Lots to be thankful for

I absolutely love the holidays.  I love decorating, entertaining, and all the cooking that this season brings.  Darrell and I hosted our family Thanksgiving this year at our home.  This was our first Thanksgiving in our new house and it was nice to actually have space to entertain.   My parents drove down from Kansas, and we invited one of our friends over for dinner that couldn't go back home for the holidays. 

I didn't have a ton of baking to do, but I did start Thanksgiving day off by making my favorite pumpkin roll.  If you are like me and love pumpkin, you have to try one.  They are super easy to make and yummy!!!  I'll post my recipe later this week.  

My brother found the turkey recipe that we made this year, Herb-Roasted Turkey with Apple Cider Gravy.  It was by far one of the best ones we have ever made.

This year, I decided to decorate our table in a more rustic theme.  I love the look of burlap, so I went to our neighborhood JoAnn's and picked up 6 yards of tan burlap and 2 yards of a dark tan burlap.  I recently figured out how to use my mom's sewing machine, and all projects lately have revolved around it.  Since we have a square table, we had to sew the table cloth together to make the yards fit.  One of the first things we did with the burlap was wash it.  If you work with burlap, make sure to do this because they treat it with a chemical to keep bugs from eating it.  I decided to do the table cloth in the lighter tan and place mats in the darker tan.  I had a stump that my brother had made for me and I used some of the decorations I had around the house to put together our over all look.  I used pine cones as the stand for the place cards and used the extra burlap to make a  string of flags to go over my make shift buffet.  I basically just covered up our bathroom vanity that is currently in our bay window.

I also had gotten some curly willow that was on our fireplace mantle that needed to be tossed.  My mom really didn't want me to throw it away, so I decided to use it as a front door wreath.  We used some of the light burlap to secure the branches together and my mom brought down ribbon she had found, and I made a few flowers for it as well.

I am so thankful for my absolutely amazing husband, my loveable little bully Bella, my two crazy cats, my family, friends and all the blessings I have in my life.  I am so lucky and blessed.

Love B