Thanksgiving Day!!

 Brayden and Saydria woke up with me early on Thanksgiving to run the annual Turkey Trot here in our town. It's a 4 mile run and there were about 600 runners this year! Brayden ran it in 35 min and I stayed with Saydria and we finished in 50 minutes. She needed to walk some of the uphill portion, but did great. I'm so proud of both of them! I think they need to do more short races like that with me!!

 Before the race...

 When we got home from the trot, I got busy in the kitchen! Found these babies on pinterest, it's angel food cake and strawberry kabobs drizzled with chocolate. We made a TON!! This was only 1 plate, it made 4x this.

 Also made some white and honey wheat breads, here's Cole holding onto the white bread as we travel to our friends house. (Levi and Rachel's)

 Kevin cutting into the white bread, it was ridiculously huge.

 Levi smoked 2 turkeys, he did it last year and they were wonderful. We kind of decided last minute to do Thanksgiving together and we love getting our families together anyway. :)

 Kai with some pumpkin pie. I made 3 this year. This kid could eat a whole pie on his own.

Brayden was chillin' in Levi and Rachel's bedroom after dinner watching some a movie. He didn't realize I was there until after the flash captured him.

 Cole eating a kabob!!

 Kevin and Levi watching something footballish on the tv and simulaneously joking with Rachel and I about taking pictures.

 Guys escaped us and headed to the garage to look at manly stuff.

 Meanwhile, kids helped themselves to snacks from the pantry. Can you believe it? I couldn't!!

 Busted! These kids were claiming that they were starving. We just had Thanksgiving dinner!!!!

All the kids sat beautifully for a picture before we headed home. Except I left like 5 dishes at their house, so Kevin and I are gonna go see them again on Saturday. (L to R:) Kai, Lily, Olivia, McKenzie, Violet, Saydria, Gabriella,
Isabella, Cole and Brayden down in front. :)

Almond Joy Cheesecake

 This is our favorite so far!

This part was really yummy, too.

If you like almond joy and cheesecake, you will like this recipe. It's from epicurious.com.


Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut, toasted
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted (about 2 ounces)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted


Filling
4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted
1 tablespoon coconut extract (I used 2 T)
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted


Glaze
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used milk choc chips, and I used 2 c.)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


For crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Wrap outside of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides with foil. FInely grind cracker crumbs, coconut, almonds and sugar in processor. Add butter; process until moist crumbs form. Press mixture onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of pan. Bake crust until set and beginning to brown, about 12 minutes. Cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

For filling: Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Mix in coconut and extract . Fold in almonds. Transfer filling to crust. Bake until cake is puffed and no longer moves when pan is shaken, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool completely on rack.

For glaze: Combine 1 cup chocolate chips, cream and vanilla in small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until smooth. Cool until glaze begins to thicken but can still be poured, about 30 minutes. Pour glaze over cooled cake; spread evenly. Chill cake overnight.

Run small knife around sides of cake to loosen. Release pan sides.

It felt like Christmas today...

 Kevin and the kids got up this morning and made these. I told him about them and he was all over it. You just put the canned cinnamon rolls in the waffle maker. They were good!!

 I found these cinnamon sticks scattered in one of my Christmas bins, so I tied them together with a bow and set them on my kitchen window sill.

 I used these silver bows for my curtains in the living room. I don't know what I originally planned on using them for.

 I always change up these hurricanes by our fireplace. Cole and his friend Matthew helped me with these They loved dropping the pinecones in!

 I didn't make this. I got it after Christmas last year. It's just on a closet door. All our other doors have wreaths.

 I love these poinsettia towers. I got them at Home Depot for like 7 bucks each a few years ago during the after Christmas sales.

 I got these wreaths that light up last year after Christmas, but Saydria and I put bows on them today and just hung them up on the lights outside the garage. I don't think I'll add anything more to them, I like them just fine like this.

