24 Olive Street

Fall layouts // Noel Mignon

Hello again! My poor blog has been so neglected. I've been posting on Instagram mostly the last several months and I seem to have forgotten about my poor blog. But that is about to change. I have lots to share and before I get into holiday posts I wanted to share some of my fall Noel Mignon layouts.

Such fun times! All of these pages were created with the All Fall Classic Kit and Daily Diary Kits. I believe there's still a few left if you're behind on documenting all of your fall memories! I still haven't wrapped my mind around the fact that we're nearly in the 2nd week of December!

I'll be back with some of my recent card making projects!

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Halloween 2015

Another one in the books! This year we had cold, windy, rainy weather...blah.

Thankfully the rain held out for trick or treating and only lightly sprinkled. But the wind...oh the wind...it was cold!!!

We didn't even get to decorating pumpkins until Saturday afternoon.

Yes...on Halloween! I didn't even get mine carved :(

I'm thinking I might carve out a Thanksgiving pumpkin. Maybe leaves or something??

My son was the only one that had a carved pumpkin. But since he has a broken wrist he couldn't carve it. So he drew the design and my hubby carved it. My daughters painted theirs.

For Halloween this year we had a cat, Hatbox Ghost, & Sally.

This is about the best photo I got of my oldest. She had friends over & they went trick or treating together so I tried not to be the lame mom that was taking gobs of photos ;)

For my son's Hatbox Ghost costume we got the gloves at the Halloween store, coat was from a thrift shop, hat was from his Mad Hatter costume a few years back, the hatbox was a paper mache box from Hobby Lobby that we painted & added a handle, and the walking stick we already had.

I also made Addie's Sally costume. It was a little tricky and I goofed in a few spots (that thankfully aren't noticeable!) but I was so tickled to see how cute she looked in it!! The sleeves are actually tights that I cut & added stitches to. And yes, I sewed all of those stitches on her dress!

By the way, liquid eyeliner (while expensive) is perfect for drawing fine lines like Sally's stitches!!

And you can't have Sally without Jack ;)

I just love when Halloween falls on a weekend! So much less stress about getting things done since the kids are home from school.

And now that Halloween is over I'm going to pop in a Christmas movie & start planning for Thanksgiving (and Christmas of course!).

5:30am

Holy crap, that's early!

That's what time we have to get up to get my daughter to school for morning volleyball practices. Actually, it's more like somewhere between 5:15-5:30am.

It's not every day but a few times a week is more than enough to make my desire to quit Coke go on the back burner...at least a little. Need my caffeine!!! Try and try again, right??

I got back from Fancy Fall Fest Saturday night. It was a great show, met some great people, including a few people I'd met at previous shows...love that! Shows are always fun and exhausting.

My boy came with me to help :) As he gets older I'm finding he's a great help to me at these shows, especially the ones that are further away where my hubby can't help (cause he's home with the little one).

I picked up this adorable necklace for Addie from SKA Designs. Addie loved it! She wore it to church the next day and said it was her amulet so she could talk to animals. Oh my the cuteness :)

We even had a rainbow at the end of the show :)

We still haven't carved our pumpkins so today will be the day! We've had cold & rainy weather but today it's someone nice & clear. And since my daughter doesn't have an afternoon practice we're going to get to it right after school so we can have all that mess out on the back porch and not in my kitchen!

The kids actually got 2 pumpkins each (we all did)...one to carve and a smaller one to paint. I thought that'd be a fun thing to do this year!

Raindrops on leaves = pretty neat

I've been working on getting all of these apples cooked & canned. The first batch was apple butter cooked in the crockpot overnight, then blended with my immersion blender & canned. The aroma from apple butter cooked in the crock pot all night = heavenly!

Tonight I'll do a batch of applesauce. I still have some apples in the freezer bagged for apple pie so I probably won't do much of that.

