Loving Adventures Fiercely

In the beginning of November, I decided to be brave, and take my 3 tiny humans back to the east coast for a visit with family and friends. 16 hours and 45 minutes... was the time that Google Maps told me that it would take to get to my sister's house (our first stop).  I knew I couldn't do it in one day... so, I broke the trip into 2 days of driving. I made sure the first day, to drive until I couldn't drive anymore (I did the first leg in 11 hours) and left 5.5 hours to the second day. Stopping along the way is always the exciting part. I love driving through places/states I have never seen. There was no agenda, there was no places we knew we were stopping, there was no hotel reservation booked, there was no researching the route I was taking. The unknown is what made it all that much more of an adventure. And I love adventures something fierce...

 

SHOP SMALL

I couldn't let the opportunity pass without sharing an amazing discount code from The Little Spoons. Hilary created some amazing holiday pieces, and she's offering 20% off everything in her shop until tomorrow at midnight. Use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY20 ... there are so many wonderful things in her shop... but some of our favorites are her jogger sweats, leggings, and cardigans. I love that you can mix and match patterns... and that they add pops of color... there's no going wrong when you support handmade.

Thanksgiving 2015

As our family has grown over the years, the one thing I've always told myself, is not to stress out over the holidays. Simplicity has always been my way of handling the busyness of this season. It's easy for me to get overwhelmed... so therefore, I cut out all the extras... and focus on what's important.

It was a rainy Thanksgiving this year... and I always take rainy days as a "clue" to SLOW DOWN... not that I had something huge planned for our day... but it was a beautiful reminder to keep things simple. We started off the morning with a 5k run in the neighborhood (before the rain started to pour), created the most delicious herb butter to lather on our turkey (recipe at the end, so I have it for safe keeping), played 2013's Thanksgiving Day Parade through our apple tv (since we don't have cable) while dancing to all the fun performances, crafting during naptime, created some little "what we are thankful for..." flags to stick in our succulent flowers, and devoured a delicious but not "over the top" Thanksgiving day dinner. 

Roasted Herb Butter Turkey:

Ingredients- 3/4 c. butter, softened. 1 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning. 2 tbsp. garlic herb sauce mix. 1 1/2 tsp. crushed garlic.

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. Use a fork to mix together until well combined. Cover and put in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes, until firm but not hard.

Rinse the thawed turkey and pat dry. Use your finger to carefully loosen the skin around the entire bird. Take the butter mixture and cut into large pieces. Place the butter pieces under the skin of the entire turkey. Rub the remaining butter pieces on the outside of the skin and season with salt and pepper.

Heat over to 400 degrees. Place turkey in roast pan and roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (8-12 lb.) or 30-40 minutes (larger turkey.) This will form a crust on turkey, sealing in the juices. After roasting for this period of time, turn oven temperature to 275 degrees and add 2 cups of chicken broth. Cover with lid or foil and roast at 275 degrees for at least 6 hours.

Remove turkey from the oven and let cool slightly. De-bone turkey and strain juices to make sure there are no small bones before turning into gravy to serve.

Party of 3.

I don't even want to think about the fact that they're calling for freezing rain over the next few days... so instead, I'll sit here and look back at all the photos that were taken on our beautiful Fall days...

Tough Business

This morning Marley declared...

"Today is the day... 'dat I gonna marry da prince."

And my heart just about melted into a million pieces... it reminded me that I should pray for that prince of hers... and to pray for his parents, because raising little ones, is some tough business.

Fun Little Bundle

We received our Nature Pal Exchange package the other day from the sweet family in Virginia that we were matched with... what a fun little bundle that they put together for us! It's super fun collecting and sending off things from Oklahoma for others to enjoy, but receiving was just as much fun. Seeing all the differences between our two states was interesting.

I asked the kids to pull out what their favorite pieces were, and here's the responses I got:

Charlotte: " I really like the scarlet emperor beans... they look magical, like the beans for 'Jack In The Beanstalk'... like giant, magic beans. "

Marley: " I like the fedder (feather)... oh it's from a pwretty birdie."

Finn: "..." I'm pretty certain his favorite part was the wrapping that everything was bundled up in.

Nature Pal Exchange swaps, are like gifts that keep on giving. The surprise of it arriving in the mail, the adventure of exploring all the contents (took my children about an hour), and then playing with all the goodies. Next up, we will be journaling about all of the goodies that were sent our way.