Thanksgiving Pictures.....

We had a Streusel Pumpkin pie & Pecan Pie, which were yummy.

The turkey took about 3 hours to cook, and turned out really moist and yummy. The brine added great flavor to the meat and I will definitely do it again in the future. You can find the recipe I used here.

These are just a few pictures of us relaxing after the meal. Brandon invited his friend BJ over to enjoy the meal. The kids had a great evening getting to know a new friend and were ready for bed pretty early.

Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving and think about who we need to be thankful too.

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1Thess 5:18

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" Ephesians 5:20

Here's also a link talking about Thanksgiving.

Cleaning & Planning......
Today Brandon & I decided to rent a Rug Doctor. The carpets down stairs are cream and were looking so dirty that we just could not take it any more, so we spent most of the day working on cleaning the carpets. What a job it has been, but the carpets look awesome now.

I also went grocery shopping with Gabriel to get what I would need to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. We decided to not travel this year, since Brandon is working the whole weekend. It is also only a month until Christmas break and we will be heading out to visit family in Iowa & Nebraska. I'll be spending the weekend with the kids decorating the house for Christmas. I know they are going to be super excited.

Here are some links to a few recipes that I will be using for my Thanksgiving meal:

Good Eat Roast Turkey
Mama's Green Bean Casserole
Tart Cranberry Dipping Sauce
Pumpkin Pie with Streusel topping

Streusel Topping Recipe:
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tb flour
1 Tb melted butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and bake pie for 15 mins. In the meantime mix up the crumb topping and then put on the pie after 15 mins. This makes such a yummy pumpkin pie.

Other items on the menu at the Kostman home are mashed potatoes, corn & homemade stuffing, which really is only the way to go.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Let me know what your plans are if you have time or share a special Thanksgiving recipe that is a must at your home.

Orchard Craft Sale....

Here is where we headed off to this morning for a little while. We bought some cider donuts, a pumpkin muffin and some homemade soap, which I am really looking forward to using. It was a great day with Anna and Noah. Gabriel got to hang out with daddy for the morning. He had a great time especially since he loves to ride in daddy's truck.

It was also nice and mild outside today and the kids enjoyed playing in the backyard for a bit. It's amazing that there is less then a week till Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it and then decorating for Christmas. I know the kids are excited about it to. I have also been going through the Christmas list and checking it twice. With having 3 little ones I have to make sure to give myself enough time so I can get all the things done that I want to. I'll be back with some pictures soon of a few projects, but until then have a great weekend!

New Girl Room....

Last week I was busy painting one of the bedrooms upstairs. We had all three kids in one bedroom and it was getting a bit crowded. So I got out some Dried Hydrangea paint and got busy covering the sage painted walls up. Wow how it looks so nice and bright up there now. I love it & so does Anna. I still have a few things to finish up, but overall it is all done. I hope to get a few better pictures, but for now here's a picture of Anna snug in her bed with Gabriel snuggled up next to her.

Free Mattress.....
I was coming home from Madison a couple of days ago and saw a mattress lying near the side of the street. I decided to stop to just check it out. I was surprised at how nice it looked and it was wrapped up in plastic. The lady came out from the house and I asked if it was free she said yes. It is a king sized Simmons pillow top mattress in very good shape. Her husband and son came out and put the mattress right up on top of the van. I then drove home very carefully.

I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to get the mattress down the basement steps, but last night Brandon & I pushed, pulled, folded, and squeezed our way down to the basement. We have so much room now and it sleeps like a dream. The best part is it was free. Praise the Lord for his goodness!

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" Phil 4:19

Daddy's Record Player......
Last night I was looking in storage and going through some containers and I found daddy's record player that he got for his 7th birthday. I have a bunch of records & books from when I was little that I use to listen too all the time. Wow what memories and now it's going to be fun sitting down with the kids and listening to the stories again and dancing around to the music. The kids loved it!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie Recipe

It's been a while since I have posted a recipe. I guess I haven't made many new things lately. Hopefully now with the colder weather and fellowship each week it will give me more of a chance to try out some new recipes. To find out more about the recipe go here.

Knitted Shawl for Anna.....
Here is another shawl that I had started last winter and finally finished up about a month ago.
It was fun & easy to make. I have a few more projects in my mind that I would like to make, but I will have to see how much time I have. We do have some travel trips coming up, which would be some good time to work on a project.

Evening Walk........
The kids had a lot of fun collecting wood on our walk. We have a big park just down the road and there were some big trees. It was not the plan at the beginning of the walk, but as soon as they found a few sticks there was no stopping them. Anna & Gabe collected them all and all I did was break them up so I could get them home.

I even had a really big limb that I ended up dragging behind me because it was to big to break up. We will have to take the saw to that one.

They were so proud of themselves. We now have a good pile of wood for starting fires in our fireplace and all for free. We got home right at 5:00 p.m. and it was almost dark. How sad that it is. Well maybe the kids will be ready for bed a bit earlier with it dark so early.

Knitted Shawl....
I have been working on this for a little over a month or so. I didn't go by a pattern and am very happy with how it turned out. Anna has a couple of shawl were I got the idea and thought I would try making one for myself. It's nice and warm and will be nice to wear around the house during the next few cold months.