I also just picked up my Zaycon order. If you don't know about Zaycon you can head to their website. I've only ordered chicken because most other foods I buy organic. But if you're interested I'll be doing a blog post probably next week about how I "process" 40lbs of chicken for freezer meals.

Oh, and I have a bunch of tomatoes that are about to go bad if I don't make a batch of salsa and soon!!

I'm not sure why I always do this to myself. I do it with flowers & gardening, too. I have all of these lofty plans of what I want to do without realizing just how busy my week is!!

By the way, subscriptions for Noel Mignon kits are open for Jan-June and if you sign up by Friday you get free gift(s) with your sub! You can head here to check it out! I've been receiving her kits for years and they are, by far, the best value for the money that you'll find out there. Plus, they're just awesome :)

I'm working on some fun layouts with the Early Autumn kit that I'll be sharing tomorrow!

goodbye September

Hello October!

One of my favorite months for sure, especially now that we live in Washington. There's nothing like pumpkin picking, apple picking, fall leaves crunching beneath your feet, and a hot chocolate on a crisp morning to get this girl in a fall mood!

We're wrapping up the end of fall ball.

This boy has had a bit of a hard time the last season or 2. He's playing with and against kids who are a year or 2 older than him, more experience, faster pitchers, better players. It's hard to adjust sometimes. I took him to batting lessons over the summer which has helped.

At last weekend's games his team was playing against 2 really good teams. But it didn't matter cause he was on his game. Everything seemed to click. First, he caught a ball to left field. Oh man, it was awesome! I couldn't help it, I jumped up and cheered so loud!! Both times during the first game when he was up to bat he got out but it didn't matter cause he went down fighting and managed to get one of his players home. That's all that matters. So good to see that!! I think he's got his groove back :)

I've been thinking about Halloween & fall decor & working on some stuff to take to my booth at Paint In My Hair. Noel Mignon DT member Britt shared some fun fall inspiration over on the blog yesterday. Definitely gonna use some of those ideas!

Speaking of ideas, I've been working on my Disney photos. I just uploaded a whole bunch to Persnickety Prints for a retreat I'm going to next weekend. I'm hoping to get most (if not all) of that album finished and that's going to be my main focus for the weekend.

It was so fun going through all of those photos and reminiscing...although it made it difficult to get things done when the kids kept coming by and wanting to reminisce with me ;)

I've been sketching out most of my layouts which I've found helps immensley when working on projects like this (esp when they're pocket pages). It's a little time consuming but worth it in the end, especially since you won't waste money on printing photos that won't work the way you want them to.

I also have lots of goodies to play with lately.

I just got my Early Autumn kit from Noel Mignon the other day.

{{swoon}}

Time to pull out all of those fall pics for sure!!!!

Sadly, if you wanted one they are sold out. But....

Noel just opened up subscriptions for the Jan-June term. The bonus is that you get a discounted rate and you don't have to worry about a kit being sold out. It automatically gets delivered to your door each month! And let me tell ya, Noel has some great plans for upcoming kits so you don't want to miss out!

You can check out all of the details here!

apples, pumpkins & pony rides...oh my!

Saturday we headed up to Green Bluff to do some apple & pumpkin pickin'.

I love it up there. Love.

So first we went to Walter's Fruit Ranch do some apple pickin'. I had ulterior motives for this as I knew they would also have pumpkin donuts ;)

And Addie got to take her first pony ride...she loved every minute!

We picked red & golden delicious and granny smith apples. About 60 pounds worth!

After that we headed over to Eleven Acres to go pumpkin pickin'. We go there every year because they have a huge pumpkin patch. But in hindsight we probably should have just stayed at Walters since a lot of the pumpkins were already picked over & many were rotted. I guess that's what we get for waiting til the weekend before Halloween!

But there were still some good pumpkins to be had & we found some great ones. And now I have lots (and lots!) of apples to skin, core & package in bags for the freezer along with some freezer apple pies.

And tonight I think we'll carve up those pumpkins!

beautiful fall

turkey day menu

Are you cooking for Thanksgiving this year?

