Pretty

This time of year I notice the sunsets more since before you know it, it's getting dark and your blinds are still open so you see the sunset! We've had lots of pretty ones lately.

I've been entering LOTS of recipes for our town's Sesquicentennial cookbook. There are three of us typing them in to the cookbook company's software. We have 560 entered so far. Our goal is to have all entered by this weekend so the gal that's going to proofread them can get started.

This is a card I've made several of this Fall. Fall has always been my favorite season, and I always like making "leaf cards". This was made with Stampin' Up!'s Gently Falling set in our current catalog. It's a two step set. You ink the first solid stamp and stamp, then stamp over it with the outline stamp that goes with it. Then I cut the leaves out and mounted them on the card with dimensionals so that they're popped up.

Today Bill was working on tile lines. He installed another intake in one field (just what I need - another intake to try to not hit!) and worked on a couple other fields. They're getting more work like this done now since we still have had no measurable rain or snow - very unusual weather. Guys are hauling corn from their grain bins past our house this week and the dust is just rolling off the gravel road. It's kind of pointless to dust things in the house right now. I was hoping that with a new house it would be tighter and less dust would get inside but it still does somehow.

Thanksgiving

This was our year to be with Bill's family for Thanksgiving so we all gathered at his mom's for a yummy turkey/ham dinner. Bill's sister and family came down from Blue Earth, his brother from Kansas City and his aunt from Algona.

In the 3rd picture Matthew is nervously laughing after we teased him about the Frog Eye Salad that he was eating. We asked if he knew what he was eating and he said no and we told him it was Frog Eye Salad. His dad then told him that Memaw had spent lots of nights catching frogs to get that many frog eyes! He wasn't sure what to think! I posted the recipe a long time ago if you'd like to try it. Just click on the Recipe category in the right column and scroll down to it.

In the 4th picture, Karen is standing on a chair to be tall enough for pictures to be taken of her with Jim.

In the last picture, Bill is teaching Matthew how to shoot. The guys came here to our house after lunch to sight in a shot gun of Dave's using our back stop. Dave's getting ready to take Matthew out deer hunting here next weekend for Matthew's first time.

Aunt Delrae had not seen our house since we moved in so she came over for a tour.

Very nice Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I always like the cornucopia, pumpkins and gourds up front at church in the fall. The first one was taken at our church and the last two were taken in the Catholic Church here in town.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Thanksgiving Preparations

When I was back in Indiana last, one of my stamping friends introduced me to Pinterest. It's another time consuming thing kind of like Facebook but you can get lots of good ideas there. It seems like there are lots of fun food ideas. (this stamping friend is the same one that told me about cake balls that I made and blogged about)

I found these cute "acorns" on Pinterest. They're just made with the bite size Nutter Butters, Hershey kisses and chocolate chips.

Lacey and I had a good time making some of them last time the girls were here. You just melt a few chocolate chips to use as "glue" to put the pieces together. Quick, easy & cute!

I had signed up to do snacks last Sun. night for the Ignite teen group at church so I made a pan of Scotcheroos and also took a bowl of these. Today I dropped off some for Terri to have for their Thanksgiving meal since this is something she would like/make and dropped off some for Lacey to take to their Thanksgiving feast tomorrow so she can show them what she made (she was pretty proud of them). The ones left here have a little sign on them that say "No!" so we'll have some for tomorrow!

Can't you just about smell good things cooking all over tonight? I've had a couple of problems in the process of making my stuff today. The little heater that I use to heat up our small laundry room to raise the rolls in was not heating. Also a piece broke off of my food processor that I use to blend up the sweet potatoes for the sweet potato casserole Jim is looking forward to. So Bill had to "fix" when he came in tonight.

I'm thankful for husbands who can fix things and also that I was in 4-H and had to learn how to make these rolls! They're an easy recipe that the dough is refrigerated overnight and no kneading is needed. If you'd like the recipe, let me know! These will be baked tonight so our house will smell great - and we'll get to sample them warm out of the oven!

If you watch the Macy's Parade tomorrow, watch for the Carmel (Indiana) Greyhounds - the band from my high school (and Mom's & Glenn's).

Big Holiday SU! Sale

Stampin' Up!'s Online Extravaganza

Calling All Card Makers And Scrapbookers!

This Is A Stampin' Up! Sale You Don't Want To Miss!

Make sure you check out my ONLINE STORE for the annual ONLINE EXTRAVAGANZA from Stampin' Up! This sale is a perfect way to kick off your holiday shopping and best of all, you can shop from the comfort of your own home.

The sale is from now until Wednesday Nov. 30th and you can take advantage of it by shopping through my store at http://www.cindykemna.stampinup.net or just email or call me with your order!

There are some Christmas fabrics at 60% off, several stamp sets at 50% off including the great set, On Your Birthday ($16.98), and lots more.

Here is a link to a .pdf list of the sale prices:

http://www.stampinup.com/us/documents/Online_X_flyer_US.pdf

Sweet Potato Casserole

Here's a good recipe that our family usually has on Thanksgiving. Bill's brother Jim is always hinting about wanting one of my Sweet Potato Pies and I've never made one, but I figured out that he must mean this! We'll find out Thurs.!

