For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you seen the previews for Fantastic Mr. Fox? If you haven’t you need to check them out! My kids have been talking about this movie for a couple weeks and I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those movies that we’ll take them to and enjoy as much as they do. It’s by the same team that did the Ice Age movies and looks like it will be equally witty and fun to watch!

Want to know more about it? Here are the details:

FANTASTIC MR. FOX is visionary director Wes Anderson’s first animated film, utilizing classic handmade stop-motion techniques to tell the story of the best-selling children’s book by Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach).  The film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Jarvis Cocker.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox (Clooney and Streep) live an idyllic home life with their son Ash (Schwartzman) and visiting young nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson).  But after twelve years of quiet domesticity, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr.Fox’s wild animal instincts.  Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community. Trapped underground without enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight against the evil Farmers - Boggis, Bunce and Bean - who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost.  In the end, he uses his natural instincts to save his family and friends.

And in preparation for its opening on Thanksgiving Day, I’ve been given the chance to host a Fantastic Mr. Fox giveaway with 2 Fox Tail Ties (shown below) and 2 sets of Mario Batali Thanksgiving recipe cards!

Simply leave a comment on this post from now until 11pm Thanksgiving Day to enter. And you can earn extra entries by tweeting about this post. Just leave a comment below to let me know. Please be sure to leave an email address or link to your profile so I can let you know if you’ve won. I’ll be picking 4 winners to receive either the Fox Tail tie or the recipe cards and announcing them this weekend!

**Updated to add: The generous folks sponsoring this cool giveaway have provided me with downloadable Mario Batali (the voice of Rabbit in Fantastic Mr. Fox) recipe cards. As mentioned above two lucky winners will be receiving a printed set but these are available for everyone to enjoy in time for Thanksgiving!**

Click here to download a PDF of the recipe cards.

I wish we’d seen this video last week before we semi-butchered two lovely turkeys at our Thanksgiving Warm-up. Still, I thought I’d share this video of Alton Brown showing how to carve the perfect turkey just in time for the real Turkey Day!

Every year we do Thanksgiving Warm-up I love it more than the year before. I love hanging out with good friends. I love trying everyone else’s favorite recipes. I love getting everything ready and seeing our ideas come to life.

It is such fun for Thomas & me.

This year Thanksgiving Practice was awesome. We had 2 turkeys and 2 roasts and the most delicious sides, desserts & appetizers from our friends & family!

So here’s the skinny.

We don’t even remotely have enough room to seat everyone in our tiny little house. So, the first order of business was to transform out car port from this (Don’t judge me.):

To this:

I’m so in love with how it turned out that I want to keep it that way forever. And the best part? Oh so cheap to do. We just used big canvas drop cloths from Lowe’s, super cheap curtain rods, and the curtain rings with clips. I think it made the car port into such a nice outdoor room. The lights were inexpensive pendant lamps from Ikea and gave the room such a fun feel.

Next up? The seating. We borrowed the tables from my parents but still needed enough seats for all of our guests. For about 3 weeks before we scoured Craigslist, Goodwill, & local thrift stores for folding chairs. We found a random assortment of mismatched chairs most for $3-$4. I’m all for mismatching but in this case I kind of wanted them to match. So, a couple of cans of spray paint and we took our random thrift store chairs from this:

To this:

They’re not super glamorous, but they at least all matched. And they got the job done. So, I say success!

Next up, the party supplies. I’m all for frugality. But, I’m also all for not washing 40 plates and countless cutlery, cups & napkins. So, disposable is my first choice. I don’t love the way most disposables look, but I found these nice white plastic plates & silver plastic cutlery a few years ago at Costco and have used them ever since. Sometimes I think they’re too pretty to throw away. But then I think about what my kitchen would look like if I washed all those dishes and I get over it. Fast.

Anyways, with disposable plates, cutlery & napkins it is a little hard to set a beautiful table but Thomas had a great idea. I knew I married him for a reason. He came up with using inexpensive silk flowers as napkin rings and bundling the forks, spoons, & knives up with them. I think it was pretty, festive & a great way to keep everything together.

If I’d been a better blogger I would have taken pictures of the huge tin basin filled with ice, wine, & sparkling fruit drinks. Or the mason jars and mismatched glass containers I used to hold all the extra cutlery. It was fun and eclectic and totally in keeping with the overall personality of our family/house. For us, it was a success. And I think our guests had a pretty good time, too!

