The Post That Wasn't

As always, I have lots of blog posts planned and never enough time to write them all.  I started writing this post called "Steps to Healthy Eating" but it got really, really long.  I wanted to include tips and share recipes and things I've tried and... yeah, it turned into a book.  Not exactly a book, just a really long blog post.  Without pictures.  I hate blog posts without pictures.

Here, how about a picture of a drop leaf table for this post?  What, you aren't shopping for drop leaf tables?  Me either really.  But I thought a picture of a table would go well with a post about "Steps to Healthy Eating".  Then again, this isn't really a post about healthy eating because that post got way too long.  This is more like a "post that never was".  So pretend you didn't read this post.  I'll stop trying to write novels and go back to sharing one tip, one step, one recipe at a time.  Its a lot easier that way, don't you think?

Thanksgiving Tree

Its time to put up our yearly Thanksgiving Tree.  I laminated the tree trunk from last year so that we could use it again.  This time the tree is located on our bedroom door, along with some Indians that we made earlier this week.

To fill out our tree with leaves, every day each member of the family gets to say one thing that they are thankful for and write it on a leaf.  It is so much fun to see our tree fill up with leaves throughout the month.  I've saved leaves from previous years (just tucked them in a plastic bag), those are fun to go back and read.  We put our tree up in early November and work on it until Thanksgiving Day.

So far Daddy is thankful for our home, Mommy is thankful for family, Lucy is thankful for Julia, and Julia is thankful for Darla (her gymnastics teacher).

Do you have any fun Thanksgiving traditions?

linked to Gratituesday

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

This is seriously the best. tip. ever.  I love baking (and eating!) muffins.  What I don't like, is touching the batter and getting all messy trying to fill the tin evenly.  I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was when someone told me that you can use a cookie scoop to fill a muffin tin.  Genius.  Okay, so maybe the rest of you already knew this, but in case you didn't, your life is now infinitely better.

A regular size cookie scoop is 2 Tbs, and it takes about a scoop and a half to fill each space.  I love this tip so much that I just bought this large cookie scoop (3 Tbs) to make it even better.  One scoop is perfect for each muffin.  They should just call it a muffin scoop.  Just look at this nicely cleaned out bowl - all I did was use my large scoop 12 times.  Mmmm...  I might have to go bake muffins now.

Check out Kitchen Tip Tuesdays for more great tips.  :)

Muffin Tin Monday - Smoothies

What my kids thought they ate:

peanut butter and honey sandwich, chips, and a smoothie

What they really ate:

peanut butter, almond butter, and honey sandwich, chips, 

blueberry keifer, spinach, carrot puree and carrot juice, flax seeds, strawberries, blackberries

Gotta love it!  For more fun food ideas check out Muffin Tin Mom.  :)