Results tagged “fall” from Mrs. Happy Housewife

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving today. Betwixt the turkey and football and napping, please remember to thank our Father above who has blessed each of us with so much more than we deserve.

At Thanksgiving, I often think of a hymn I first heard while watching Little Women. You might remember it from the scene where Meg gets married.

 

For the beauty of the earth

For the Glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies:

 

Refrain:

'Lord of all, to Thee we raise

this our joyful hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale and tree and flow'r

Sun and Moon and stars of light

 

Refrain

 

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child.

Friends on earth and friends above

For all gentle thoughts and mild.

 

Refrain

 

For each perfect gift of Thine

To our race so freely given.

Graces human and divine

Flow'rs of earth and buds of heav'n.

 

Refrain

Let us all, this day and every day, raise a joyful hymn of grateful praise to the Creator. For every good and perfect gift comes from above.  

Since I'm still recovering from the whole brain surgery thing, my sister-in-law invited us over for Thanksgiving. My neighbors heard and surprised us by ordering Thanksgiving for us so that I won't have to leave the house. Isn't that so sweet?

My post-surgery update:

• My stitches are out and the Dr says my incision looks great.
• My hair, where they shaved my head, is growing like mad. The rest of my thick hair covers the area.
• I left the house to get the stitches out and was very happy to go home again. I was really dreading going somewhere for Thanksgiving. That's why my dear neighbors bought us a cooked dinner.
• H is back at work but D is in charge and watches me better than a Mother Hen.
• If I bend over, it feels like my head will explode. So, I don't do that.
• I can't really spend much time at once on the internet, but I am at Twitter.

On my Free Things page, you can find my Thanksgiving Menu - if I was able to cook.

I hope to post again before Thursday. If I don't, here's Tennessee Ernie Ford singing one of my favorite harvest hymns:

Long, long ago, little D confused the words Jack-o-lantern and Halloween and called carved pumpkins "jack-o-leens".

After much begging, D got her very own pumpkin to carve for the very first time.

Stabbing the victim.

The finished product.

Lit up.

With my sunflowers.

We were careful to save all the seeds. They're delicious baked. Just wash them and spread them on tin foil. Spray them with cooking spray and sprinkle them with salt. Then, bake on low for awhile. Yummy! And so much better than sunflowers seeds, as these can be eaten shell and all. I kept some seeds out to plant next year. We'll see how that goes.

D and S worked so diligently this week that we had some free time yesterday. We spent it by doing two fun activities with leaves.

First, we made wax paper leaves. Can you believe they've never done this before? I remember this activity fondly - from Kindergarten. Obviously, I have neglected my duties and deprived them of this easy craft.

The children collected the leaves they wanted to use and we ironed them between sheets of wax paper. Here they are in the living room window:

Next, we made a paper banner. I showed D this cute, newspaper bunting. She liked it, but also wanted to make a paper chain. We combined the two ideas to make this:

(The chain ends are even; I just had to take the photo from an odd angle because my chandelier was in my way.)

Unfortunately, we didn't have paint for the newspaper as used in the Maya Made bunting, so we substituted with poster markers.

D's piece de resistance was the addition of a Planetree leaf at each corner of the banner.

It was a fun, fall afternoon. I hope we have another one like it soon.

Just take a look at all of these cute pumpkin crafts available online:

1. Puffy Stuffed Pumpkin in crochet from Marlo D. Cairns
2. Paper Pumpkin Ornaments from Hostess with the Mostess
3. A Stuffed Fabric Pumpkin from About.com
4. Pumpkin Picture Holder from 365 Halloween
5. Celebrity Pumpkin Stencils from Better Homes and Gardens
6. The Pumpkin Patch papier mache pumpkins from Stolloween
7. Crochet Pumpkin Tutorial from Express Yourself
8. PomPom Pumpkins from Liquid Paper
9. Pumpkin Pie Playdough Recipe from Like Merchant Ships

I'd love to have another gathering of pumpkin crafts (or crafts and recipes) before the end of the month, so please send in your favorites.

Also, Meredith of Like Merchant Ships, who posted her yummy-scented playdough recipe, had a bouncing baby boy on Monday. Congratulations, Meredith!