Okay, so he’s actually the only husband I’ve ever had, but I don’t think that is any less monumental. In fact, if you know what it takes to put up with me on a daily basis you’d know that makes him a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anyways, today is Thomas’ (a.k.a. @dreadedrafifi) birthday and I just felt compelled to tell him quite publicly that I’m awfully glad he was born.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. I love you more than even I have words for.

And, I know I was supposed to be posting my Thanksgiving Warm-up recap but it turns out it was way too wordy for Wordless Wednesday so I’ll posting it tomorrow. Pinky promise.

Is this a boy thing? To be up and cruising the house on two little legs at the tender age of 7-months-old? Because  neither of my girls were quite this accomplished in the mobility department so early and I wasn’t prepared to be chasing this little guy so soon!

Even still, I think he looks darn cute doing it!

For more Wordless/Wordful Wednesday head over to 5 Minutes for Mom and 7 Clown Circus!

We had the chance to practice Thanksgiving last weekend and I’m saving the recap for my Wordless/Wordful Wednesday post, but in the meantime I thought I’d share my Top Ten Favorite Recipes for Thanksgiving. (I forgot to mention that if you click on the names it will take you to the recipe! Enjoy!)

1. Buttermilk Pie. This is hands down my favorite pie of all time. I make it for every family get together and my mouth is watering just thinking about it. So good.

2. Georgia Bird. Thomas’ signature Turkey recipe. It’s sweet & juicy and just plain delicious. Plus, the meat is so yummy you never have to worry about the left-overs being bland and boring.

3. Pumpkin Curry Soup. My mom makes this almost every year for Thanksgiving and it is always a huge hit. I love the curry in it and it’s great with leftovers.

4. Pumpkin Dip: This is a new favorite of mine since a good friend brought it to Thanksgiving Practice this year. She served it with green apples and it was a fantastic appetizer. It is amazingly good and was popular with kids & adults!

5. Country Apple Pie: This was the first apple pie recipe I ever used and it is the one I always go back to. It’s always popular at family gatherings and the creamy filling is delicious!

6. Cranberry-Pear Sauce: I made this when I was put in charge of bringing Cranberry jelly for my first married Thanksgiving and it has been a favorite of mine since. I usually add just a little dry white wine while it’s cooking and the flavor turns out really nice.

7. Brussels Sprouts w/Vinegar Glazed Red Onions: I don’t know how you feel about Brussels Sprouts but I love them. And if you’re a fan like me, then you’ve got to try Martha Stewart’s yummy recipe!

8. Mulled Wine: Mulled wine always reminds me of the time I spent studying in Cambridge in college. In the evenings we’d go to see Shakespeare performed in the garden and we’d be drinking mulled wine to stay warm. 9 years later it is still a favorite cold weather treat for me.

9. Creamy Corn: This is another recipe I stole from my mom and that I’ve been making for years. It is a sure-fire way to make corn completely unhealthy but also completely delicious!

10. Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing: What Thanksgiving recipe list would be complete without a stuffing recipe? This one from Martha Stewart is super yummy and the sausage makes it hearty and with just a little bit of kick.

So there you have it. A few of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes. Do you have a favorite you’d like to share? Feel free to leave it or a link to it in the comments! And head over to Oh Amanda’s place to see what others are saying for Top Ten Tuesday!

We had an awesome Thanksgiving Warm-up party this weekend. It was so fun to hang out with good friends & family and practice all the great Thanksgiving recipes we’ll be making next week.

After all the drama of the last couple weeks/months it did my soul good to have fun with people we love. And I’m working on my recap post (promise!) but today I’ve got to catch up on all the laundry I didn’t do last week while I was getting ready for the party.

As you can see it’s like we’re swimming in dirty clothes around here. (How’s that for a disturbing mental image?)

On the day we found out we’d lost the baby, this cat showed up in our carport. She snuck into our house as we were shuffling kids into the car and curled up on the sofa and went to sleep like she’d lived here her whole life. Later that night she crawled into bed with us and slept curled in the crook of our legs.

And I protested about not needing another animal. Or my not so happy feelings about cats. Don’t hate me for saying this. The thing is, I’m just not a cat person. Much to Thomas’ dismay I’ve just never enjoyed the company of cats.  So, I complained about this intrusion. But the truth is I was a little happy about it. It’s a strange and difficult thing for me to admit to actually liking a cat. But she was sweet. And pretty. And declawed. And just kind of nice to have around.