I'll probably be doing another blog post later today re: a Stampin' Up! sale - Online Extravaganza - that's going on as of yesterday. See details on my web site (above) and click on Promotions! Now through Nov. 30th.

Sweet Potato Casserole

1/2 c. milk
1 1/4 c. white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 stick butter, melted
46 oz. canned sweet potatoes
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cinnamon

Blend together in a blender or food processor. Bake at 350 for 30 min.

Topping

3/4 c. crushed corn flakes
1/2 c. chopped pecans
1/2 c. brown sugar
3/4 stick butter

Melt butter and combine with above. Spread over mixture and bake 10 min.

They're on!

Update on the little cowboy boots that Glenn brought for the girls - Camry is now wearing them! She hasn't been walking too long and had just gotten used to wearing her Nikes when she got the boots. She didn't want them on. Diane says that Lacey put them on her this weekend and now she likes stomping around being loud!

Butter Braids

Many of you have probably bought a Butter Braid or two from a school or group fundraiser? We're lucky to live near West Bend where the Butter Braid company is. We can buy seconds for $6 in a couple of stores in that town, which I think is about half what they cost through a fundraiser.

When Glenn was here, he wanted a cream cheese one so I picked up a couple. Bill likes apple of course and my favorite is cinnamon (it has gooey cinnamon inside). They have a bunch of flavors now. Per their web site, their newest flavor is almond creme.


You buy them frozen (first picture), lay them out covered with plastic wrap overnight and then they're ready to bake in the morning! They come with an icing packet.

Lacey was here one day recently and watched me bake one and was hesitant to try it, but I think she's starting to realize that baked things in this house are usually pretty good (and she's been having fun learning how to bake too). So she tried it and was soon back for a second piece!

We're finally having a little mist this morning and HOPE it turns into RAIN but the temp. is 31 and there's nothing showing for rain on the radar.

The Word Cafe

Last Saturday I went to our NW Iowa Women's Conference at our church. The theme was The Word Cafe - so lots of coffee was available! For lunch, we were served our minister's wife's yummy potato or vegetable soup in the big coffee mugs you see in the second picture and then we got to take one home. Along with the soup, we had turkey sandwiches with a special sauce and bacon and a delicious dark apple cake with cinnamon sauce for dessert.

The speaker was Vicki Tiede and worship music was led by Jill Pearson. Our church's puppeteers performed doing sign language for a song. There were lots of nice door prizes. This is the conference we were to have last year at this time but it had to be cancelled after food was prepared due to a snow storm! This year the weather and day was great (still no rain!). We're lucky to have something like this to go to in our area!

Norwegian Dinner

There are quite a few Norwegian people in this area, and every year I read in the newspaper about a Norwegian supper that the Badger Lutheran Church has been doing since 1906. I've always wanted to go.

This year my friend Terri and I finally went. We got there when they started serving at 4:30 and were given numbers 400 and 401! We were seated 2 hours later at 6:30. They told us they usually serve 600-700 people.

It's all very organized. You wait in the sanctuary where they have a big screen showing pictures of their work days making all the food. They call numbers on a speaker. Then you're taken to a smaller room until your table is cleared and ready.

The menu consists of lutefisk which means lyefish, potato lefse (round and thin almost like a crepe), boiled potatoes and melted butter, meatballs and gravy, green beans, cranberries, flotbrod, brown bread, gumma, fruit soup, spritz, rosettes (I've made these before), kringla, krumkake and coffee served family style, all you can eat for $20. The recipes have been passed down through generations.

We didn't care for the lutefisk. They say you either love it or hate it. We were very lucky to have Norwegian people sitting around us and could ask them questions. The couple across from us mainly has this meal at Christmas time although she bakes kringla all year round. Many people in this area still make kringla and you can buy it in some of the groceries.

The couple next to me were born in Norway and still have the accent.

The fruit soup was thick, cooked fruit like prunes, raisins, apples and sometimes lemon and orange rind. It was cold and the color of prunes. I liked it but Terri didn't. The lefse is eaten different ways. The people with us spread soft butter on it, sprinkle with sugar and either fold it or roll it up and eat it. Some spread it with jam. The woman across from us ate one with butter and sugar but also puts one on her plate, then potatoes, then fish and then pours melted butter over all. There were 2 kind of big pitchers of melted butter on the table. She also very highly recommended that we put butter on our kringla which we had not heard of! It was better that way! We observed that they eat a LOT of butter evidently! (maybe Paula Deen is Norwegian?)

As we left, the woman at the ticket table asked us if we liked the fish and we honestly said "not really". She said that younger people seem to not like it so we asked if she thought the tradition would continue. She said that they have about 7 work days/nights to prepare for this and the young people as well as the old come to work and learn. They say that the lutefisk is tricky to cook just right. Could be that it will eventually be a meatball dinner? We both said that we probably won't go again but it was fun, and we're very glad we went went this year!

