Signs of the times…
Happy December Everyone!
I hope all my American friends and family had a nice Thanksgiving. On with the Holidays, right?
So I hoped to capture a glimpse of our home and kids over the extended weekend for family and friends; signs and illustrations of the shenanigans that took place here.
An overwhelming reader response was the question:
(OK it was just one person)
Well the Baked French Toast turned out well, although not what I expected.
Here is what the prep for the apple stuffed french toast looked like going in the oven…
Different, huh?
And, of course, a perk of being the chef is cleaning up the bowls…
Caramel tossed apples, YUM!
I did the Butter Pecan Maple syrup too, but that did caramelize a bit more than I expected.
But in the end we had a special, new and unique breakfast for the whole family to sample…
As the picture alludes to the, baked french toast came out piping hott. The unexpected thing was the consistency of the french toast was more of a bread pudding than french toast. It caught me by surprise but not a bad thing in the end. The baked apples were great atop the french toast! And we enjoyed a variety of condiments, or a combination of them as we saw fit to garnish. Yum!
A bit of a sad note this Thanksgiving was the fact that the woods and the land behind our house were sold for development. Every year the leaves are actually changing their colors here over Thanksgiving, totally adding to the nature of the holiday.
We found out last week that 102 houses were now going to be built behind and around our house. So I had to stop and pause to realize this may be the last Thanksgiving we have here with the bold fall colors.
It was sad.
But we can’t stay in the past too long. On Cyber Monday we all went out to a favorite restaurant offering one of those Gift Card deals, buy so many, get some free. So we decided to scoop up some Christmas presents that way via dinner Monday night.
Unbeknownst to us was it was kids night at this restaurant, complete with the best balloon sculptor in the world!
~ OK, sometimes I DO exaggerate. But she was good.
Young Skyler got herself a Princess Ariel balloon
She liked it a little bit…
Then Dylan got a little crazy and ordered herself a Santa Clause hat…
All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth
Kinda crazy, huh?
The girls loved it. We all got stuffed, again and so the evolution of the Holiday season continued!
On with the building of the Tree and the train village below…
Ladies and gentleman, this is no easy feat!
The decking of the tree is only part of the battle. There is a lot of time and precision that goes into setting up and antique train, the train village buildings and figures, snow and so forth. It took most of my Monday (shhh I hooked off from work)
Monday night ended up with a hectic Holiday scene with busy shoppers and town’s folk around the Dickens village.
Busy night in front of VS’s complete with a man and his Five Golden Rings (click and see)
Then I had to keep watching the crazy lady carrying her baby that kept on venturing out from the Christmas Carolers but got dangerously close to the train and its locomotive. What a Christmas disaster that might have been!
And try getting the Christmas Carolers out on a cold night by the train with a lady holding her baby ..
All that time was time well spent however.. and our home is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And besides, you have to take your time or else you could end up with one of these natural disasters for the Holidays….
I’m calling TIMBER! Its falling down….
This Christmas Tree evidently fell victim to the Winter Warlock for trying to cross his mountain at a friend’s house. Can you imagine what kind of precious, irreplaceable ornaments may have been lost?
In the end, Thanksgiving weekend was a great time for great food, great abundance, introduction to the Christmas season, family, friends, bonding and closeness.
And shouldn’t that be what the weekend is all about?
the girls with their Great Aunt Sue
Enjoy your Holidays everyone!
Thanks for being part of mine!
OUR LIFE IN 3D 
happy Holidays from the US! Maybe if they start real soon I can send you some real logs for your fire. Another great, best ever app for Christmas is ‘Elf Bowling’, if you can find that in an app. It is fun and hilarious! Thanks for looking in Ms. McKahsum! Have a great week…
Happy holidays from Turkey. I downloaded an app that plays a log fire endlessly. I will be pretending in grand style! Sorry that you will have houses instead of trees to look at, that bites!
Massive insect invasion? sounds like you have been through this yourself. I hope its in the winter when they tear those trees down and not the summer. And one of my to-do lists this winter is to go buy some screen to put on the back side of that fences to keep the insects, rodents and snakes out of our back yard.. Thanks for the kind words on our tree… its a family tradition by now. We love it! Thanks for stopping by Ms. Aurora! its always great to hear from you!
Thanks PIF.. Timber wasn’t my tree but I am sure it was sad to lose some family ornaments. ~ sadly I think i had a fe pieces of french toast too many… stay tuned to my next post… As always thanks for dropping in PIF! have a great week…
So sad about the woods, instead youre going to get some lousy annoying ugly neighbours, and all the construction around you sounds like a big headache to happen.
Get ready for massive insect invasion for when the trees go down.
The xmas tree and village look nice.
Glad to see the holidays are going well.
So much to comment on. 1st yum. 2nd sorry about the developing around you–major bummer!!! 3rd cool ariel. 4th timber is right! shoot!
Thanks Ms. SSM.. I was kinda embarrassed on the lighting of the breakfast pic. I didn’t see the plate was sitting in the shadow, hence you really can’t make out the dish. How I wish for a do-over! Yes lots to time, money and energy in the tree. it took practically a whole day to set up. And yes, if youget hungry you are invited to ‘get stuffed’ at our house anytime. 🙂 have a great weekend SSM! Thanks for dropping by!
After seeing your realtor’s tree, shouldn’t you be afraid of timbering on your train? Looks like you invested a lot of time, money and energy into that beautiful train display! Oh, and I LOVE the breakfast photo. Beautiful lighting and table display! All that fabulous food – if I was at your house, I’m sure I’ld get stuffed too. Happy holidays, Mr. 3D!
No that was our realtor’s tree who lives around the corner . Glad it wasn’t ours! And good thinking about the PSU store. It might have been hid on the back side of Nittany Mtn. 😉 Thanks anyway. Come see us this month!
Wow, was that really your tree that came down?? I was very close to getting you a Pennstate christmas village store for your town under the tree, but I decided against it, figuring it wouldn’t match the Dicken’s theme….