We have several water spray bottles around the house. One of them is in Little man’s room. We use it with our cloth diaper wipes. It’s much cheaper, and we can use as much or as little water as we like.

A couple weeks ago, Little man figured out how to spray water on himself. It was pretty funny to go in his room and find him sitting on the floor, soaking wet, spraying himself in the face with the water bottle.

This morning after he had eaten, I grabbed a wipe and the water bottle to clean his face with (oatmeal is STICKY!). I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let him play with the bottle for a minute, so I handed it to him.

By the time he was done, he had water beads on his eyelashes, and water dripping off of his nose, chin, and ears. What a happy camper, though!

Then, the little goof, waited until I took a sip of my coffee…and then looked at me and growled. I laughed so hard, I nearly spit out my coffee! My little stinker!

I just kept thinking of what a sweet little boy God has given me. He gives me so much joy! What a sweet way to brighten my day…

My favorite, though, is when I tell him to “Give Mama a kiss.” He loves to kiss people – but my favorite is when he tries to kiss me on the lips like Daddy does. We’re trying to teach him to kiss us on the cheek, but he still thinks because Daddy kisses Mama on the lips, that he can too.

What a sweet little boy I have!

I was browsing Prairie Homemaker this morning and someone used the abbreviation PH for it. Then over at Hannah’s Prayer, they use the abbreviation HP.

How weird is that that the two boards I read use the same letters but in opposite order???

Well, technically, the permalink structure. Instead of seeing a link like http://www.fruitofherhands.com/p=2052, instead I’ve changed it to http://www.fruitofherhands.com/2005/11/28/my-new-post.

So – if you’ve linked to any of my pages before, the links probably won’t work now. I just wanted to give you a heads-up so you don’t wonder why my site is down!

Oh – and Kelly – this doesn’t change anything for you, so don’t worry.

Stephen started feeling pretty crummy Friday night, and by Saturday he was so sick all he felt like doing was laying on the couch all day. Poor guy! He went to work today, but I’m concerned that by the time he gets home he’ll be completely worn out and exhausted. We’ll see.

Little man hasn’t really been himself, but I’m not sure if he doesn’t feel well or if he’s just feeling clingy.

Me? I’m not too bad yet. I don’t feel too bad. I’m really hoping I don’t get the bug that Stephen has, but we’ll see about that too. Right now I’m in the mood to go run a nice, hot bubble bath and soak for a looooooong time. Maybe that’s what I’ll go do…

Ok – the computer nerd in me is coming out again! Here I am again, changing the look of my blog once more. :type_ms:

I just love these graphics. I got them at www.cutecolors.com. Grace there does some beautiful work! My favorite part of this set though, is the lambs. They’re too adorable!

And with Christmas approaching – I really wanted a Christmas theme. This is just perfect – a Christmas theme that deals with the REAL Reason for the season – Christ!

Did you know you can freeze celery? I didn’t. A friend of mine mentioned it to me the other day. She said she freezes celery when she buys it because it goes bad before she can use it all.

It goes bad here too – Stephen doesn’t like it plain, and neither do I. But I sure do like it in certain things – like stuffing, and in soups and stuff.

So yesterday, when I was making dinner, I figured I could do a little bit more work. While I was chopping the celery to put inside the turkey (and in the stuffing too), I chopped the whole bag. Then, I made little vacuum seal bags from our roll of bags, and vacuum sealed little packets of celery. Each packet had about a handful of celery in it – just enough to put in soups and stuff. Yay! Now I can use fresh celery instead of the dried stuff I’d been using.

I was going to do the same with onions, but I didn’t get that far yesterday. That, and since we usually have onions in the house, I wasn’t as concerned with getting some into the freezer.

We decided to have R and K and their two daughters J and A over last night for our Thanksgiving feast. It was a blast!

Stephen and I got up early and dropped Sam off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Grandpa wanted to spend some time with his boy, so we let him, lol! Then we took off and went to Walmart. I don’t know about that Black Friday shopping – the deals are good, but I sure don’t care for the crowds! But that’s ok.

Then we came home and cooked and cooked and cooked and cooked and…

By the time R and K got here I was wiped out. They kept telling me I didn’t have to do all that work – but you know – I don’t get to go “all out” like that very often. I love it! I wanted to add some more finishing touches but I couldn’t find the stuff for it. (I had candles on the tables, and I couldn’t find the sparkly autumn leaves I wanted to use for decoration) It was ok though. And the leftovers – I vacuum sealed some of those and put them in the freezer.

Why? We ate turkey and stuffing on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and we have a family reunion today too where we’ll more than likely eat turkey and stuffing. I don’t mind it four days in a row, but I don’t want to come home and eat it 4 more days here too. So, we’ll pull it out later and enjoy it as if I have just made it. Yummy!

