I am thrilled to be a part of this year’s Progressive Dinner Party over at the Book Blog Social Club. I will be contributing my favorite Cinnamon Apples for a beginning side dish.

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CINNAMON APPLES

Ingredients
› 8 large apples
› 1 cup of water
› 1 cup of granulated white sugar
› 1/4 cup Red Hot candies

Instructions
› Peel and thickly slice apples.

› Combine the water and Red Hots in a large sauce pan. Heat until the sugar and candies have disolved.

› Add apples and sugar to the heated pan.

› Cook apples on medium heat until they are tender.

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That’s it! A simple addition to any holiday feast! These apples always remind me of Christmas. It’s the special dish that I can always count on to grace the table on Christmas morning.

Don’t forget to stop by the Book Blog Social Club to see everyone’s link-ups throughout this entire week! There will be main dish ideas, desserts and decorating ideas.

The previous recipe for a Creamy Artichoke Dip is here at epiBlogger.
The following recipe for Green Bean Bundles is here at eclectic / eccentric.

For more Wordless Wednesday, link up at any of these great friends:
(Note: All sites open in a new tab or window.)
Momspective, 5 Minutes for Mom, Experimental Mommy, Extraordinary Mothers, Happily Blended, MomDot, Look What Mom Found, What’s that smell?, Seven Clown Circus, J. Leigh Designz, Jolly Mom, Mrs. Marine, The Attic Girl, Keeper of the Cheerios, Healthy Moms, Go, Graham, Go!, Cute As A Buggy, Two of a Kind, Mom of 3 Girls, My Sippy Cup Runneth Over, Moomette’s Magnificents, Life Down Our Lane, Crazyland, Diana Rambles, Shopping Mama, Divine Miss Mommy, Country Girl City Life, and of course, WW Hub.

So many great friends have started commenting here on WW, that I decided to now add a Linkie, so you can connect back to your post!

 

Each of these contests will be ending Friday, December 4th, so make sure to get your entries in before the end of the week!!

Here is a list of things up for grabs! And also keep in mind that there is still an entire week before it comes to a close, so check back OFTEN for an updated list… there are MORE TO COME!

• $150 Shopping Spree to the sister’s two stores.
• An entire Veggie Tales library!!
• Rock Candy Princess Electric Guitar Pack.
• Shred Sled. (A neighborhood kid has one of these and showed me how to use it. Very cool!!)
• Hasbro Toys.
• Epson Workforce 600 All-in-One Printer.
• $75 Maukilo Gift Card.
• There are FIVE Snapfish Photo Cards.
• Sesame Street 40^th Anniversary Collection.
• Band Hero Super Bundle.
• Grocery Store / Lemonade Stand.
• Young Scientists Club Science Kit.
• A trip to see Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway.
• Wiggles Prize Pack.
• TWO TRAYblecloth Activity Centers.
• Moody Mamas Maternity Wardrobe.
• Doll House Building Blocks.
• 5-in-1 Tasty Baker.
• RUVAcards Magnets and Personalized Stationary.
• Things Remembered and Make-A-Wish® Water Globe.
• Oreck Halo Vacuum.
• Land of Nod Child’s Sewing Kit and Twelve Days of Christmas Ornaments set.
• MORE TO COME!! Check back here or at the 5 Minutes for Mom Christmas Giveaway 2009 post for more updates.

This past Thursday, my mom came up for a visit and lost of baking. I love baking; it’s a passion, but it’s so much more fun with company! We had our Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin from Halloween still around since we decided not to carve it this year while we weren’t home this year. So instead, I decided that I wanted to make some fresh, REAL Pumpkin Pie!

It was so much fun!! We chopped up that big ol’ pumpkin, roasted it, mashed, mushed, and turned it into a Perfect Pumpkin Pie! Here’s what we did!

When you destroy a Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin, this is what it looks like. The 9×13″ pan was overflowing!!

The roasted pumpkin seeds!

When all is said and done, THIS is how much pumpkin you get!! Each bag has 2 cups-worth of pumpkin (except for the little bag, that only has one cup). That is a total 13 cups-worth of pumpkin that we made from that ONE full pumpkin!!

And if you remember my earlier post here, about the picture I found… of course I had to do it! So who else do I recruit for my turkey but my sweet Bug!! Here is the finished Baby Turkeys Pumpkin Pie, that we will be enjoying next Saturday at my side of the family’s Thanksgiving.

And, the close up view. He LOVED pressing in the dough making the hand prints!! And he even helped paint some of the “feathers”.

Bring on the feasts!!!! What special Thanksgiving traditions do you and your family enjoy? After this year, we are adding our Turkey Hand Pumpkin Pies!

We tend to focus on a lot of things that we are thankful for during these fall months, with Thanksgiving right around the corner and looking forward to spending time with our family, friends and the ones that mean the most in our lives.

This has to be the best holiday season for myself so far. I can truly say that I have a wonderful husband. He may have his faults, but he will always go out of his way to make sure that I and our son have everything that we need and are always happy.

