Emskyrooney

Am a little late this year in ordering our holiday cards- I usually have them addressed and ready to send by now! There were so many great designs on shutterfly.com that I couldn't pick just one- ended up with 3 different versions! Here's one of the cards I chose.  When I took LP's photos a few weeks ago I wasn't planning to use them for holiday cards but I think it turned out pretty cute! With Love Christmas Card Seasons greetings with personalized Christmas cards from Shutterfly . View the entire collection of cards.

Did I get the song stuck in your head now too? So chez LeBaron we decorate for Christmas the second the Thanksgiving leftovers are loaded into Tupperware and shoved in the fridge.  BP would put stuff up even earlier but I somehow manage to hold him off til Black Friday every year.... We get our tree on "Small Business Saturday" from a local nursery...  Holiday decorating involves boxes and boxes of stuff being lugged up from the basement.  And then BP puts stuff wherever he thinks it was last year and/or and somewhat willy nilly.  So I go around adjusting things, evening out the garlands, de-clumping the lights, etc.  We have a fairly traditional bunch of holiday things- our one "theme" thing is pinecones.  Paul and I have a thing for pinecones ever since our honeymoon in Lake Tahoe where there are GIANT pinecones everywhere....  I also have a ton of Dicken's Village houses (made by Department 56)that we put out every year.  There are always a fe...

This week at I ♥ Faces   the theme is "Bust a Gut."   It was hard to narrow it down as I have sooo many photos of LP cracking up but I finally chose this one:     The smile and the ears just kill me!! Be sure to go to I ♥ Faces to check out the other entries!

Our Thanksgiving dinner was, as always, delicious!  This year we hosted Paul's parents as we weren't able to make it to Pennsylvania to have Thanksgiving with my family (plans for making it there next year though!).  So it was a small group, just the 5 of us, but as usual we had enough food for 20 more!  Here are a few photos of the day- I'll link some of the recipes we used at the bottom of the post- there was NOTHING we wouldn't make again!   For the first time Paul decided to smoke the turkey.  He used Alton Brown's Honey Brined Smoked Turkey recipe and it was delicious- seriously the moistest bird we've ever had... For stuffing and gravy we made Paula Dean's Good Old Country Stuffing  and Mushroom Giblet Gravy , substituting mild Italian sausage for the breakfast sausage in the stuffing and leaving the hard boiled egg out of the gravy. We also made Spicy Caliente Cranberry Sauce using a recipe I found on the Taste for Adventure blog on Tablespoo...

Spent the day getting the house ready for Christmas...  Outside lights, decor, our tree up and decorated...  Will share some photos tomorrow but right now I think my bed is calling my name (it's also been readied for the winter with a feather bed topper and a down comforter and is oh so hard to get out of in the mornings!) Night night, sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bite!!

We do most of our holiday shopping online these days, searching for the best deals and the best cash back rebates on websites like Ebates and Fatwallet.... So we never succumb to the lure of Walmart at 3 a.m. or whatever ungodly time they were open today...   This morning, however, I couldn't resist the lure of deals on fabric at Joann's and discounted holiday garlands at Michael's and so I headed out at  about 7:30 since we were already up for the day.   Got some great fabric but spent about 45 minutes waiting in line to have my fabric cut (fortunately I snagged a number for the cutting counter when I first arrived and was able to wander around until they called my number.  Unfortunately, the wandering around resulted in several impulse purchases making their way into my basket...).  Most of the other customers were very patient but there were definitely a few who seemed to be missing the holiday spirit.  An older woman had at least 40 bolts of flannel in ...

For all of these folks, plus a whole bunch of others.... Happy Thanksgiving!