Thanksgiving, Kersten Style!

It was a BUSY-BUSY-BUSY day,

so there are not many pictures,

but it was a GREAT day!!!

 Mother was there to help speed things along...

 Duane & Daddy, with a little help from the 4-leggeds, set up the tables...

 Just a little bit of dressing for our crowd...

When will it be ready????

 Lots of family & friends...

Truly Thankful,

for we are

Truly Blessed!

Home Sweet Home!

A fireplace looks a little funny without a mantle,

so one of the items on our house to-do list was to add one!

It arrived in a GIANT box...

 It needed a couple of coats of paint...

 Poor Daddy, it seems he has a project every time he visits!

 Duane was there to help!

 DONE! Just in time for Thanksgiving!

BEAUTIFUL!

Getting Ready For Thanksgiving!

We're hosting Thanksgiving Dinner this year.  Twenty-two people will be dining in our living room (furniture removed and replaced with dining tables) on Thursday!  This, of course, has put me into sever list-mode, and the prep has already begun.  The pumpkin pie is safely in the freezer, but that can't be the ONLY dessert can it?!?!?! So, today's job was more pie: apple and pecan, to be precise!

How long until Thanksgiving???

Gettin' Crafty, Christmas Style!!!

I've had so much fun making ornaments for our Christmas tree!

 REALLY?!?!?!?!

PLEDGE FLOOR CLEANER can help make Christmas ornaments???

 YEP!  

Ready to put up and decorate our tree!!!

Painting Ornaments...

Some of our favorite kiddos came over to get crafty and paint some Christmas ornaments!

First, we I made the dough, and cut it into festive shapes.

 A quick trip into the oven to dry and harden the ornaments...

 Ready for painting!

 Ready to paint!

 What a fun day with some super-cute kiddos!

Pumpkin Pie!

I decided to take some of these...

And turn it into this:

First, there was a bit of work to be done.

Which made a HUGE, DISGUSTING mess!!! (But, fortunately it wasn't very difficult to clean up.)

Then I had to slice & bake the pieces to soften the meat.

Baking the pumpkin made it easy to scrape the peel away.  And, by the way, WHY didn't anyone tell me that baked pumpkin tastes absolutely divine????

 

 Then, into the food processor for a bit of pureeing.

 Time to make the pie!

DEELISH!!!

Looking forward to dessert on turkey day!!!