Having company over?

Or maybe traveling this season?

We're staying home as always. Last year my dad & step-mom were here visiting so it was nice to actually cook for someone else. But this year it's just us :)

And even though it's just the 5 of us I stil llike to make a nice dinner, pull out the 'fancy' dinnerware & make it special.

So I thought I'd share a few of the recipes I'm using in case you're looking for a little last minute inspiration :) You can find them all on my Thanksgiving pinterest board here.

I usually plan to eat around 2-3pm so it's kind of a late lunch & then we munch on leftovers for the rest of the day. So I try to make some kind of appetizer to tide everyone over until the meal is done. I tried these bacon wrapped smokies last year.

Oh my goodness...SO good! So we'll definitely be having those again.

For sure.

I will also be brining my turkey again. Let me tell you, if you've never brined a turkey you really need to try it. At least once. Seriously. It makes the turkey sooo juicy.

The first time I brined a turkey I pulled it out of the oven & there was hardly any turkey drippings in the bottom of the pan. I thought 'where is it all??' And then, when I cut into the turkey, I realized where all of it was. In the turkey!

By the way, I usually pull my turkey out of the oven about 1/2 hour before it's done & let it sit, covered in foil, on my stove for at least 20-45 min. That way all of the juices have a chance to stay in the meat & won't all come leaking out when you carve into the turkey.

I like to use Pioneer Woman's recipe but you can find tons online. I've also used the one from Williams Sonoma but that's a little pricey. I tried their brining bags last year & liked them but I also have a 5 gallon paint bucket that I use specifically for brining a turkey but I just didn't have the space in my fridge. If you use the bags make sure you turn the turkey at some point so the brine gets all over it.

Now when it comes to Thanksgiving I usually go with the good 'ol standards...like brown & serve rolls & Campbells green bean casserole. But last year I tried 7-Up biscuits. And the next day...I made some more. Oh yes! Here's a couple tips: first, don't try to make them bigger. They just don't turn out right. And I've found that they bake up better in a glass pan. Maybe it's just my pans but they burned in the metal pans.

To go with the biscuits I make a cinnamon honey butter (Texas Roadhouse knock off) but I alter the recipe a bit cause the way the recipe stands tastes too much like honey to me.

I always make mashed potatoes but I'm going to try Pioneer Woman's recipe this year. I like the idea of being able to make it ahead of time. Same with the Creamy Parmesan Corn...I like the idea of throwing that in the crock pot. One less thing I have to think about is one less thing I might forget!

I also want to try making stuffing from scratch. Still looking for a recipe for that. Might use Pioneer Woman's but I'll need to alter it a bit.

For dessert I always make 3 pies: apple for my hubby, pumpkin for me and chocolate for all of us :) This year I'm going to try the french silk pie I pinned instead of the regular 'ol chocolate pie from pudding mix.

And to drink I usually make my holiday punch that my kids love :) Just mix equal parts 7-Up & cranberry juice cocktail.

Now I have to go print some recipes & do my turkey day prep so that tonight we can watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

fall

Tomorrow is the first 'official' day of Fall! Fall is my favorite. I love all of the season for different reasons (hey, a rhyme!) but Fall is my faves :)

There is always, always, always a pumpkin candle burning in my house in the fall! My friend Theresa got me this one for my birthday. So yummy! So is the apple one.

Pumpkin cookies...in a pumpkin cookie jar :) (Recipe here) At least I remembered to pull out the cookie jar this year! Usually I forget...

But seriously, you need to make these cookies. They're super yummy. The recipe doesn't specify so I used about 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips. Yum!

Cadbury screme eggs?? Genius!! Whoever came up with this deserves a raise! They are soooo yummy!

Speaking of yummy...

Yeah, these were pretty good, too. I bought 2...just in case they sold out ;)

Despite the fact that we're still in the 80's during the day I'm going to try my best to get in the fall mood!