Thanksgiving Busy Books for Kids

Happy Thanksgiving week y'all! I am SO EXCITED to have a whole week off with my little family! We are hosting this year, and am putting all the finalized touches on the dining room, scouring my cook books for some yummy recipes, and wrapping my mind around the fact we are in charge of the turkey this year (fingers crossed!).

Thanksgiving is such a fun holiday, but the meal can be LONG. My kids rarely can sit through a normal meal, let alone a meal with several courses. So, I came up with a fun and personalized way for them to want to sit a little longer. I created these Thanksgiving Busy Books.

I learned long ago the kids table is where it's at. It's where all the fun happens during the holiday meal times. My kids tend to be the only children at holidays, and sometimes the kids table is just an extension of the adult table. And that means lots of sitting. I usually try to put out little games or something small and fun for them to fidget and play with during the meal. This year I created these fun little busy books for them.

It was a project I thought would take a long time, but in reality it took only about ten minutes. Each book is filled with fun coloring pages, interactive games and questions for them to play with, and age appropriate activities.

I'm dishing on all the details on how to create a Thanksgiving busy book for your own kids on Savvy Sassy Moms. Make the hop to grab all the coloring pages, activities, and games. With just a few clicks your kids table just got a whole lot more fun!

What are some fun activities you have for kids to do during long holiday meals? We'd love to hear your suggestions!

Jen

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Kitchen Confessions: Pumpkin Spice Parfait

Everywhere we look we see pumpkin. And we're okay with that. Because we are all....

We are most definitely all about the pumpkin everything. Pumpkin is one of our favorite flavors, and not just in the Fall. We love pumpkin year round, but it's so nice that this time of year pumpkins are in season and we can enjoy it even more.

The moment it turned Fall-ish (and because it is the South I'm totally going off the calendar and not the weather because today it's 90 degrees!), we dusted off our cookbooks and bookmarked some of our favorite pumpkin recipes to put on our menu.  From appetizers to delicious desserts the pumpkin options are endless!

I love love love the yummy pumpkin bread recipe Carrie Beth shared last year. I've been majorly craving it for months, but haven't had the time to make it. Sometimes I just need something quick and easy to satisfy pumpkin craving. I stumbled upon these Krusteaz baking mixes and let's just say we are slightly addicted.

They are so yummy! I love that they only require a few ingredients, and they are usually things I already have on hand. I can make a quick and yummy dessert that everyone loves with very little effort. Now that's my kind of pumpkin everything!

Over the weekend I needed a dessert for a dinner, but with sports and other activities didn't have a lot of time to make something extravagant. After doing a little brainstorming I came up with these easy Pumpkin Spice Parfaits.

Because I already had some Krusteaz Pumpkin Spice Quick Bread on hand it cut my prep time down to nothing. Not to mention so. much. YUM!!

If you want a little pumpkin spice fix, or need a quick dessert option for the upcoming holidays this is definitely a recipe to put on your radar.

PUMPKIN SPICE PARFAIT

Serves 6-8

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 1 box of Krusteaz Pumpkin Spice Quick Bread
• 10 oz of heavy whipping cream
• 2 cups of chopped pecans
• 1 can of whipped cream
• 1 tbsp of cinnamon and sugar
• Optional: cinnamon stick for garnish

Instructions

1. Bake Kruzteaz Quick Bread according to instructions. 
2. Let bread cool then slice and set aside. 
3. In a trifle dish or individual serving pieces (we love to use mason jars!) spread the bottom with a small amount of heavy whipping cream as your base layer. 
4. Break slices of the bread into large pieces and layer over the whipping cream. Then layer with whipping cream, pecans, and bread. Repeat until filled to the top. 
5. Top off with whipped cream. Sprinkle lightly with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and a few pecan crumbles.
6. Garnish with cinnamon stick. Serve and enjoy!

Note: Might also taste yummy garnished with drizzled caramel or butterscotch chips!

Such an easy - yet yummy - dessert! I love that the quick bread mix was able to help me in a pinch, and I know it will be a favorite of ours all season. 

We want it to be a favorite of yours too! We are partnering with Krusteaz and giving one lucky reader the chance to win a fun Pumpkin Spice kit of their own. Enter below and the winner will be announced on Friday, October 20th.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

What is your favorite pumpkin recipe to make during the Fall? 

Jen

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*Winner will be chosen randomly. Winner must be 18 and up, and a resident of the United States. Winner must respond with in 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen. All prizes will be sent to the winner directly from the brand. 

** We received this product from Krusteaz for review, but all thoughts and life changing opinions are our own. 

Happy Thanksgiving

We just wanted to pop in and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!  

Source

We hope you all are enjoying the day with friends, family and loved ones.  We hope you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, we hope you eat a little too much turkey and pie, and we hope you give thanks for the many blessings you have because that is exactly what we will be doing this day!  

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Our Turkey Day

We hosted Thanksgiving this year for the first time in about 10 years. I was a little nervous about it at first (the turkey was intimidating me a bit), but then the hubs decided to smoke our turkey on his new Big Green Egg so after that task was off my plate, I got really excited about hosting and it turned out to be a wonderful day.

Earlier in the week I pulled out my china to set our table.  I can maybe count on one hand how many times we have used in in the past 11 years of marriage, so I was happy to see it out.

That turkey was a lot of work and even though I wasn't cooking on the oven, the prep involved felt like a 3 day thing.

It was totally worth it though because the result was amazing.  We watched about 10 different YouTube videos with directions on how to smoke a turkey on the Egg and one recipe caught our eye.  It involved brining the bird in an apple juice/apple cider vinegar mix, basting it with brown sugar and butter, and stuffing it with brown sugar and cinnamon stuffed apples.

The meat was juicy, tender, full of flavor and it literally was falling off the bone.  It was that good!  After stuffing ourselves with delicious food and working some of that off by playing a game of baseball outside, it was time for desserts!  I made my Memaw's pecan pie recipe and it took every ounce of will power not to cut into it before yesterday.  It's the one thing I look forward to having every Thanksgiving, just like I did when I was a little girl.  The girls helped me bake it and sharing that time with them made me think about all the wonderful memories of my grandparents.

After everyone left, my little helper and I were thankful when the kitchen was finally cleaned!

After 3 days of baking and prepping for yesterday's feast, it was nice to sit down in front of the fire and just be thankful for all I have.  Most of all I feel blessed with a loving husband and to be able to call these sweet ones mine.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!