Fall Leaf Place Cards

Fall or Thanksgiving Place Cards made with leaves.

I use the few days leading up to Thanksgiving to pre-bake desserts, dry the bread crumbs for stuffing, set the table and multiple other tasks to cut down on the work load on Thanksgiving Day.  

One of the things I made ahead is place cards.  I started using place cards a few years ago more for fun than actual assigned seating.

Along with these leaf place cards another of my favorites for fall is my Scrapbooking Place Cards.

These leaf place cards take only a few supplies are easy-peay to make and look beautiful on the table.

Supplies Needed:

Family Stories

My parents,
Aprox late 1930's

Remembering stories told by my father, Arthur Seymour

Growing up my father Arthur (Art for short) used to tell us stories of the adventures in got himself into as a kid growing up in the country.

I remember asking and begging for him to retell the stories to us. I also remember waiting up for my father to come home from work.  He worked a full time job but also was always working in his spare time.  He had a quarter acre garden every year, built the house we lived in and all the outbuildings, hunted and had a firewood selling business on the side. Many nights he would come home late.  One of my fond memories is him chasing us littlest kids around the house, catching us and rubbing his chin whiskers on our face.

My father passed away many years ago, way before my youngest children got to know him which saddens me.  He was not perfect, in truth he had many flaws, but the good times were the best!

Homemade Vegetable Soup

This soup can be made with garden or farm market fresh vegetables, vegetables you canned during summer months, leftovers or store purchased.

Making a large pot of soup at one time leaves enough leftovers to heat up on a cold snowy day when you are short on time.  
Canning the soup will be even handier to quickly heat and serve for a quick meal after a day playing in the snow or hiking. 

Tip:
Here’s a great tip a friend gave me.  Anytime you have leftover vegetables from a meal, simply store them in a Ziploc freezer bag.  Keep adding different leftover vegetables until you have enough to make a pot of vegetable soup!

And don’t be afraid to add different types of vegetables like squash, cabbage, peas or lima beans.  Each will add their own distinct flavor to the soup.

Thanksgiving Place Cards

Place Cards Using Scrapbooking Paper

First, for those of you who have never used them before, you may be wondering what exactly is a place card?  

A place card is a card or something similar bearing a person's name and used to mark their place at a dining or meeting table.

It’s really anything you wish to use with a name tag on it, placed on the table for assigned seating. 

The placing of the place cards are usually never set in stone at my house. As guests arrive they like to rearrange where they and others are sitting.  Some guests wish to sit next to other guests (or far away from them), so they just move their place card. 

My kids like to keep their personalized place cards as a keepsake each year and we have fun making them. 

Some years I purchase place cards and just embellish them, but most years I make them myself.

Indian Tacos

Indian Taco (Sioux, Cherokee or Navajo)

My husband and I and our kids have a love for South Dakota and the Black Hills.  We have made several trips out West and always discover something new, beautiful or amazing (sometimes all at once) on each trip.

This last September just my husband Bill and I made the trip.

When planning the trip, we made sure to reserved a couple days to drive the back roads off the beaten tourist routes, through and around the Badlands National Park and into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with a stop at the Wounded Knee Massacre Site. 

Fall Decorated Christmas Tree

Decorating a tree for Autumn or Halloween

I got the idea for this tree a few years ago after seeing one in a home I was visiting.  I loved it!

I took the idea home with me, changed it a little and made it my own.

I have a bay window in my kitchen and since purchasing our farm, have had a Christmas tree in that window decorated for Christmas to match my kitchen.

I started out with the 3 foot tree for an autumn themed tree for October and have since purchased a 4 foot tree to hold all the wonderful fall and Halloween decorations I have found.

Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 2

This is the second blog post on Easy Halloween Costume Ideas.
Click here for the first blog post:  Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 1

Army costumes and a football player

Who doesn't love fall and Halloween? Around our house, we get really excited thinking about the coming pumpkin recipes, fall leaves, corn stalks, stews, college football and all things autumn. We even have an annual Fall Party. 

When the kids were little I made all their costumes.  Most years the costumes were made by hand and accessories purchased to go with them.  As they got older I started creating some of the costumes from clothing I found at thrift stores or second hand stores, then made or purchased the remaining items needed. 

Was I especially crafty?  No, not especially, not really.  I taught myself as I went along, learning from a lot of mistakes.  Looking for parts and pieces to use for Halloween costumes made it much easier and saved lots of time and sewing.

Moist Banana Nut Bread

I really adore bananas and use them in many dishes, try to eat 4 to 5 of them a week and even make my own homemade Banana Cream Pie.

There are many banana nut bread recipes out there and many are pretty good. But of all the Banana Nut Bread recipes I have tried, (and there have been many), this one is my absolute favorite.  It turns out moist and delicious every time with lots of banana flavor. 

