Thanksgiving 2010

We had such a lovely Thanksgiving this year. So much fun and SO much to be thankful for. 

My parents came down Thursday morning and we ate "the meal" after the kids got up from naps.

I have visions of Harper helping me cook when she is older and it makes me smile...

And here's the turkey! It was delicious thanks to Tyler Florence's Ultimate Turkey. I mean, how can you go wrong with shoving butter and fresh sage under the skin? 

You can't. 

Ultimate is the perfect word for it.

And no Thanksgiving meal is complete without name tags.

The whole set up. Yes, we put up our tree before Thanksgiving. I know. I know! Some people have some rules about that, but I do not. I looooove decorating for Christmas early and it has never made me forget about Thanksgiving. It just makes it prettier! :)

And that's all my Thanksgiving pictures. RJ and I did go midnight shopping. It was fun being out on a date with him, but not sure we'll do it again. Unless it's to stay at Wal-Mart when the clock strikes midnight to see everyone grab for the merchandise they have been waiting for for hours. We did get the one thing we went for though, so it was fun. And crazy! And cold.

My sister and her family came down on Friday and stayed at a hotel so the kids got to swim and stay up late and have fun. 

So, back to the Christmas tree. I saw a little picture of this cute garland on this blog and loved it. I just took a bunch of pages from an old book, cut, and hot glued them together. It really didn't take too long and I love how it turned out!

I also made an advent calendar this weekend. I first got the idea from this blog, and then can't remember where, but saw the idea to use a mini muffin tin. Since I've used my mini muffin tin about 2 times in the past 5 years, I figured I could sacrifice it. 

I gathered old Christmas ornaments, fabric, and ribbon and of course, the hot glue gun.

I cut some squares out of cardstock and a thin cardboard and glued them together so they were a little more sturdy.

Then cut out circles of paper to fit inside the tins.

(the small side of a cup from children's pain reliever medicine is the perfect size.)

I started with 25, but now realize I should have had 24 be the first number. 

Oh well!

On the back of the squares I glued magnets. Unfortunately I started by putting pieces of a thin magnet all the way around. When I went to put it all together I realized they weren't strong enough, so I used the heavy duty circle ones. If I had started with this, I probably would have saved myself an hour...

Then I started gluing on the ornaments. I have a special place in my heart for tacky Christmas decor.

And almost done.

(this ornament is my favorite)

And then I glued little garland all the way around, and it was done! It took a little longer than I thought it would, but it was fun.

Hope you all have a lovely week!!