New Holiday Traditions + Pie Crust

Today I am going to attempt a pumpkin pie.
A pumpkin pie and my grandma's homemade crust.
I'm nervous.
I'm pretty sure I'll fail... but I'm trying it anyway.


My grandma made the BEST pies and my mom does, too.
I want to learn how to make them with made-from-scratch crust, and for Charlotte to learn to make them one day as well.
I want to make this a new tradition, me and the kids making a pie the week of Thanksgiving...
Maybe getting good enough one day down the road to make a few and deliver them to some of our favorite people.
Maybe? Like way down the road?

This is what I will be attempting this afternoon...
Wish me luck! 

Do you have any favorite holiday traditions?
Or read about any neat ones you'd like to share?
Or just want to begin yourself?

Happy Monday, friends.

So Not Ready For Valentine's Day

I know I probably am in the minority here, but I am nowhere near ready for the Christmas season.
Not even a little bit.
Halloween was just less than two weeks ago and Thanksgiving is two weeks from tomorrow.
It all feels so rushed,  like we are hurrying past Thanksgiving just to get to Christmas.
Don't get me wrong, I do love Christmas... but I really  LOVE  Thanksgiving.
Just love it.
And I'm only prepared to deal with one holiday at a time.

Our Thanksgiving meal is my favorite and the holiday is just so laid back and relaxed... not the pressure and stress that Christmas
brings for the adults.
And did I mention the meal?
Homemade noodles, rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing... it's enough starch to last you through the end of the year.
Seriously.
And then there are the pies... Oh, the pies.

We are a pie-eatin', dessert lovin' family.

But what I am really trying to say is, I just want to SLOW DOWN and enjoy this day and week and Season we are in right now... 

not always looking ahead to what is around the corner. 

I mean, I just think it would be a lot easier if everyone just thought exactly like I did, ya know.
Just kidding. But not really. Not kidding.
But seriously?
You know next week you are going to be walking through Hobby Lobby or Michael's or whatever and you are going to see the Valentine stuff out....
Because it's practically Christmas, and practically Winter which = almost Valentine's Day.
But not really at all.
And that's when I get pissed and refuse to go back to Hobby Lobby for a while.
Happens every year.


So I am going to continue enjoying the leaves before they are all gone and all things brown, yellow and orange for just a bit longer.
I'm going to pretend I don't see your Christmas posts or pins or trees up, just yet, because that will send me into a way-too-early panic.
And I like to wait and get nice and panicked up around December 15, not November 15.

:::::::::::::::::::::

Happy, happy Wednesday y'all.

Insta(Black)Friday

I think I ate enough starches yesterday to last me a good month or two....
Homemade noodles, rolls, stuffing, corn casserole.
Hello Thanksgiving dinner, I love you.
Just a few pictures from the last couple of days...

1. charlotte by the pond at sunset

2. calico critters lined up to watch the macy's thanksgiving day parade

3. char & cousin gabrielle

4. black friday bowling

5. chocolate turkeys

6. another pretty view at my uncle's

7. my girl

8. sunset

9. rose on my bedside table from wyatt

10. bowling

11. my boy picked out his own outfit for thanksgiving; corduroys, dress shirt, 

suit jacket and converse. love him.

12. favorite bracelet

13. the kid's table-complete with Shirley Temples to drink

14. Bramer cousins

15. favorite words

*****************

Happy, happy Friday y'all.

We still have Saturday and Sunday.

Hoooooray!

ooops, i was wrong.
on instagram i am @lucky13amy

Mission Accomplished.

Today we... watched the Macy's Day Parade, made deviled eggs, got dressed up, ate homemade noodles, made a wish, watched rain and snow fall, counted our blessings, played with cousins, gossiped with cousins, strategized and made shopping plans for the big shopping day, held tiny babies, drank apple wine, ate pumpkin pie, read books, celebrated the day with 95-year old grandparents, listened to Christmas music, came home stuffed with plenty of left-overs...and counted our blessings all over again. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Have a great weekend.

