giving thanks.

Today, I'm giving thanks for these boys...

And for this man (who looks smashing in my apron)...

For the abundance we have in our home...

For bread pudding with whiskey sauce...

For simple pleasures...

For friends and family to share with...

For the Giver of all good gifts...

And for this thrift store hospital-cart-turned-buffet I scored for $4!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with the ones you love!

pirate party

Every kid needs a pirate party, right? Josiah turned 5 this last week and so we re-used our pirate get-up from halloween and had ourselves a pirate party! I found these great free pirate printables from the lovely cottage industrialist blog and used them for the party.

She had these adorable cupcake wrappers and decorations...

Pirate hats and eye patches for the kids to cut out and put together...this one was a bit big :)

And a darling pirate bunting for the wall.

No pirate party would be complete without a treasure hunt! I wrote out clues on a scroll image I found on the web and hid them in various places around the house. The last clue led them to...

Party favor bags!

Most of the loot for the party bags I found at the local dollar store, some of it discounted because it was left over from halloween (who knew the dollar store had sales?)

I made some little maps for the party favor bags out of vellum I had left over from my days of attempting to scrapbook...

And filled in the decorating with some shells (from the dollar store), gold chocolate coins and some pineapple "boats"

He's still talking about it...Happy 5th Birthday Josiah!

fall fun...

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. I HATE all the evil nastiness that comes out around Halloween, but fall is my absolute favorite time of year...and I am a huge fan of parties, dressing up, and eating candy.

So...all that to say, this year is the first year that I've dressed my children up and attended a Halloween "alternative". Our Church hosted a Harvest Party/Chili Feed/Trunk or Treat/Bonfire which was very well attended, and oh, so much fun!

I started looking for pirate attire about a month ago at the thrift store and managed to buy outfits for myself and my three boys for about $30 (Mr. Gardner declined the dress up fun...) It took some very creative thinking, which made my head hurt, but it really helped that there are so many creative people out there blogging all their creativeness and making it available to people like me : )

Josiah was the fearless Captain Calico Jack Rackham

Elijah was the fearsome first mate Bart Roberts, eye patch optional.

And Noah was the dread pirate Little Henry.

Isn't he scary?

I could die from cuteness overload!