacation, like the Alamo, or history about your state. Family history can also be incorporated.

Science: Again, your children's homework will help here. Consider questions from museum exhibits you've attended or movies you've seen. How about kitchen science? Garage science? Computer science? Questions about favorite family animal shows would also be appropriate.

Literature: Books you've read together, or favorite childhood books are wonderful sources for literature questions. Who wrote a favorite book? Who are the main characters? Movies are also a good source of questions. For instance, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a movie, but it's also a book. Questions about the story, sequels, or C.S. Lewis would be appropriate.

Art: Have you and your kids

visited an art museum? Have you read art books? How about that print in the living room? If it's famous, questions about the artist would be great. Questions about colors and color mixing, different media, and even book illustrators will work well.

Geography: Vacations! Questions like, "How many states do we cross to get to Florida?" and "Which states do we cross to get to Florida?" will be customized just for your family. Have you worked a country or world puzzle together? Use questions about the puzzle. Even questions about your city's streets are appropriate: "Main street runs in which two directions?"

Sports & Liesure: This is a topic your entire family will love because it can be so personal. How many years has Suzie taken ballet? What was her first performance? Johnny plays soccer, but does anyone know the score to his last game? What sport did Mom play in fifth grade? Dad won first chair in the high school jazz band playing which instrument? If Jenny could play any instrument in the world, what would it be? What was the first song June and Henry danced to at their wedding reception? 

Image from -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lapstrake/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Holidays In Hand with Jessica Sprague

Don't miss out on this wonderful FREE class given by Jessica Sprague... Holidays In Hand.

The FINAL class of 2009 began this morning, but there's still time to toss your hat into the ring!  

FREE registration will end tonight at 11:59pm, so go claim a spot!

This class will help you capture the hopes, memories and wonderment of the holidays.  This class helps us focus on what's important during the holidays.

We'll be making a great project to help you tell your holiday stories both past and present.  This class is for EVERYONE. Since you don't have to know Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, grab a friend to join you in class!
Registration is easy and free!

• Go to JessicaSprague.com.
• Copy this code by highlighting it and typing Ctrl-C (Cmd-c on your Mac): HIHFREE2009

Wordless Wednesday - Anyone Seen My Cupcake?

For more Wordless Wednesday visit www.5minutesformom.com

I'm Back....

I'm back...

Life has gotten chaotic-busy in wonderful ways and blogging was taking a backseat. I'm here now...in and out...still busy, but hoping to keep up on my all my blogging. I have so many saved posts and ideas. I haven't even had time to try and post one up. But hopefully in a day or two I'll be moving along.

I do have some great holiday giveaways planned...I owe that to you! I can't wait to give some presents away! ♥

I did finish the pettiskirt...

Go me! It was HARD! I'm not going to lie....tedious! But she was so cute as our little Autumn Fairy.

Homecoming was a blast...we had 20 kids over for a candlelight dinner. My girl is growing up! Makes me happy-sad...

Genealogy has become a big hobby for me lately...I could go on and on about that! What an amazing experience that has been... Found my long lost family that had been forgotten.

So much more has been happening in our little world, but with all the craziness I have managed to be creative and create...which has probably kept me SANE! I'll share some of my fun with you soon....

Sew...Busy! Adorable Pettiskirts!!!

I'm at it again... My dear friend keeps showing me adorable projects to sew. Well, we're working on this right now....

You can veiw a tutorial and at Martha Stewart.

Our girls are going to be "ballerinas". My little one is actually a "ballerina-fairy-princess". I have to get this done by Wednesday night, so hopefully I'll have some pictures to share soon.

And I also made a skirt with NO pattern. EASY EASY EASY! You can make it in less than an hour. So I'll post about that too once I get this project done.

HOW CUTE ARE THOSE!?!?!?!

Tuesday Tradition #46 - Homemade Halloween Fun!

Somewhere a long time ago, a few city and states ago, I was over at a friends house for a little Halloween party. Sometimes entertaining 3 and 4 yr. olds can be quite a task. But she pulled out this adorable homemade Halloween memory game and the kids played it for over an hour!

Take Halloween pictures from the past years, as far back as you want, and print out 2 - 2x2 squares of each picture. Mount them on card stock, Halloween style if you want, and cut those out into squares. You should have 2 of every picture. That's it!

