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.

Boys Behind the Wheel.......
I'm glad I have a few years before I really have to worry about that.

140 Custom Holiday Address Labels for $3 shipped....

I found this link and thought someone might be interested. I always love to find free things or something almost for free. To read more go here.

Some Fun Websites.....

Here is a link to some great Fun Songs for the kids to sing & dance to. That's one of the things we are up to this morning. They also love to play games at PBS Kids.

Outdoor Fun......

Today was such a nice day. We took the kids up to the Lapacek's Orchard & then to the Mackenzie Center. The Mackenzie center has some great walking trails out in the woods, which was wonderful and lots of great things for the kids to see. We will definitely be going back to both places again and the best part is they are only about 20 minutes away. Then later in the afternoon the kids headed out in the backyard to have a little fun. I hope we have some more of these days before the snow flies. Here are a few pictures that I got....

Crocheted Hat......
This is a little project that I worked on one evening. I am very happy with how it turned out. I am also working on a shawl for myself that I am hoping turns out. I hope to get it done just in time for the real cold weather.

Cold & Colds......
A couple days ago I was feeling tired and the kids and I were getting stuffy noises. It's now a few days later and I am still tired and wish I could find some energy. My husband told me that from Tuesday on this next week it's suppose to rain, so tomorrow I will have to get outside and mow the grass. I need to pick up leaves and clean up the garden as well. Hopefully it will be the last mowing besides picking up leaves as they fall off the trees. I have to say I am looking forward to winter. I have been knitting & crocheting the last few weeks. I made myself a hat last night to keep me warm during the up coming months. That's about all that's going on around here.

Other Things .....
We brought make a bunch of grapes from my mom. I was able to turn them into grape juice & grape jelly. Yum!!

We also were able to bring back a good amount of wood, which we have stacked in our garage.

It has been nice to be able to build a fire with the cold mornings that we have been having. We even had frost last night.

Our Trip to Grandma & Grandpa's House.....

The cute little cockier spaniel puppies that all the kids loved playing with.

Fun in the big tub!

Noah got into Great Grandma's face cream. This is pretty much the story of Noah these days. Trying to keep up with his messes and the other kids messes just make me tired thinking about it.

Fall Wreath....
Anna has been enjoying Sprout Online. It has a lot of games, but yesterday she found a whole bunch of craft videos. She had a great time looking through them and she decided she wanted to make this wreath. It was a lot of fun and is a great fall craft.

I'm sure we will have many more great crafts to share in the days ahead.

Where does the time go?????
Here are a few picture from when it was a bit warmer outside. It's amazing how cold it is now. It's only been getting up into the 50's for the past few weeks. I found the jump rope that I had as a kid and Anna has been having a blast with it.

Both the kids relaxing in the backyard and enjoying a snack.

The day wore Gabe out and he fell asleep on daddies lap.

I'll have some pictures of our visit to grandma & grandpa's house pretty soon.

I'm Back.....

I got back from visiting my family today. The kids had a great time and I'll post pictures sometime soon, but for now I need to get some rest.

What a day.......

So far to has been a lot of running around and cleaning up, which I guess is most days in general. Anyway today it has been about Noah's messes. I found him up in the bathroom with his bath tub cups taking water out of the toilet and pouring it on the floor. I then took all his clothes and diaper off, so I could put him in the tub for a bath. Unfortunately, I hadn't notice that he had poops in his diaper, which had fallen on the floor and then I stepped in it. It was a smelly mess to clean up.

Then later on Anna came to tell me that Noah was in trouble. I came down to the kitchen to find Noah had pulled the egg carton out of the refrigerator and there were broken eggs all over the floor. Lets just say I now have really clean floors. I wished I had taken photos, but I didn't.

Heading for a Visit.....
I'm planning on visiting my parents over the weekend. My aunt from California will be visiting my dad and so I decided to load the kids up on Saturday and spend a few days. Brandon will be staying home, since he has two big test on Monday to study for. I sure will miss my hubby's help with the kids, but at least he will have a nice quiet weekend, so he can study in the comfort of his own home.

The garden is winding down. There are a few more tomatoes to ripen, green peppers growing, broccoli that never ends and a few zucchini here and there. It's been a good year with plenty of broccoli, string beans, corn & zucchini in the freezer. I also canned about 50 quarts of tomatoes, which is a record for me. I actually had a neighbor give me some canning jars and we also bought a few because I thought I might run out. It is a blessing to have a freezer full and to not have to buy very much at the grocery store.

Well it's quiet in our house early tonight. Noah was in bed at 6:30 p.m. and the other two have tired themselves out and are sleeping. I hope to take some good pictures over the weekend or maybe I will just let my daughter take control of the camera. Have a great weekend!

Anna Portraits.....
She has such fun taking pictures with the came and here are a few she took of herself.

5 Star Brownies......

To read more and find the recipe go here.

Monday: Chicken, Broccoli & Rice Casserole

Tuesday: Tacos with Guacamole

Wednesday: Hamburgers, French Fries & String Beans

Thursday: Potato, Asparagus & Leek Soup

Friday: Baked Chicken, Vegetables & Rice

Saturday: Leftovers

Sunday: Breakfast of Choice

To find more menu ideas visit here.

German Apple Pie Recipe

Today ended up being an apple day. The kids had there class time at the library and the letter of the day was "A". The kids got to make apple baskets, watch a video about Spot the dog and listen to a few stories about apples. They had a great time and so we decided to make an apple pie when we got home. What a fun project, since the end product is delicious.
To find out more about the makings of this and recipe go here.

Photo Shoot of Noah by Anna

One nice afternoon Anna asked me if she could take some pictures. It's amazing what kids learn from just watching us. Anna knows how to turn the camera on, take the pictures and flip the switch to look at the pictures she took. I have to say she took some really great pictures. Also the new flower picture on the top of my blog is also one that she took. I'll be sharing more picture that she took in some other posts.

Weekend Activities.....

This past week & weekend was busy. I'm sure you could tell from my lack of posting. We headed to the farmer's market on Saturday to buy some corn to freeze. We purchased about 10 dozen and got about 2 dozen free. Then that afternoon we worked on corn and we still have half of it to do. I also have been working on canning tomatoes and so far have canned 33 quarts and still have a lot of tomatoes to work on. I think I many even run out of jars this year. I've also frozen many packages of broccoli & string beans.

The kids enjoyed helping mom & dad. This is a picture of just half of the corn we purchased.

Laundry Soap Recipes.....

For those of you who don't know I have been making my own laundry soap for well over 6 months. It has been working very well and saves us a lot of money. I came across I link a week or so ago that has several different laundry soap recipes. The recipe that I use can be found at The Simple Dollar. This other site called the Tip Nut has 10 different laundry soap recipes. It is so easy to make up. I also use Oxi Clean with my whites and let them soak a while because with 3 kids I do get some pretty dirty clothes. I would encourage you to give it a try.

End of the Summer Fun.....

Last week I went in to get my hair cut and the lady asked me if I wanted some tickets to Waterworld and I said sure. They were awesome tickets with FREE admission. The kids had a blast.

Here is a picture of them after all the fun. I think they are ready to go again next summer.