I'm done!

I'm all done with my Thanksgiving baking! Now, before you go rolling your eyes and shooting me dirty looks, you should probably know that I started a couple of weeks ago and have been freezing some of it, so I didn't have a ton to make, plus I've got big plans tomorrow - lunch and "Catching Fire" with my sister, and an afternoon of cookie frosting for the big game on Saturday (go Bucks!), so the Thanksgiving stuff had to get done today.

Here's what I've made:

Pioneer woman pumpkin cinnamon rolls (honestly, the best cinnamon rolls EVER, you can find the recipe on the Pioneer Woman website)

Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

Molasses cookies

Cranberry Chocolate chip tarts

I made cranberry chocolate chip cookie bars last year at Christmas time, and couldn't wait for Christmas to make them again. This year I used the cookie dough to make a tart and filled it with the chocolate chips and fresh cranberries. These couldn't be the more perfect mix of tart and sweet, love them!

Christmas... Bring it on!

This girl is totally, completely ready for Christmas! House decorated - check. Tree up - check. Gifts bought and wrapped - check. I was massively productive this weekend, which is not something that I always get to say, and I am so excited to spend the month of December relaxing and enjoying, as opposed to the usual stressing and freaking out.

Don't get me wrong, I do still have plenty left to do, and I could give you my to-do list, but given the fact that you probably have a list of your very own, I'm sure you don't need to be stressed out by mine as well. I'd love to hear what you've done this weekend to get ready for Christmas - even if all you did was put away the thanksgiving leftovers, baby steps people!

Starting this holiday off right

I can't think of a better way to celebrate this particular holiday than a pumpkin spice latte with lots of whipped cream. Bring on the calories! Now I've got a parade to watch before we hit the road (can I just say that I'm not impresses with the hosts, really, this was the best CBS could do? I miss the Matt Lauer/Katie Courick days, and yes, I'm a child of the 90s).

Happy Thanksgiving

Sending you a little happy! Enjoy your turkey!

Time to breathe

Whew. I'm wiped out. Today was awesome and jam packed. It was one of those days that wears you out completely, but you're ok with it because you've gotten so much accomplished.

I was off work today, but my vacation didn't start until I finally sat down to eat dinner at 7:30. The rest of my day was a marathon cooking session - baking cookies, 2 different kinds, frosting cookies, baking sweet potato biscuits, packing everything up, and cleaning the kitchen, like 3 times. I also may have taken a little break to get my nails done, a girls gotta splurge every now and then!

This morning seems like a really long time ago! Here are some pictures of my hard work. I'm off to enjoy my holiday! (And check out the cute lamp I scored for $10! So I did some shopping too, there's always time for shopping).

Nothing says thanksgiving like pie!

We asked the kids in my class how we could celebrate thanksgiving in our classroom and their very first response was "eat pie!". What can I say, I have a class full of geniuses. They may only be four years old, but they've got their priorities right!

So last night I made two pies, an apple and a pumpkin. It wasn't until I went to the cupboard to get the can of pumpkin out that I realized I've never made a pumpkin pie before. I guess it makes sense, seeing as I don't particularly like pumpkin pie, but I'm told that my first pumpkin pie ever was good - I don't know, I didn't try it.

I also don't really like pie crust, its dry and boring, so when I discovered cinnamon swirl crust my world changed. Both my apple and pumpkin pies had a cinnamon swirl crust.

I can officially check pies off of my to-bake-for-thanksgiving list, now I jus have to finish my cookies an attempt something new - sweet potato biscuits. I'd love to hear what's on your list!

The process

Making sugar cookies in my house is a week-long event. I could probably get it all done in two days if I had nothing else to do, but life has a tendency to get in the way, so I've broken it down into manageable chunks so that I can get a little accomplished at a time.

Day one (usually the evening before I want to bake the cookies): mix up the dough and refrigerate over night. 30 minutes.

Day two: roll, cut, and bake. After baking I let the cookies cool and then put them into a container that I can put in the freezer. Freezing the cookies lets me return to them whenever it is convenient. I don't have to worry about frosting them before they get stale. 3 hours with clean-up.

Day three: make frosting. This includes actually making the frosting and mixing frosting colors. I prefer to do this the same day that I frost the cookies but it doesn't always work out that way. 1 to 2 hours depending on the number of colors.

Day four: frost and decorate. This is the most time consuming part of the whole process, and it is nearly impossible to say how long this takes because it really depends on how fancy the cookies are going to be, but I can say without a doubt that it never takes less than 4 hours (clean up included).

After the cookies are frosted they take at least one full day to dry. Whew. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Today was frosting and decorating day for my Thanksgiving cookies, and I was so excited to finish these babies, then I ran out of frosting. That RARELY happens, and when it does Its like letting the air out of the balloon. Now I get to find time to make more frosting and decorate more cookies.

Here's a picture of the cookies I've finished for thanksgiving so far - this year I went for a fall theme, so I've got turkeys, pumpkins, apples, pies, squirrels, and acorns. They are super cute if I may say so myself!

Weekend review

I had the most productive weekend! I think it was the combination of cold medicine and caffeine...

I finished a ton of Christmas gifts, which of course I can't share because some of the recipients read my cute little blog. I also finally finished the table runner that I started for my mom - before Halloween. That dang binding, and the whole hand stitching part just takes time.

It is super cute, but I needed to get the full effect, so I set my whole table up for thanksgiving. Of course I am not actually hosting thanksgiving because my house is teeny. So I thought I would share sine photos of my thanksgiving table, or rather, what my table would look like if I were hosting thanksgiving.

All of the pieces that you see on my table are pieces that I already owned, don't go out and buy new stuff that you'll only use one day a year!