Thankfulness isn’t just for today, but should be an everyday attitude, don’t you agree?! Happy Thanksgiving friends! I have lots to be thankful for, and you all are definitely counted in those blessings!!! xoxo

Lisa Leonard sent over these adorable, personalized holly ornaments for my girls! I’m going to be adding it onto their Christmas stockings as they would give it the perfect touch. I can’t wait for the girls to come home so that I could show them their special ornaments (and of course give them big hugs and kisses). They will love these because they get so excited about anything with their name on it! I’m not one to start Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving, so we will probably start sometime this weekend. And as much as I love decorating for Christmas, I’m getting nervous about getting out all of those Christmas boxes (and then having to put them away again). The cleaning up is not the fun part.

Have you started decorating for Christmas? Or are you like me and prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving?

With the big 3 staying with their Auntie Linda and Uncle John, things have been quiet around here. We miss the girls, but I’m trying to get things done that I normally can’t do when they’re here. It’s totally weird to just have one, but I think Glow is loving getting free reign on her big sister’s toys (and getting mommy’s attention all to herself). The big girls totally think they’re on vacation when they go stay with their Auntie Linda, and based on the texts Linda’s been sending me, my girls are totally living it up! See this cute instagram video as proof.

Tomorrow is for crossing more things off the to-do list, and also for doing some Thanksgiving baking. Have you started your Thanksgiving prepping yet?

Pumpkin Crinkle Cookies 
makes about 32 cookies, adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:
1. 2 1/4 cup flour
2. 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
3. 1/2 cup brown sugar splenda
4. 1/2 cup sugar
5. 12 Kraft caramels (cut them in half)
6. Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter
7. 1/2 cup powdered sugar
8. 1/4 tsp salt
9. 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
10. 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
11. 1 tsp cinnamon
12. 1 stick butter (softened)
13. 2 eggs
14. 1 tbsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, spices, and baking powder. Separate the powdered sugar into two smaller bowls with each containing 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and set aside (this does not go in the batter). In the bowl of an electric mixer, fit with a paddle attachment, whip together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Proceed to add the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir until combined. Slowly, add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Dough will be quite sticky.

Scoop out dough 1 heaping tablespoon at a time and roll into a ball. Press thumb into the center of the ball and insert caramel (or teaspoon of cookie dough). Press the dough around the filling to completely cover the caramel or cookie dough with the batter (For some, we also chopped up some chocolate and put it in the center too!). Once dough is shaped back into a ball, roll in the powdered sugar and coat well. Bake the cookies on an un-greased cookie sheet for about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on the cooling rack, once it is cooled down enough, roll in the second bowl of powdered sugar to coat again.

Note: There are two small bowls of powdered sugar because you don’t want to cross contaminate the raw eggs from the uncooked cookie dough from the first bowl of powdered sugar used before baking.
The caramel filled cookies are best eaten warm, so they are nice and gooey! Otherwise, they harden a bit and become more chewy than gooey. Our favorites were the ones with the cookie butter center! I also found that the cookies tasted better the next day, as the pumpkin flavors seems to be a bit stronger (but I’d make sure to eat the caramel filled ones straight from the oven). In my experience making pumpkin cookies, they always come out more cake-y than your typical cookie, so if cake-y cookies aren’t your thing, I’m not sure you’d like pumpkin cookies.

Soul was telling Ben she wanted to eat Mommy’s “high-nu” cookies for snack. Ben told her, “Soulie, just because it has pumpkin doesn’t mean it’s high nutrition.” I guess that kind of bursted her “healthy” snack bubble because these cookies for sure aren’t high nutrition, but they do taste good, and it is definitely something that doesn’t hurt to have once in awhile. Plus, we had to kick off our Thanksgiving week with some baking. We actually doubled the recipe and delivered some cookies to a few of our neighbors. Hopefully, they liked it just as much as we did!

I have plans to make a healthier version of pecan pie this week too! Oh Thanksgiving, you are dangerous…

Last Minute Korean Soup of sorts. It was a cold, rainy day and instead of what I originally planned to make, I was really wanting some soup. Since it was an emergency, I called the BFF for some Korean soup ideas based on what we had in our fridge, and she definitely came to the rescue. A little bit of this and a little of that, some chicken broth and a couple cups of kimchi later, we had a very yummy (and spicy) seafood soup. Two thumbs up definitely. If I can remember what I put in, I will share it. It was an easy soup to make using things we already had on hand.

Shrimp Scampi Pizza. I used my focaccia crust recipe and this recipe for the pizza. I did a slight change of using 1 tablespoon of butter instead of the 3 tablespoons it called for, and I also left out the 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Even with that little change, it tasted fine (and still delicious) to us. I love homemade pizza!

Week 11/25 – 11/29
Monday: Crab cakes
Tuesday: Pho
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Thanksgiving feasting with family
Friday: Thanksgiving leftovers

The three big girls will be staying with their Auntie Linda and Uncle John’s until Thursday morning, so meals will be a little easier. Maybe Ben and I can sneak in a date or two with Glow in tow. I don’t have to worry about cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving and honestly, I’m kind of intimidated to do so, but I will be baking pie and some side dish to bring to our family gatherings. If your stateside, what are your Thanksgiving meal plans this week?

Due to all the flowers we picked for our fall potluck, we had lots of fresh flowers in the house this week. We have really been stopping to smell the roses a whole lot. They smell so good! When the girls see me sniffing one, each one will say, “I wanna smell! I wanna smell!” The tallest rose on the right smells the absolute best. I keep making Ben smell it and I tell him that I need a perfume that smells like this. I’m not really a perfume gal, but lately I’ve gone out after I’ve done some cooking and have thought, “Oh man, I need perfume because I smell like food.” Maybe it’s time to start searching for a good one. I remember my mom buying perfume and buying cologne for my dad, but Ben and I have never been into that stuff. Though after getting high on my roses, I would really like to find a scent similar to them. I’ve also got a sensitive nose though, so the wrong scent can also give me a headache. Anyone have a good light scent to recommend?

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

My sinus infection is back. Ugh. But I’m thankful for medicines and doctors that help make things better.

Soul is swimming on her own now. Yay! We’re still going strong with swim classes (twice a week) and have no plans to stop in the winter. By summer, they should be pros!

We got our new sink and faucet in! So excited!!! Ours has been broken since January and it’s so nice to have one that works again.

I want to make a healthy version of this recipe.

I’m dying over how gorgeous these bags are.

I’m so excited about thanksgiving and hanging out with family.

My sister is just awesome. I’m still in disbelief she will be leaving us for 11 months (when she comes back True will be 9!), but I just know God is going to use her, and I can’t wait to hear her stories.

I was so encouraged by my friend Frances’ blog post. My heart needed that.

Have a good weekend friends! Cleaning bathrooms are on my agenda this weekend, what’s on yours?