Where oh where did the month of November go?  Does anyone know?  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving I hope Y'all did too.  Our son got his first deer and he was pretty excited. 

A couple of weeks ago I was looking out over the back deck and I spied what looked like a big buck walking through the pine trees heading towards the pond.  I was sure it was a big buck and after pulling the trail cam in I was more than sure this was the guy I had seen sneaking through the pines.

I didn't take too many photos over thanksgiving, I just enjoyed the time we had with our family.

There's nothing like eating a bunch of yummy carbs, my daughter-in-law made rolls and I made the stuffing, I made it this year in the slow cooker and will definitely do it again next year.  I had found the recipe on Pinterest.

Getting tired of eating turkey?  Here's a delicious sandwich that I had planned to eat after thanksgiving but we ended up eating it before.

PHILLY CHEESE STEAK SLOPPY JOES

1 lb ground beef
1 small sweet onion chopped
1 green bell pepper seeded and chopped
1/4 cup steak sauce (like A1)
1 cup beef broth
provolone cheese
buns

Crumble the ground beef into a skillet and add the chopped onion and pepper. Begin to cook, when the beef is about half cooked, add the broth and steak sauce. Cook until all items are done and allow to simmer and cook down/thicken.
I used hoagie buns from the bakery. Slice them open and filled 6 with the meat mixture. Then each was topped with a slice of provolone cheese. This was placed under the broiler for 3 minutes.

Now, go on and enjoy the day ♥♥♥

No deer yet but Mr has only been out a few times. 

Our Texas son came up for a short visit. We got to listen to him play his Irish Tin Whistle, and Mr and Jay did some target shooting.

Driving him to O'Hare Airport wasn't bad, tho it was a bit of a trip, we stopped to shop on the way home and stopped for a bite to eat.

It's going to be a busy week and I'm going to be taking a bit of a blogging break, with family coming in it'll be hard to get on the computer.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We had a very quiet but wonderful Christmas.  We had our son and daughter-in-law here, they are expecting their first child in March.  I totally didn't take any photos and when I thought of it Dan and Kelli were already in their relaxing clothes.  I think we spent most of our time relaxing and eating.  Dan and Kelli left very early Christmas morning, they just bought a new home in Michigan where they live and were anxious to get moved in.  We had an early meal on Christmas Eve, a friend had stopped by to visit and bring a gift, so he stayed and shared our meal with us.

Jim and I try to live a simple life.  We are debt free, we have a garden, we heat with wood that is harvested from our land, we make maple syrup for our personal use also harvested from our land, and now we hunt for food to fill our freezer.  This is the second deer that Jim has gotten, that deer is in our freezer and Jim is in the process of tanning the deer hide.  I will make a pair of chopper mittens for him.

I snowshoed out to not only take photos, but to help drag the deer out of the woods.  This guy was very heavy.  With the first deer we brought it to the butchers in town to be processed, but being Christmas day they were closed.  One of our sons encouraged Jim to do it himself, so he did.  But I won't show you any of those photos, I don't think you would like them (lol).

This is how we spent our Christmas holiday, which was wonderful!  How was yours?

While Jim was out hunting I was putting a lining in the felted bag I had made back in 2009.  I love this bag and only use it in the fall/winter months, but hated that I had to dig for everything, and never could find anything in it, my keys, phone, a pen, whatever it was I was looking for I could never find.  So...I decided to add a lining to it, but I didn't want to go out and buy fabric, so I dug into my fabric scraps, and found that the fabric that I had made the apron for my daughter-in-law with was pretty much the only scrap fabric that would look the best.  I love it!

Also this weekend I made The Pioneer Woman's Fried Mozzarella, these were very good, and I was pretty surprised that I actually got them looking (almost) like hers :)

I just had to take a photo of Jim heading off to the deer stand in the afternoon.  Nothing yet so far, but we're hoping.

I also made lots and lots of cookies that I will be donating to an event that is happening in town over the Thanksgiving holidays.

Whew, I'm tired from such a busy weekend.

How about you, how was your weekend?  Was it busy or relaxing?