Place the squares picture side down, in nice even rows, and take turns picking 2 cards at a time while trying to make a match. Whoever has the most pairs at the end of the game, WINS! My little ones LOVE this game. I'm putting together my family's Halloween Memory game today and I'm sure we'll get lots of use out of this easy, cheap, homemade game!

Enjoy!

Hello...Anyone There?

I know...I've been MIA...BIG TIME! It's been a wild-wild-wild crazy few weeks. Lots of ups and down and downs and ups. Dealing with my sister-in-law's passing, my husband flying back and forth to California to take care of her 4 kids (they have no family or father...and there's a big possibility that I'll go from a mother of 5 to 9 shortly) , swine flu, homecoming, kids sports, school, church commitments...you know, the drill.

I've realized that I'm in the thick of life! I'm potty training 2 kids, teaching one to tie his shoes and another to drive. So yeah, that's my excuse. I'll be back into the blogging world tomorrow...or Wednesday....okay, at least by Friday.

I'm still the luckiest mom in the world!

Favorite Fall Recipes - Butternut Squash Soup

My newest passion is beginning to cause some serious overload since the arrival of Fall. For the first time in my life I'm spending more and more time in the kitchen than anywhere else in my home...and I'm LOVING IT! Fall offers the excuse to bake and cook wonderful delicious meals every single day!

So in my cooking excitement I'm going to share my newest favorite fall recipe with you...but I'd love love love for you to share one with me too! Leave your favorite in the comments. A girl can never have enough recipes!

With this new passion I've forced myself to try some new foods...foods that I have never ever given a thought to. My newest fav is Butternut Squash. Now, I've only had it as a soup or "bisque", but can I tell you how EXTREMELY incredible it was?!!! Unbelievable! So I have to share it with you. Trust me, you will love it!

A wonderful friend of mine invited myself and a few other friends over for a lunch one day last week and made this for us.

Butternut Squash Bisque

Approximately how this recipe goes...

1 butternut squash, cut-up

1 medium to large white onion

3-4 cloves of garlic

1 large peeled carrot

4 oz. cream cheese

approx 1-3 cups chicken broth

approx 1 cup half-n-half

salt (guessing 2 teaspoons worth)

fresh ground pepper

Boil first 4 ingredients together until vegetables are soft--about 45 minutes. I peel my butternut squash at this point--after it's cooked. Drain water.

Puree cooked vegetables together in blender with salt, pepper, and 4 oz. softened cream cheese. Slowly add chicken stock (start with 1 cup, you may have to go up to 2 or more cups--I just eyeball it). Add about 1 cup of half-n-half. Return to pot and warm on low.

Enjoy!
And don't forget to share some yummy recipes too!

Wordless Wednesday - Meet My Offspring

Picture by www.ryancapture.com (thank you Ryan!)

This is MY family...this is our ONLY family picture! We are scheduled for pics in a few weeks (FINALLY) but I wanted to share my favorite people on Earth with you all...and of course we're hanging out at sporting event...but hey, at least it's a family picture!

For more Wordless Wednesday visit www.5minutesformom.com

Family Yearbook Challenge 2009 - Week 24

If you're new to the Family Yearbook Challenge click HERE & then HERE

Well, September was full of "stuff"...life stuff and I neglected to keep up the FYB Challenge. So this month we're doing a full month in one week....Ready?

Homework September 7 - September 30:

1. Labor Day Weekend - How did you observe Labor Day weekend? Did you go on any final summer trips, celebrations or maybe you have some favorite traditions?

2. Sports - You may or may not LOVE football like we do, but for our family, Football gets a spot every year in our FYB. We love all football....our kids flag football, local high school, college and pro! Maybe your family loves Baseball and the excitement that October brings to the sport. Whatever it is, share your "FAN"atic side of what you love!

3. Birthdays - Don't forget birthdays. Any big parties, celebrations with family, weddings, births, deaths? Make sure you keep track of those events and memories.

4. School Events - School is now in full gear....any favorite art work or papers from your kids worth sharing? Did you go to Open House, meet the teacher, have some funny stories of your kids at school?

Now COPY and paste any photos that you have that go with these events and questions into a new folder titled June. If you'd like to rename the photos you can with ept 1, sept 2, sept 3 so on and so on. If you have any memorabilia that is NOT digital, scan and save as a jpg. minimum 300 dpi to your September folder, named and labeled. If you have a "story" you can hand write it or "type" it into a document and save in the same folder.