 Saydria and I made this little beauty this morning. It's a tension rod that's covered with garland and then you string little ornaments from it. I have tiny ones on there that you can't see in the picture, but they are there. :)

I kinda always do this with the bannisters in our homes. It's easy and I like it. I just wrap the garland around the bannister, then attach the bows and hang some silver ornaments on it. I will make some gingerbread men also and put them on there sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. :)

UPDATED:
Tree went up just before Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

• 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
• 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For crust:
In medium bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.
For filling:
Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Add flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined.
Pour into crust. Spread out evenly and place in oven for 1 hour.  Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours.

(I just let it sit overnight in the fridge. Also, this recipe says it has to bake for 1 hour, but it's more like 85 minutes. Just keep an eye on it or prick it with a toothpick in the center if you aren't sure.)

Pizza Party!!

 Kids having fun putting all the toppings on their own pizzas. I should have taken individual pizza pics, but I was pretty busy eating.

 Saydria and her friend McKenzie topping their pizzas. Kai is also in the picture, he's grabbing some cheese.

 Brayden munching on his pizza, he was having more fun making them instead of eating them.

 Saydria's pizza. :)

 Kevin doing the baking at the brick oven. He's loving it. We've been wanting to build one, but it will probably be outside. Our friends have one in their basement and it's awesome!! Notice the barricade that is set up with toy shelving to keep the little ones out? Very creative! :)

 Here's a cheeseless pizza.

 Olivia's cheeseless pizza. It's a small one, but it still looks half her size!

 Kids after dinner, watching Judy Moody. Saydria had just watched this the night before, but she was still into it. We had rootbeer floats for dessert.

Boys were falling asleep! It was a fun night as always with the King Family. :)

Pancakes and Parties

 I've been doing German Pancakes on Wednesday mornings...it shakes things up a bit from waffles or pancakes, etc, so I found this fun little idea on pinterest. You just pour the pancake batter into muffin tins and have mini German Pancakes. We cut up strawberries and sprinkled them with powdered sugar. They were good. Next time, I'll just let the fruit and sugar sit a bit until it gets juice and then top them.

 Cole helping make molasses cookies, these are some of Kevin's favorite for some reason. They made a ton, so we kept a few for ourselves and took the rest to people in our neighborhood.

 This is a little girl in our neighborhood. Her parents went to a wedding last night so we got to keep her for a few hours. She was so much fun. We had played with her a lot at the neighborhood pool over the summer, but it was nice to have her all to ourselves for a night. She had a great time digging through the kids tableware drawer! (Her parents are the ones that hosted the big adult Halloween Party a few posts earlier.)

It was Saydria's turn to host a girls movie party last night. She invited a few neighbor girls and they watched Judy Moody. We made homemade pizzas, popped some popcorn in the machine and some of the girls brought treats to share. They had such a fun time. All of our kids have been taking turns hosting movie nights for the last 4 Friday nights, so it's been fun for them to have a night to call their own with their friends. (Although one of the girls had a little sister that was Kai's age, so she stayed and hung out with Kai. It seems like we have something similar with every party!)  :)

Pumpkin Cheesecake

 I made a Pumpkin Cheesecake! It was my first one and it was good. It was a recipe that I found off Food Network, a Paula Deen recipe.

Cole and I decided to have omelets for lunch one day. As I was making them, he got out our placemats (that my friend Brandy made us for Chrismtas) and our pretty purple plates that match the lovely placemats, and set the table for just him and me. All we needed was a little candlelight. This little guy is just so sweet. :) I love him so much.

Halloween Part II

 My little bumble bee. Surprised? He has been a bumble bee for 3 Halloweens. After we moved, I thought we threw his old one away, so I got him a new one because he was sure he wanted to be a bee. When I was putting his new one away, wouldn't you know it, I found his old one.

 Brayden is a tourist. It's basically an excuse to wear swim shorts and flip flops to school. Thankfully it was a beautiful day and trick or treating was really nice, also.

 My firefighter, Kai!

Dressed up a princess, kinda. There's a hoodie under there, can you see it? She was sure she wanted to be a princess, but we get the costume home and she's thinking not. Then she decided to wear her gymnastics leotard, then not. And so the story goes....