What are you making for Thanksgiving?

We are just about a week away from the biggest eating holiday of the year (rivaled only in my family by Christmas Eve and summer barbecues...), and though we don't host, I never show up empty handed for either of the events that we attend. We will be having dinner at my in-laws and dessert at my aunt & uncle's house. It's a bit of traveling, but nice to be able to spend time with everyone on such a great occasion. As I'll need to shop and prep this weekend, I've been doing some serious recipe searching to get my creative juices flowing --->because, you know, I can't simply just follow a recipe that I found, need to make it my own #ihaveproblems.

Since we have 2 events and there are more main and side dishes than could ever possibly be eaten, I am trying to come up with some new ideas for dishes that will likely not be present at either Thanksgiving table. Here's what's on the brainstormed list:

Appetizers/Side Dishes:

Parker House rolls with compound butter (herb, honey cinnamon, cranberry...)

Maple glazed sweet potatoes (as pictured above; so amazing but not sure how they will reheat)

Baked brie with cranberry sauce & walnuts (via a nutritionist eats)

Warm honey fig dip with blue cheese & garlic pitas

My grandmother's cranberry sauce/mold

My cheese ball bites, but with some new flavors

Desserts:

Pie pops --->filled with an assortment of apple, cherry & pecan pie filling (currently the front runner)

Pumpkin s'mores cupcakes --->look amazeballs, but not sure how much work these would be...

Roasted butternut squash pie w/brown sugar marshmallow topping --->so interesting and beautiful

Apple cider cupcakes w/nutmeg frosting (these just scream cozy & warming)

Salted pretzel marshmallow blondies (maybe I'm just having a love affair with marshmallow)

So that's what I'm considering just from poking around online...I haven't even gotten to my cookbooks yet! Tonight, that is my couch-time mission!

What are you making for Thanksgiving? Do you find the same joy that I do in prepping for the holiday?

PS - Are you still doing the 27 Days of Thankfulness challenge? I am! I hope you'll share some of yours with me next week!

Have a Hot Dog Halloween

Happy Halloween!

We've got a busy few days coming up, but it's all fun things! It is Halloween, after all!Today a few of us are having a pot luck lunch at work and I'm wearing a little orange to get in the spirit. Penelope has a Halloween party at school and then tonight we'll take her trick or treating in our building, which I'm really looking forward to. Tomorrow evening, we have a grown-ups Halloween party in our building and I'm pretty excited for this year's costume, which I'll share next week! 

As Hallowen approached, I was trying to come up with a costume for Penelope that would capture her personality right now. Of course, she is still obsessed with Mickey Mouse and so I knew that was the right way to go. I decided to DIY her costume and I'm really happy that I did. 

 

I wanted her costume to be comfortable, not too bulky and channel Mickey without being overly Mickey, if you know what I mean. 

 

The base of her costume is a simple black long sleeve shirt (with a white one underneath for extra warmth) and black leggings that she already had. 

 

I found red bike shorts at Old Navy and though I thought I'd have to break out my little sewing kit for the white buttons, I stumbled upon this stiff adhesive felt. I cut two circles and stuck them right onto the shorts. I also thought that I might need some stitches to reinforce the buttons, however, they stuck strongly with no reinforcements needed.

 

I searched high and low for yellow shoes or sneakers and they were actually pretty hard to track down. Old Navy for the win again, as that was the only place I could find that sold yellow sneakers. These are yellow ombre and super cute. I know P will get lots of wear out of these beyond Halloween for sure.

 

As for her Mickey ears, I did buy her a Mickey ear headband, however, I knew that she would never actually keep this on. I decided to make little ears out of the same stiff felt (it came in a multi-color pack!). I cut 4 circles and stuck them together to make 2 ears, felted front and back. I bent the bottom pretty stiffly and hot glued each ear to a bobby pin. The ears turned out pretty delicate and I had to keep fixing one of them (P ripped one out and apart within 30 seconds of putting them in her hair!), but that's the beauty of hot glue. Oh I also pulled the top of her hair back into two tiny pigtails, then placed the bobby pins right in front of the little hair ties. 

 

I kept wondering how to make her a tail, and in the end, I just didn't. I kind of ran out of time, couldn't get creative enough to get 'er done, and figured that she would probably not be super comfy having one pinned to her booty anyway.

 

So that's how Penelope's Halloween costume came to be. I hope you all have a truly awesome - and safe! - weekend! 

 

What are you being for Halloween?

What are your Halloween plans?

Halloween Playlist

I don't know about you, but I always find that a good playlist can not only make or break a party, but also a regular day. I love getting into the holiday spirit with a solid playlist to amplify my morning walk to the office, or to stream quietly on my computer at work. It makes a simple day feel all the more special. I scoured Spotify and my own music library to put together what I think is a pretty solid Halloween playlist and I hope you'll weigh in with some additions. Of course, many of these songs are not actually Halloween-centric, but I kind of like that even more since it feels moody and no too 'themey'. I hope you enjoy!

What would you add to a Halloween playlist?

*Updated to note: For Time Warp & Over at the Frankenstein Place, I highly recommend The Rocky Horror Show: The New Broadway Cast recording. It's updated and awesome and features Daphne Rubin-Vega (for all of you Rent fanatics like myself). Considering this show had little to no plot line, it was just a super, super fun Broadway show and one of my favorites!