Search Results for: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Traditions Link Up

November 17, 2011 By Deirdre

Welcome to the Thanksgiving Traditions Link Up! I look forward to visiting your posts and taking in your Thanksgiving crafts, recipes, traditions, and memories.

There are link-ups below for your posts. Each family-friendly or child-related post linked up will need to have a Thanksgiving Traditions badge or a link at the bottom of it pointing back to the Thanksgiving Traditions Link Up. Please don’t link up more than two posts for each area. If you link up a post, please visit at least one other post.

Here is the badge :

Muffin Tin Monday- Thanksgiving with Sweet Potato Casserole and More

November 14, 2011 By Deirdre

We had a Thanksgiving feast a little early at my house and loved it. We actually love Thanksgiving foods year round.What did we have?Sweet potato casserole, mixed steamed veggies, turkey divan with a crescent roll lid, cornbread stuffing stuffed into a turkey cookie cutter, and red grapes with cranberries.Here is the recipe for the sweet potatoes:

We love sweet potatoes for dinner. When my friend Kathleen posted her version of Boston Market’s Sweet Potatoes, I knew we would be trying it.

My guys loved it. Both wanted seconds.

List of Ingredients

6 cups of mashed sweet potatoes

3/4 cups of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup of plain yogurt

1/4 melted butter

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon of pumpin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon of allspice

Topping Ingredients:

2 cups of minimarshmallows

1/4 cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

2 tablespoon cold butter

Instructions:

Rub a little olive oil on the skin of each sweet potato and bake them in a preheated 400 degree oven for 60 to 70 minutes or until they are tender. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, scrape out the insides and use an electric mixer on high speed to beat the potatoes until they are mashed.
Add 3/4 cup brown sugar, heavy cream, melted butter, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, allspice and cloves into the sweet potatoes and mix well with the beater until all the ingredients are incorporated. Pour this mixture into an 8×8-inch baking dish.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Make the oatmeal streusel by grinding the rolled oats to a fine flour using a food processor. Using a blender will also work.
Combine the oat flour with 2 tablespoons brown sugar, all-purpose flour, and 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut the cold butter or butter replacement into the dry mixture using a pastry knife or a fork. You should have a crumbly mixture with pea-size bits. Sprinkle this oatmeal streusel over the sweet potato mixture and pop it into the oven for 70 to 80 minutes or until the top begins to brown slightly.
When you remove the casserole from the oven immediately spread the marshmallows over the top. Let this sit for about 10 minutes. The heat from the casserole will melt the marshmallows, and then it’s ready to serve.

Reminder: The Thanksgiving Traditions link up will open on Thursday. I would love for you to share you recipes, crafts, and traditions on the link up. This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!What are your must have Thanksgiving foods?

Thanksgiving for Kids- Being Thankful Tree

November 9, 2011 By Deirdre

This special time of year is filled with thankfulness and falling leaves. I decided to create a Being Thankful Tree for my son to use to display people and things he is thankful for.The Being Thankful tree is so easy to make.Materials:

Two pieces of cardboard
Colored paper
Ribbon

Here is how to create a tree: Cut two tree cutouts twelve inches tall out of cardboard. Hint: The tree looks best with all the branches pointing out.One of the tree cutouts will need a slit that descends from the top of the tree down its center leaving three and a half inches at the bottom uncut.

The other tree cutout received a cut from the bottom of the tree in the center. I left four and half inches at the top.Slide the tree cutout with the slit rising from the bottom unto the other tree cut out. Voila! You have a tree. Now it is onto the leaves. Cut oversized leaves out of fall-colored paper.Put a small slit in the leaf for the ribbon to pass through.Put a piece of ribbon in each leaf and tie it off to make a loop.Place the names of people and things that you love the leaves. This can be done once a day leading up to Thanksgiving or at one sitting.JDaniel loved the idea of a thankfulness tree so much that he asked if we could make one for the next-door neighbors!

He has also loved rearranging the leaves and making them fall!Update: He has taken to wearing the leaves of the people he likes that day like a ring on his finger.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday, Mommy Club Wednesday, and several other places.

Waiting Until After Thanksgiving for Christmas

November 30, 2010 By Deirdre

“Mom, why don’t we have our Christmas things up?”

“JDaniel, we are going to wait a few weeks until after Thanksgiving.”

“The stores have theirs up!”

I am not sure why Christmas things go up as soon as the Halloween displays come down. I love to celebrate Thanksgiving and then get ready for Christmas, but I found Christmas sneaking in earlier and earlier this year.