I also like that it makes enough to eat now and enough to save a loaf for later.  This recipe makes perfect mini loaves for gift giving around the Holidays.

This recipe came from my husband’s cousin’s wife Casey Elder.  She posted on Facebook in 2010 about how wonderful this bread was and something like her whole house smelled divine from baking banana nut bread.  (Maybe that part I envisioned in my own head, lol)

Broccoli Salad

Retro Recipe: Broccoli Salad

This is an oldie but still a favorite with my family and great to serve at parties, potlucks, holidays and barbecues.

I actually do not remember where I first tasted this salad but think it was either in the late 1970's or sometime in the 1980's.  Yea, that long ago!  
Years pasted and one summer after having a nice crop of home grown broccoli I decided to once again look up the recipe.
Broccoli Salad is simple to make, has ingredients you may already have on hand and is delicious. 
And a great way to get kids to eat broccoli!

Pumpkin Martini

Hosting a frightfully fun Fall or Halloween party this year?  Since pumpkin has long been a favorite for fall, why not serve a pumpkin adult beverage?

I served this at our annual Fall Party and it was a hit. This could also be served to guests before Thanksgiving dinner.

This Pumpkin Martini is ideal for autumn, but is delicious any time. It blends the flavors of vanilla with pumpkin and spices, and has a maple and graham cracker rim to push this drink into taste perfection.

Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin beer...... the recipes are endless.  And now that it's finally pumpkin season here's a pumpkin drink recipe, yea!
Another reason to celebrate Autumn!

Sleepy Hollow, New York

Autumn weekend in Sleepy Hollow, New York

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow ... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.

—Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

It's nearly autumn and time to start planning a few weekend trips for Fall Festivals, haunted houses, pumpkin picking and peak leaf-color drives.  I am a fall fanatic, I just love everything autumn.  So of course Washington Irving’s book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favorites.

Canning Hot Peppers

Most years we go through our garden fresh peppers pretty quick and never seem to have enough peppers. We use them on sandwiches, to make appetizers, on pizza and subs and as the main ingredient for Stuffed Hot Peppers.

So this spring I planted extra pepper plants.  Now, near the end of summer, I have such an over abundance of hot peppers I decided to can them so we have a supply this winter.

Peppers are also great as added heat or flavor booster in many dishes, soups, stew, in breakfast eggs, on a relish tray and in salads.  Their great on hot dogs too, along with this Homemade Pickle Relish!

The Mothman Festival

The Mothman Legend, Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Older Mothman Fest Poster

Need something a little different, strange even, to see and do in September?  How about visiting the area that made the Mothman famous?

How It Started

The Mothman is said to be a moth like creature seen in and around the area of Point Pleasant, West Virginia from November 1966 to December 1967. 

The first reported sighting was on November 12, 1966 by five men digging a grave at a cemetery near Clendenin, WV.  They claimed to see a man like creature fly down from a tree and over their heads. 

Three days later, on November 15, 1966 two young couples from Point Pleasant told police they saw a large white creature whose eyes glowed red when the car headlights shined on it.  The couples, visually shaken,  described it as a large flying man like thing with approximately  10 foot wings following their car while driving in the TNT area.  The TNT area is the site of the former World War ll munitions plant.

Canning Tomatoes

Easy Home Canned Tomatoes
Tomatoes are one of the first things I canned well over 20 some years ago as a beginner canner.  I read it was one of the easiest things to learn as a newbie canner and they were right.

There is nothing better than a fresh tomato straight off the vine, but I think the second best thing is a jar of home canned tomatoes in the middle of winter!

I use canned tomatoes in chili, spaghetti sauce, soups and casseroles and many different recipes.  If I run out, I also make salsa or tomato juice from the tomatoes I canned. 

I can so I can preserve my garden harvest but also because I can control what's in my food.  I grew it and I grow organic. I know what's in each and every jar. 

Canning is the process in which foods are placed in jars and heated to a temperature that destroys microorganisms and inactivates enzymes. This heating and later cooling forms a vacuum seal. The vacuum seal prevents other microorganisms from recontaminating the food within the jar.

Halloween Costume Ideas

Halloween Costumes: Part 1

Who doesn't love fall and Halloween? 

Around our house, we get really excited thinking about the coming pumpkin recipes, fall leaves, corn stalks, stews, college football and all things autumn. 

We host a Fall Party every year and encourage everyone to come in costume, it's great fun. 

We also wear our costumes to Fall Festivals and our local Circleville Pumpkin Show, no really, we do.

Every year since the kids were little,  I have made their Halloween costumes, and every year I started in August. 

Now I know some people are not very organized, or don’t want to think about Halloween costumes in August.  But for us we have found it is less stressful to decide on a costume in August. We then spend the next few weeks gathering together the needed items or props.