So, the kids named her Mrs. Hannigan and we tried unsuccessfully to find her owners. When it was clear she either had no longer had a home or that her home was unfindable we decided to keep her. She loved to sneak outside during the day and run around the yard before coming back within an hour or two. She snuggled with Kai in the top bunk. She sat and watched TV with Thomas. She was becoming our cat.

But today she snuck outside and wasn’t back within an hour or two. And then she wasn’t back by bedtime. And then we didn’t see her again. Which, in a bizarre turn of events, made me cry. For a cat. That I didn’t want in the first place. (I’m sure there is some psychological theory about misplaced grief that would easily explain this.)

So, now I’m sitting up at 1:15 a.m. checking the back door like crazy to see if Mrs. Hannigan is waiting to be let in. And I feel like crying every time I don’t see her there. It’s possible I have some emotions that need to be worked through. But, in the meantime, I’m crossing my fingers that Mrs. Hannigan will show up tomorrow…

Our Thanksgiving Warm-up preparations are still very much underway. And with 40 guests descending on our house this weekend, I have so much to do to get ready. Especially since we always try to entertain as well as we can without breaking the bank. Which means we have double the work to do since we’re not paying to have caterers, florists, or other trained professionals help us get things ready.

So, I thought this week I’d share my favorite tips for saving money when hosting a big dinner party or other event.

1. DIY. My philosophy when it comes to party planning is why pay someone else to do it when we can do it ourselves? That means baking cakes, cooking food, arranging flowers, and prepping all on our own. I actually once created an entire sushi themed cake by finding a how-to online and dyeing, rolling and shaping my own fondant. It was so much easier than I thought and saved me a lot of money. I know DIY seems like a no-brainer, but there is plenty out there that you can pay people to do for you and if you’re looking to save money it’s totally possible to do them yourself. I’ve had my share of parties where I delegate these things to knowledgeable (and expensive) professionals but I know that if I’m trying to save $ then I can always hit the web and find easy tips for DIY solutions.

2. Get creative. Sometimes saving money means finding solutions in strange places. For instance, this year we are putting two 60″ round tables outside and converting the carport into a really fun outdoor room. Seeing as how I don’t have extra 120″ table cloths laying around and dressing a table  well can be expensive we got creative. We found that canvas drop cloths (the kind you find at Lowe’s for painting) actually make a pretty nice looking table cloth. And since we could buy one super huge one and cut it into two we saved a ton of money. We even bought a couple and converted them into outdoor curtains for our carport since actual outdoor curtains are so costly. I can’t wait to share pics after the event because they really are going to be pretty. And afterwards I can use them when we paint our kitchen cabinets!

3. Garage sales and thrift stores and Goodwill, Oh my! Never underestimate the value of these places! We’ve been making stops for the last month and a half at thrift stores in the area looking for the extra seating we knew we’d need to accommodate 40 guests. We’ve managed to get almost all the folding chairs we’ll need for less than $4 each because we’ve taken our time and gathered them every time we saw them at thrift stores. This works for other entertaining essentials like platters, pitchers, etc. It helps if you have a kind of eclectic sense of style to begin with. we’re what you might call…quirky. Or tacky. Whichever. But, if you look hard enough you can find things to fit any style or taste level. People give some beautiful things to thrift stores when they’re done with them.

4. Potluck. My favorite thing about our Thanksgiving Warm-up is that we do the turkey and a few other sides and then leave it up to the guests to bring their favorite recipes. The whole point of our party is to try new recipes and have a kind of practice run for everyone so it works perfectly. But, it also makes the party itself much less expensive to host. When you’re only providing one or two foods for guests and not the whole spread it makes a huge difference.

5. Procrastinate. I fell into this one by accident a couple years ago, but it has served me well. One year I put off picking up Thanksgiving Warm-up decor until the week of the actual party and was happy to find that all of the Thanksgiving decor at Joann’s Fabric was heavily discounted. This year I bought all of the floral pieces we needed at 70% off because I waited until last weekend to pick it up. Now, I suppose you could plan ahead and buy clearance Thanksgiving after the fact and save it for next year, but since there are very few lists that actually encourage procrastination I thought I’d throw that out there. Besides, where’s the adrenaline rush in actually doing things early?

So, here’s where you get to play along. What are your best tips for saving money on Thanksgiving or other big events? I’d love to know your favorite money saving moment from hosting a party!