We had a wonderful time with my husband’s family at Calloway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia over the Thanksgiving holidays. Christmas was everywhere there. There was a lovely holiday light display that we rode through on Thanksgiving Day. The lobby of the lodge we stayed in had a beautiful tree decorating its lobby. We exchange Naughty Santa gifts while our little ones played with toys their Nana has given them for Christmas. (We only see all my husband’s siblings and their families once a year at Thanksgiving so, we always end up celebrating Christmas during Thanksgiving with them.)

When we came home, our street had Christmas lights guiding us down to our undecorated home. After we went to church today and watched the first Advent candle been lit, we came home and took out a few things. We had planned to hang wreaths outside today, but it was too windy and cold. Maybe next weekend will be warm and our house will begin to look a little bit ready for Christmas until then I am still stuffed from Thanksgiving.

When do you start decorating for Christmas?

Read.Explore.Learn- Thanksgiving

November 26, 2010 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read. Explore. Learn! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

I love What is Thanksgiving! by Michelle Medlock Adams. It explains to children that Thanksgiving is not about parades, football, and food. It is about being thankful and giving thanks. I love parades and food. I will watch football games. Giving thanks and being thankful is really how I hope I spent the day.

JDaniel and I made a turkey puppet with a head that could wag side to side and up and down. As I read him What is Thanksgiving!, I had him nod the turkey’s head yes for what Thanksgiving was about and no for things it is not about.

We made Turkey bowling pins for fun. I found a pattern for making napkin rings and modified it to create the bands around these old bottles. The feathers are tracings of JDaniel’s hands.

JDaniel loved setting them back up.

Growing up I was always thankful for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving meant gathering at my grandparents with my mom’s sisters and their families. There was always a long car ride, time playing with cousins, crafts, and a feast of wonderful food.

Over the River and Through the Woods

My Grandmere and Grandpere lived about six hours north of my family in New Jersey. It was always a long trip. My mom did all the driving and most of it was after nightfall. I am not sure if she started having us sing along with her near the end of the trip to keep her awake or to keep my two younger sisters from fussing in the backseat. We sang everything from Broadway show tunes to church songs. Once we got ready to cross from Pennsylvania into New Jersey via a bridge over the Delaware River, the song we always sang was Over the River and Through the Woods.

Have the Kids Decorate the Table So They Will Stay Out of the Kitchen

My mom and both of her sisters were teachers. Each year they would come up with something for my cousins Anne and Jeanne, my sisters, and I to create for the Thanksgiving table. I remember one year we made name tags with turkeys on them. Placemats were another year’s craft. None of us were very crafty so I am not sure the table looked beautifully adorned with our construction paper creations. They did however keep us out the kitchen so that the Thanksgiving feast could be prepared without five little girls “helping”.

Every year we were also tasked with creating slips of paper with Thanksgiving related words on them that each family member was supposed to act out in a round of charades after dinner. We had the best time deciding who would get the slip of paper that said turkey under their plate each year. The funny part about the slip creating activity is that I think we took longer create the slips and hide them under plates than we actually played charades each year. Usually, my aunts and uncles would act out what was on their slips. By the time it was my four male cousins’ turn they would protest this game was beneath them and ask if they had permission to go outside and play.

The Feast

The feast the ladies in my family prepared was wonderful. There was the turkey with gravy, assorted casseroles, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and Pillsbury crescent rolls. There were mounds of each of these foods piled high on platters and in bowls. The smell coming from the kitchen during the morning would get make your stomach start to growl, but it was nothing compared to the visual display of food placed down the center of the table. Everything always looked wonderful. I am not sure why the mashed potatoes and everything else they made always tasted better after it had been prepared in my Grandmere’s kitchen.

I don’t remember if we had dessert right after dinner or after running outside for awhile. I do remember that the feast was capped off with Grandmere’s apple pie and pumpkins pies. There also assorted cakes put out to enjoy too. It was Grandmere’s apple pie that always a hit. The crust just seemed to melt in your mouth.

Run and Play

My grandparents lived on a small farm with huge lawn to play on and a pond to canoe on. After our feast, there always something going on outside. There was a collection of bats, balls, and other outdoor toys kept the barn to keep us entertained for hours.

That is how I remember Thanksgiving growing up. What memories stand out to you?

Reusable or One Time Use

The pages can be laminated so that they can be reused. If you want to use them like a worksheet, print them out and give them to your children.

Uncovered Roll and Cover Mats

The numbers on the uncovered mats can be covered with counters or X’s made with pencils. One way is permanent and the other option allows children to play with mats cover and cover again. You can use dot markers could also be used on the uncovered mats.

Covered or Laminated Roll and Cover Mats

Covered mats will also work with counters. If you don’t have or want to use it, the numbers could be marked with dry-erase markers. Your children can wipe off their marks with a dry-erase or wet cloth.

Making the Game Boards Reusable

If you use the pages again, you may want to laminate them. Below I have suggested products that you may want to use to cover them.