Next is a German meal in Humboldt on Dec. 3rd!

Pheasant Hunters

We have a group of four hunters from Wisconsin that come here to hunt pheasant every year. They're here this weekend for three days of hunting. Bill's mom had chili for them one day last year which was a great idea (last year we had a snow storm this weekend!).

We had lunch for them at our house today. I was really wanting to take a picture of everybody sitting around the table but some people don't like to be featured on a blog so I didn't ask.

The menu was salisbury steaks, green bean casserole, butterhorn rolls and Peggy brought frog eye salad. I tried a new recipe from the Tasty Kitchen blog called Ozark Apple Pudding which was more like cake and served it with cinnamon or vanilla ice cream.

I talked about ordering a new table here on the blog back in July or so. It's an Amish table made in Ohio and we waited about 10 weeks for it. We were able to choose the shape, style of legs, edge, wood, stain, number of leaves and chair style. We took a piece of our wood trim that's throughout the house to match the wood grain and stain color. We have the room so got six leaves while we were doing it (and so they would match rather than maybe getting more later). It'll stretch out to 11'. We went ahead and got 6 chairs (2 are side chairs with the arms) and matching counter stools. The table we had was a round maple one that I bought used for $50 from a little old lady when I was living in my first apartment. It was really nice to have everybody at one table today.

Back to the hunters, they have only seen 4 birds and got 2 of those in 2 days. The dogs are having trouble finding a scent since it's been too dry this year and there are few birds due to hard winters and wet springs. They save the tail feathers for Bill's brother, Jim, who gives them to a Native American whose tribe makes things with them.

Still No Rain

Much of the state got rain overnight and today but we still haven't. Tonight there is a winter weather advisory for some counties just to the east of us. The color around here right now is brown but soon it will be white.

Tim has been picking up rocks in the fields with a loader that Kyle, Jim & I found when ripping. Tim said some of them were really big. Today Bill & Tim are cutting some tree limbs that are hanging out in the fields.



I've said before that I like to see bales in a field. I've been noticing all of these various stacks around. The one with the square bales is ready to be put on a semi. Mom commented that it looked like more bales than usual around here this year. Bill says some guys are baling the corn stalks to sell to the ethanol plants now.

I've got a P.E.O. meeting tonight, tomorrow morning is a program at the library on someone's trip to Russia, we have pheasant hunters coming at the end of the week, Terri & I are going to a Norwegian meal at a church on Thurs. night, and I have a women's conf. at our church on Sat. Fun stuff!

Fun Saturday

I've had a fun day so far. This morning I went with three friends to Plover, a nearby town. The church there has a nut and bake sale every year. With it they have homemade pie and coffee and lunch. We just had pie this year because then Terri and I went on to Laurens to the Heart 'N Home store that was having a Christmas Open House today. The owner of this store did our P.E.O. wine tasting that I blogged about this summer.

She is now carrying a new line of dip mixes that we sampled along with a bunch of other little food bites and wine. Her son has helped her make some new soy candles. We liked almost every scent (not too strong) and they poured them into different glasses that they found at garage sales or auctions. I got a cranberry balsam one that is in a champagne glass. Some were in clear glass tea cups. My pictures today are not the best.

Then we checked out two antique shops and another shop in town.

Bill was going pheasant hunting today. Good thing they started early this morning. It's super windy here this afternoon. We're supposed to be having 45 mph gusts. At least the sun is shining and it's not too cold yet. Days like this we're glad to not have any big trees near the house! I'm wondering how the hunters did. Very few pheasants were seen during harvest.

Bill wants to take me out to eat tonight! The Ft. Dodge Mineral City burned down a year or more ago and has been rebuilt. Bill hasn't been there since they reopened. (we had our first date there) It used to be more rustic with a lot of wood but is now modern looking decor and has a new menu.

Sights on the Trail

We have a really nice trail that starts just down the road from our house. My friend, Terri, and I have walked on it the past few days a couple of times. It was perfect, Fall weather to do it both days. We're sorry we won't have many more nice days to walk outside.

Terri pointed out how blue the sky looked behind this tree, and she was the first to see the two deer come onto the trail ahead of us. (second picture)

I always like seeing the cattle along this creek. This is the same creek that runs behind our house. I took Lacey down there recently. We put some flat concrete pieces in the water so that we could walk across, threw rocks in the water and walked up the hill on the other side close to the railroad track. She thought it was pretty fun. Bill won't go play in the creek with me (or walk on the trail)!

Cute Video

I babysat just Camry yesterday and we had so much fun. At first I was thinking that I wished she would play on her own some so I could get some things done but it ended up being so much fun I just enjoyed it. I guess she wears her mom's shoes at home often. I couldn't believe how good she walked with a big shoe on since she hasn't been walking that long and her feet are tiny. Check out the video - I don't know why it is sideways.

Camry was a little devil for Halloween.

Bill has been power washing semis, tractors and the grain cart. Today was another nice Fall day to get outside things done. We're supposed to get rain starting tonight - we're hoping we do.