hope you all had a delish Thanksgiving

I did it!! I made a delish Thanksgiving meal...  Some new things i tried this year... crock pot stuffing...turned out great.... brined my turkey... turned out great... made my own cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries.... turned out great. So all in all I am pretty proud of myself!!! Not to boast or anything... but i don't usually make the Thanksgiving meal... so YES i guess I am kind of boasting.

I also just found a AZ blog... that has THE BIGGEST BLOG ROLL I HAVE EVER SEEN... I am so excited to check them all out.... go to  lollyjaneboutique.blogspot.com

So hope you all had a great Thanksgiving day spent with family and friends.... and don't forget to give all your family and friends hugs and kisses and tell them how much you love and appreciate them!!

And also don't forget to GO TO pinterest.com to find all kinds of DIY gifts to get started on for this holiday season...

Happy Crafting!!

So, its time to think about gift giving..and making!!!

I love making gifts!!! the problem is... I never have enough time to make them!!! And that is a BIG problem. These are some things that i would love to try and make this holiday season...

Owl hats... love them!!! they are so fun!! I would need to make two of them
Beanies for the boys and man in my life(my sweet husband)... so that would be three of those
Goat milk soap... OMGoodness i forgot to post about my goat milking adventure.. i will have to do that
Goat milk fudge...yum!!

So this is all I can remember right at this moment... but I think i can do it!!! now that soccer season is over ( so our 3 games a week and 3 practices a week ) and we just have 3 kids in basket ball.. so that only means between 4 and 6 games a week and 6 practices a week that i would have to taxi for... well that does mean alot of sitting at games and practices that i could be crocheting my hats... RIGHT!!!

 So everyone get started on making your gifts for the holiday season!!

prickly pear JELLY!!!or more like syrup

After all the prickles were out, we decided to make jelly... ooohhh how i love prickly pear and peanut butter sandwiches.
     So I carefully poured the pears into my canning pot and boiled for about 10 min. Then took about 5-8 of those little suckers and blended them up in my blender.
     Then poured that into a strainer lined with several layers of cheese cloth, and pressed out the juice with a potato masher and just picking up the cheese cloth and squeezing the dickens out of it.
     Then you have beautiful fuchsia colored juice to make jelly or make prickly pear margaritas... (i canned the jelly using the water bath and the instructions from the pectin package)although this time, it didn't set up as well as it did last year, and its more like syrup, so i may try and redo it or just use it as syrup.... so happy canning!!!

Prickly pear Pickin

 Well this is my second annual prickly pear extravaganza!!! One of my sons(the other is getting to cool for this kind of stuff) and my two daughters, got our wagon, our bucket, and our tongs and headed off to the neighbors down the road to pick prickly pears or tunas or cactus fruit... whichever you prefer.  They were just perfectly ripe and as i warned for the 20th time to my 4 yo not to touch the cactus or the prickly pears... she tripped and fell into one... and got quite a few prickles... so we had to go home to get them out and then return the next day... so this process can last a while when you include the kiddos... but they beg to go and love to do it... i guess once you get the prickles, you probably will be more careful next time.

 They are such pretty fruit... and i love the color of the juice... fuchsia!!

  Tomorrow will be the jelly making... see you then!!

So many craft ideas...CAN'T FOCUS...PINTEREST ITS YOUR FAULT!!!

OMGoodness... let me just tell you... like you don't already know... that there are so many cool craft ideas out there.. and i just want to make them all....what do I do.... i should just focus on a few and prefect them... but NO... i just want to try them all and then what happens is that i don't do any of them very well... HUMPF.....

well i am really blaming this all on ....pinterest.com

i just get on that site and can't get off and then get overwhelmed... because i just want to a do it all......so that is were i sit... overwhelmed.... NOT GOOD!!!  to many great craft ideas floating around in my head... HELP!!!

if you have not been to pinterest.com ... it is a must but BEWARE....its addicting.... the kind of addicting where you just want to feed your kids cereal for dinner... so you don't have to get up to make anything.... not that I have ever done that or anything...haha... have a pinteresting day!!!!

Yippee Yahoo!!!! Its FALL!!!

HAPPY HAPPY FALL DAY!!!! I am so excited, its the first day of Autunm. I can finally feel it in the air. And i can finally turn of my A/C. Living in this high desert... we have to run the a/c constantly from may to sept or even oct. and i am just delighted that i have been able to turn it off at night and in the morning til about 12 or 1pm.. then it still want to kick back on in the after noon... yesterday my kids we playing on the trampoline with the hose... so its still quite hot in the afternoon... but at least we are getting a little morning break...

and i  am also a bit jealous... of all you bloggers out there that are doing your harvesting and canning and preserving.... with your bounty of fruit and veggies... and in my little garden i am going to go out and pick my 8th tomato... that i grew this year... oh well i guess i will have to go to the farmers market and see waht i can buy to can and preserve.

I just went to a canning class that was informative, and learning alot of things that i was doing wrong... so thats good!!i did not know you shouldnt tip the jars when getting them out of the water bath to get the water off... try to keep them level as possible...

 a bandanna table cloth i made for a summer time feast

 some cute piggy toes that have gotten a fresh coat of paint

Did anyone have one of these banana seat bikes when they we younger???? well a new project is to try and fix this on up and bring some glittery life back to it! Im thinking green and orange with a sparkly glitter seat.


OH and i am so excited... I just made my first ETSY sale.... Thank you to Karina in Belgium for purchasing one of my chicken bags.... YIPPEE!!!

Have a great day!!!!

Soccer, uncluttering and maybejust maybe some cooler temps??

Hello all... i have been busy...like a bee...(note to self...see about getting beehives)... i am an official soccer coach. I volunteered to coach the little ones 4-5yr old for my sweet baby dill's soccer team. They are such a crack up!!! So, I had a friend (thanks paultaylor) that said that he had brought barbie dolls to show the little ones how the game was played.... so i did the same... well the kids were like... WHAT IS GOING ON HERE... I am showing you how to play the game of soccer with these barbie dolls.. the two boys on the team were not amused and the girls.. thought it was funny... anyhow when i stuck them kids on the field to play... they just stood there and no clue what to do... well so much for barbie... after a couple of scrimmages they kind of got a clue on what to do... so this should be an interesting season... oh and by the was... this is also my first time at coaching anything and i have never in my life played soccer... so like i said it should be interesting.


    So I am also decluttering.. not by my choice but by my husbands... so that had not really been going well... but its got to be done and at least we have a clean..er garage.. that we still can't park in..

   And finally.. im hopin and praying.. that its starts to cool down ovah heah!!!!

oh and has anyone seen The Help.. i really want to go see it,, now that i have finished the book!!!

Here are a couple of things i just put in my etsy shop... check them out..Happy day!!!!