Photo 366 #48

It's officially the holiday season.  Thanksgiving was a wonderful time in our house.  The feast came out perfect and we are still enjoying the leftovers.  I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful for you too.  One of the most wonderful things that happened this week, fall came to Texas.  We actually have fall color, and I mean it's not just the leaves changing to brown.  There are shades of red and yellow.  So pretty!

November 20 - Another red admiral visited my American flag.  The way he landed and the composition worked out, it looks like a Texas flag...almost. 

November 21 - I was prepping all the food I could before hand.  That included a pumpkin cheesecake with a sour cream topping.  Here is the sour cream topping.  Yum! 

November 22 - Again, our feast.  Happy Thanksgiving!

November 23 - People watching?  These four Inca doves have been enjoying my bench lately.  They look so cute huddled together.

November 24 - We went to a birthday party at a local restaurant that has some farm animals on site.  Here are my boys with one of the ponies.

November 25 - My proof that fall color has come to South East Texas.

November 26 - My sleeping beauty.  Colton went hard all break and didn't want to nap.  It finally caught up to him.

Happy Thanksgiving

From my table to yours, I wish you the best Thanksgiving ever.

I hope that your table is full of food and your home full of happiness, hope and love.  I hope you were able to spend your day surrounded by those you love. 

Photo 366 #47

Happy Turkey Week!  I've been busy going to class parties, having family in town, general busyness that I didn't get this up on time.

November 13 - Colton and I went on a picnic to a local park and found all sorts of birds.  We saw ducks, coots, vultures, a kingfisher and some cormorants, including this one.  They have such a pretty teal eye. 

November 14 - Lots of bird action in the backyard lately.  I was trying to get some pics of warblers, but this mockingbird is all I got.

November 15 - My dad and his wife came to town for a few hours on their way to Florida.  Here is a photo of them with my kiddos.

November 16 - The red admirals have been out in full force at my house.  Every afternoon I get quite a few in my back yard.  They love to sun themselves.  Here is one sunning itself on top of the cozy coupe car.

November 17 - Look, I'm fixing my phone!  I refuse to upgrade.  The side casing started to peel back after I dropped it, again.  So, some CA glue and a clamp to the rescue.  It worked.

November 18 - I hit up the store childless to get all the stuff for Thanksgiving and when I got to the store, someone's truck was all up in this sign and cops and tow trucks present.  It just added to the already craziness that was going on at the store.  Here is what's left of the sign.

November 19 - Another beautiful red admiral sunning itself in my back yard.

Paper Costume: Tutorial

Maben's school does a vocabulary parade.  It's really fun as each grade level is given different parameters of how they need to choose their word and dress up as it.  For Kindergarten it's pretty easy, their word needed to start with a consonant.  Maben's first idea was to dress as the word, "was."  Yeah, not happening, so he chose, "is."  I explained that he should pick a noun, like paper.  "Okay mom, I want to be paper."  (face palm) 

Since it was my awesome idea, I needed to deliver.  I decided to transform a plain white t-shirt into a piece of notebook paper with a doodle on it.  It's fairly simple and I had all things on hand.

You will need a t-shirt, a ruler and a red, blue and black fabric marker.

I used the ruler to draw a straight line and use as a spacer for the lines on the paper.

Seriously a very easy project.  The most difficult part was to freehand the paper airplane doodle.  I actually made a paper airplane as a reference for my doodle.

Tip that I learned, it's easier to use a soft touch when drawing with the markers to prevent the marker from catching and dragging since the shirt is stretchy.  So, I drew lightly and just went over it a few times.

I heat set the fabric markers in the dryer for 30 minutes on high.  You could do that or run an iron over each spot for 4 minutes.  The dryer was easier.

Maben loves his paper shirt.  He was so incredibly excited to see it for the first time and was probably the most originally dressed up kindergartener.

Most of the kids recycled their Halloween costumes, which I can't blame the parents since our district does not allow dressing up for Halloween.  So, lots of princesses, firefighters, fairies and super heroes, but only one kid dressed as paper.  I couldn't be prouder!

Linking this up at:
Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party
Sew Many Ways: Sew Darn Crafty Linky Party 
So I Married A Craft Blogger: Man Up Link Up

Photo 366 #46

Better late than never in posting right?  I am ready for Christmas break and some relaxation.  Too much going on and just not enough hours in the day to deal with them all.

November 6 - Election night I hit up the liquor store for some beer and this culprit started hooting and hollering at me when I got out of my car.  Very surprised to see a Great Horned Owl staring down at me from the roof.  I'm so happy that I carry my tripod with me everywhere. 

November 7 - This cute little Carolina Wren likes to remind me when the bird feeder need some refilling.  He will come to my kitchen window and sing until I come out.  I find it really cute.

November 8 - A glimpse of a project I completed last week.  Post to come soon.  Hopefully tomorrow if I have enough juice in me to write it.

November 9 - The kids look so tiny on the honeycomb climbing play structure at school.  Neither one of them has fear when it comes to this.  Their favorite way to get down is to dangle from the top and drop down.  I must say, it's a pretty far drop for a 3 year old, but it doesn't stop from doing it over and over again.

November 10 - The whole family went to watch a Native American Pow Wow.  I love the traditional dress and all the feathers.

November 11 - My public way of saying, "Thanks," to all the veterans out there.

November 12 - One of my plants is still blooming and looking oh so pretty.  I have no idea what it's called.  I can't remember and I can't find the tag that came with it.

Photo 366 #45

Injury, Halloween and sickness, oh my!  What a week and I am still recovering. 

October 30 - I took the kids to family night at Chick-fil-a for Superhero night.  Colton was dressed as Captain America and Maben as Ironman.  There were two guys dressed up as both of them.  Maben was ridiculously excited to get his picture taken with Ironman.  To him, this guy was the real deal.

October 31 - Colton fell at preschool the day before Halloween and split his forehead open.  We managed to barely miss getting stitches, but steristrips are definitely in place.  This worked well for his pirate costume.

November 1 - I took a day trip up to Austin to not only see my best friend Sabrina, but to also watch the movie, "Temple Grandin," and see Dr. Temple Grandin herself speak.  It was awesome!

November 2 - We had a few mornings that were densely foggy.  This is the flag pole at my son's school with the sun trying very hard to burn off the fog.

November 3 - I finally finished a picture I had been working on while sick.  We have had some intense sunsets this fall that have been spectacular.  I wanted to capture that in my drawing.

November 4 - I missed the intensity of this sunset by about 2 minutes.  By the time I saw it in my rear view mirror and got pulled over, it was pretty much gone.  But YAY, they are working hard on the new highway.  Lots of improvements.

November 5 - It's not only bird migration time, but butterfly migration too.  I don't title most of my photographs, but the ones that I think are really special I do.  I call this, "Red, White and Blue."  This is a Red Admiral butterfly hanging out on my American Fence Picket Flag.  This is easily in the top 10 of my favorite photographs taken this year.