And my son; what else is there really to say about my Bug??! He is the absolute Light of my life! This will be the first year that he will really be able to “participate” in all of the holidays. He has grown into the sweetest little two-year-old that I think I’ve ever known. I may be a little biased, but really now. He is the ruler of clean! There can be NO trash, or he must throw it away. He puts away his books and toys when he is finished with them. He is just a WEE bit obsessed with reading; he LOVES to read. He will get offended if I do laundry without him. We now know 13 body parts, can ask for something in a complete sentence (including “please”!), knows at least 15 animals and 3 shapes! Oh yeah, I can’t forget that he is the best hugs and kisses giver-outer in the whole wide world. (Nah, I don’t think I’m biased. But, really! He is!)

What are you thankful for this week, or this year?

For endless Wordless Wednesday, link up at any of these great friends:
All sites open in a new tab or window.
Momspective, 5 Minutes for Mom, Experimental Mommy, Extraordinary Mothers, Happily Blended, MomDot, Look What Mom Found, What’s that smell?, Seven Clown Circus, J. Leigh Designz, Jolly Mom, Mrs. Marine, The Attic Girl, Keeper of the Cheerios, Healthy Moms, Go, Graham, Go!, Cute As A Buggy, Two of a Kind, Mom of 3 Girls, My Sippy Cup Runneth Over, Moomette’s Magnificents, Life Down Our Lane, Crazyland, Diana Rambles, Shopping Mama, Divine Miss Mommy, Country Girl City Life, and of course, WW Hub.

In the meantime, this song came on the radio this morning on our way to the pediatrician. It is called “God-Shaped Hole” by Plumb. If you don’t know the band, this song was on the soundtrack to Bruce Almighty. And if you’ve REALLY been under a rock and haven’t seen it yet, I highly suggest that you go watch it!! It’s such a great depiction of God’s grace and care over the situations in our lives, with a good dose of just how much of a sense of humor our Lord has! After all, what good or fun is a life without a little laughter and jest??!

Since these coupons do say that they are valid through four visits, I’m thinking (for my family at least), a good sitting for Bug since we haven’t gotten any professional pictures done of him this year, AND we can go back as a family to have some good family pictures taken! And possibly on a third visit, hubby and I can get some pictures together (we’ve been together going on four years now and can you believe we’ve never had professional pictures taken together, just us?).

This set of coupons expires January 31 of next year, so you have a good two and a half months to take advantage! Just click on the link below and print!

Target Portrait Studios free 8×10 portrait and $8.99 packages!
 

That seems to be my current “quest” and what all of my friends are chatting about these days. And why not? With the price of just about anything you can think of shooting through the roof these days, we have to buckle down and get smart somewhere!

I would consider making a menu Step One if you were trying to cut down on costs. This way, you know exactly what’s in your pantry, and if you set out a plan of which meals are what days, then you won’t have to be panicking over what to pull together at 5 o’clock.

Now, I have spent a decent amount of time smoothing out and adjusting our menu. And personally, I thought I was doing really well. I have gotten our menus polished to a four-week plan, and for basic groceries, we have been spending around $150 a month or a little less.

There’s still a LOT that I have to learn, though. I’ve never been good at coupon clipping. Every time I have tried, it just never seems to work out as anything beneficial. Apparently, after a friend of mine shared this video, all I could do was stare at my screen in absolute amazement. You will not believe what she pays for these groceries!!!

What do YOU do to cut back the costs of groceries? What are your best tips, the best sales you hit, or the best stores you shop?

Bug is just shy of 27 months old. He is now my Big Boy. He’s so grown up. He does his laundry (with virtually no other help on big things he can’t reach like the detergent and knobs). He puts away his dishes. He asks for juice in complete sentences – “I want more juice, please.” He puts himself to bed, loves to read and is always handing out kisses. Yesterday, he put away just one more milestone to growing into my Little Man.

The highchair. Up until now he has been using his highchair pushed up against the table when we eat. A few days ago, he flat out refused to sit down to eat. He either would stand at the table, or sit in my lap. So I pulled out our old portable highchair seat that we used to take along on outings when he was a baby, and strapped it on to one of our big chairs.

And this was the result… chompin’ on those eggs!

For endless Wordless Wednesday, link up at any of these great friends:
All sites open in a new tab or window.
Momspective, 5 Minutes for Mom, Experimental Mommy, Extraordinary Mothers, Happily Blended, MomDot, Look What Mom Found, What’s that smell?, Seven Clown Circus, J. Leigh Designz, Jolly Mom, Mrs. Marine, The Attic Girl, Keeper of the Cheerios, Healthy Moms, Go, Graham, Go!, Cute As A Buggy, Two of a Kind, Mom of 3 Girls, My Sippy Cup Runneth Over, Moomette’s Magnificents, Life Down Our Lane, Crazyland, Diana Rambles, Shopping Mama, Divine Miss Mommy, Country Girl City Life, and of course, WW Hub.