What We've Been Up To...

So what have Belle, Bee and I been up to recently?

Well, we feasted with family. Our tummies have never been so full or so happy:)



But, we did save some room for dessert!


We've spread some sisterly love...and accidentally excluded all the pictures where the love wasn't so sweet!


Then we made some time to decorate this monstrous thing in our jammies. We even went back later and added a tree topper, but somehow it didn't make the "film."


We froze our cute little tushies off at the Raleigh Christmas parade on the ONE cold day we've had so far this fall. It has been seriously warm here and we are looking forward to a little chill tomorrow!

And even spotted our hometown hero along the route!

Can you guess who's driving these reindeer???

Someone knows who it is and she is being sure to show off her most winning (and innocent looking) smile.

But this one just doesn't seem to get it...no, Bee, you're supposed to be GOOD!

We've read a lot of books and worn more than our share of costumes.

We even sported some rocking Daddy-made "crowns," at bath time.

This has to be the best picture I've ever taken...I just love it!

But, "Wait," you say. What's missing here? Oh, yes. The craftiness.

Well, lest you believe that all projects have come to an end, here's the list of WIP and completed fun stuff over the last few weeks: felt Christmas cookies, a pile of holiday bookmarks/ornaments/gift tags, a good portion of a rather large Christmas quilt pieced, a GORGEOUS dress for Belle to wear to the Nutcracker, a super-fab embellished stocking for a dear local client, mountains of glittered holiday play dough, a wool felt gingerbread baby, a partially completed Clara doll, and a partridge in a pear tree (ok - that was just to see if you were paying attention).

Now, why on Earth aren't there any pictures of those goodies. Well, you see, when one is so busy living life and crafting on the side, one somehow runs out of time to edit the 600+ photos clogging up the SD card, preventing you from photographing all the crafty goodness. UNTIL TONIGHT! All 9,000,000,000 pics have been edited, saved, and organized (and shared) and there is finally room on that card for some pics of the fun projects we've been working on.

Just wait until you see the present Belle is making for Bee for Christmas...it's pretty darn amazing and I'm not the least bit biased.

So, I hope you've been just as busy living life as we have. And I'll be back soon with some of the fun holiday sewing that we've been up to:)

mmmm...PIE!

We took a trip to the local pumpkin patch and brought home this gourd-geous gourd! Of course, I forgot to take a pic of it before we baked it:( And I forgot the variety name:( So, I'm no help whatsoever:( But ask the farmers at your local stand which of their pumpkins will make the best pie...that's what I did.


We cut it into fourths and scooped out all the stringy stuff and seeds. We separated the seeds and bagged some for planting next year and some for roasting. The pumpkin hunks went into a 350 degree oven until they were ultra-smooshy. I think ours were in the oven close to 2 hours...we had a BIG pumpkin!



When it came out we scooped the pulp, and boy was there a lot of it!

So last night, I dug out my grandma's pumpkin pie recipe. Remember my rather sketchy soup recipes...well, you're about to see where I get it:)

A little fresh whipped cream and YUMMY!

Grandma's Pumpkin Pie Recipe:

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 can pumpkin (when using fresh, eyeball it - put about 1 can worth of pulp in)

1 small can evaporated milk

pumpkin pie spice (I asked, "How much?"...she said, "enough.") - I went with a generous sprinkling approx. 1-2T

pie shell

Stir all ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour into shell. Bake at 375 degrees. I asked, "How long?" She said, "Till it's done." I think it takes about an hour...but have I ever timed it? NOPE! You'll know it's finished when it is firmly set. Cool before serving. Serve with whipped cream. And that pic above...that was my first scoop of whipped cream. I FIRMLY believe that you should have a 1:1 ratio of cream to pie, but that's just me:)