*****

{Grateful and Thankful & Stuff}

{I could have made this a couple of  posts but instead it's a whole bunch of Friday randomness...}

Last week the kids and I started working on a little Grateful Garland...Thankful Garland... whatever...

Wyatt keeps correcting me. I call it grateful and he calls it thankful. 

It doesn't matter, we are both grateful and thankful. 

So everyday we talk about what we are thankful for, usually over breakfast, 

and write it out on these little tags. 

Sometimes they want to write/sign their own and sometimes they don't. 

I cut leaves free-hand out of scrapbook paper, hole punched them, 

scrounged through our ribbon can, tied them on and hung it across the mantle. 

There ya go. 

Maybe I'll share our whole list next week.

Speaking of thankfulness and gratefulness and all that jazz, here are a few pictures 

from last week. Some were taken at our favorite park, some at one of my favorite 

parks and then some at our most-visited park (the one closest to us).

We had gorgeous weather last week,  it was even up in the 70's a few days!

  I actually think we went to a park four days in a row. For real. 

This week = not as nice but I'm not officially complaining....yet.

Look, short sleeves and flip-flops!

I say I am not complaining yet and I'm not but the complaining will come. Soon.

When the Winter Funk sets in and we are cooped up in the house and the sun is barely shining 

and you don't want to go anywhere because of the snow and ice and scraping the car

 and all you really want to do is lay in bed with a bag of Doritos watching old

 90210 and Gilmore Girls re-runs while the kids are forced to fend for themselves...

Okay, I'll quit. 

But you've been warned. It gets ugly in the winter around here.

Eric is hunting hanging out with the guys at the cabin this weekend. Lots of beer drinking, chest pounding and general ape-like behavior going on there while I am at home with the kids. 

I think he must have felt a little bad because he found me bootleg copies of Friday Night Lights

 episodes 1-3 of this season that just started. The final season of one of the best shows ever.

 We don't have Direct TV so normally we have to wait until Spring for FNL and yes, 

I know it's possibly illegal but it's Friday Night Lights and I love that show and 

I want to be Tammie Taylor and yeah,  I don't really care.  

So you know what I'll be doing tonight!

Other weekend plans include:

Christmas Parade tomorrow night and cousins spending the night

Possibly taking the kids' Christmas pictures before it gets way too cold

lots of lounging around in our pajamas tomorrow morning and

  Saturday Morning Cartoons and cinnamon rolls, by request.

How about you? Anything exciting going on?

Happy Friday, Y'all!

*Oh, I'm doin' Cartwheels over here today, too.

Crazy-Happy-Busy Weekend

Just a few pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend. We had a busy weekend, so much going on but a really great, crazy, busy few days. We celebrated with both sides of our families, ate lots of yummy food, I got to hang out with my very best girlfriends, shopped and had a date night with Eric. Now we are all exhausted and ready for things to quiet down this week, at least a little bit.Hope everyone had a great weekend!

 

 

tHanKfuL

Happy Thanksgiving to all. So much to be thankful for. I could rattle off a really long list of all the little things I am thankful for because there are oh-so-many. But I'm not. I'm just  going to say that I am very thankful for my family. My own little family, the family I came from and the family that I married into. All of them. Family, friends and health...that's what I'm thankful for. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with friends and family!

Yum.

 

Thanksgiving is my favorite meal. Pumpkin pie, which I really only eat this time of year, homemade noodles, rolls made from scratch, mashed potatoes, devilled eggs.....YUM. These are an apple pie and a pumpkin pie made by my mom, she makes the *most delicious* pies using my grandma's crust recipe, as do several of her sisters. YUM. Looks like I had better do some marathon shopping the next day in order to burn off at least a few of those calories.

What is your favorite thing(s) to eat on Thanksgiving?

Favorite tradition? 

The thing you are looking most forward to about Thanksgiving this year?