But I’m not entirely sure we’ll go to the reunion today. We both woke up feeling kinda crummy! We had planned to go, and we still might, but now we’re trying to decide. I’m feeling better the longer I’m up, but I’m not so convinced about Stephen.

Well, my hands are going numb, so I’d best get off the computer, lol! (This is a rather recent symptom of my fibromyalgia – it’s just started in the past couple of weeks, so I’m still trying to learn how to deal with it)

This is the neatest idea. Sallie from Two Talent Living is hosting the 2005 Blogs of Beauty Awards. Here’s what she says on her website about the awards:

Introducing the 2005 Blogs of Beauty Awards!

The focus of these awards is honoring the female bloggers who bring beauty to the world of blogdom. The categories are:

Best Biblical Exhortation
Does the best job of bringing biblical truth and exhorting others to walk closely with the Lord Jesus. (Blog does not have to be exclusively a theological blog.)

Best Design – Contemporary
The most beautiful blog of a contemporary design.

Best Design – Traditional
The most beautiful blog of a non-contemporary design.

Best Discussion
Has the best discussions in the comments sections.

Best Encourager
Has the most encouraging blog content.

Best Frugality
Has the best content regarding frugality. (Blog does not have to be exclusively about frugality).

Best Homemaking
Has the best content regarding homemaking. (Blog does not have to be exclusively about homemaking.)

Best Homeschooling
Has the best content regarding homeschooling. (Blog does not have to be exclusively about homeschooling.)

Best Humor
Has the best humor.

Best Meet for a Mocha
The blogger you have never met and would most like to meet in person for a mocha.

Best Motherhood
Has the best content about being a mommy. (Blog does not have to be exclusively about motherhood.)

Best Quiet Spirit
Demonstrates a beautiful, quiet spirit through her blog entries.

Best Recipes
Has the best recipes. (Blog does not have to be exclusively about cooking.)

Best Variety
Has the most enjoyable variety of content.

Here’s how it will work.

1. Nominate one blog of your choice for each of the categories. If you have a blog, you can nominate yourself for one category only. Nominations will close Tuesday, November 29, 2005, at 8:00 p.m. EST. You can send your nominations by using the “Email Sallie” link at the top of my blog. If you do not have a nominee for every category, that is ok. Just email the ones you do want to nominate.

2. Hubby and I will tally the nominees and the top three nominees in each category will become the finalists. Finalists will be posted by 8:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, November 30, 2005.

3. I will post the finalists in each category (with hot links) and everyone will be able to vote once for each category. Voting will close 8:00 p.m. EST, Tuesday, December 6, 2005.

4. The winners will be announced by 8:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, December 7, 2005. Each winner will receive a beautiful award graphic (see above) to place on their blog.

5. While the awards will be given to women only, men are certainly free to vote.

So there you have it! Spread the word (feel free to put a copy of the award on your blog if you have one) and nominate your favorite female bloggers who bring the Lord’s beauty to the blogosphere!

Be sure to go to Two Talent Living to place your nominations. I’m not saying you should nominate me for anything – but I do think you should nominate someone. I’m excited to see who wins the awards!

My post about Thanksgiving food was getting so long that I figured I’d just start a new one.

We have so much to be thankful for! After all, how can we say we celebrate Thanksgiving if we never stop to think about what we’re thankful for?

Some things I’m thankful for:

A God who loves me enough to send His Son to die for me
A loving husband
A sweet son who loves to run to Mama and give me kisses
A warm home and roof over our heads
Good food to eat (and lots of it!)
A good church family that loves me
My jewelry business is really growing – what a HUGE blessing!
Cool weather that “feels” more like the Thanksgivings I grew up seeing
Holiday bonuses! This was totally unexpected, but also a HUGE blessing

I could go on and on and on. So – what are YOU thankful for?

I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving time already!

We’ll be spending Thanksgiving Day with Stephen’s family. For as long as he can remember, everyone meets at Grandma’s house. Grandma and PawPaw Cook are in their 80′s and yet we still all meet there. Everyone brings a ton of food! I’m bringing an Apple Date salad that Grandma just loves. I’ll bring something else too, but I haven’t decided what yet.

On Friday, we’ll cook a huge dinner here at home. We’ve been talking about having company, but Stephen wasn’t sure who to invite so we have yet to extend an invitation to anyone. If he decides before church…then maybe we’ll ask someone there tonight. We’ll see.

Our menu for our Thanksgiving meal is:

Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans
Corn
Apple Salad
Cloverleaf rolls (maybe)
Pumpkin Pie

We’ve been so busy with the school Thanksgiving Dinner that honestly, I haven’t finished planning our menu. Stephen and I were up late (as in 2am late) cooking turkeys. At 2am I discovered that our oven has an auto-off feature, and had turned itself off with the turkey still inside! Of course, it had been on for twelve hours straight, but still, I was not happy to find out that way. The turkey was done, so it wasn’t a disaster. I cooked the turkey last year for the school dinner too. I really enjoy it! We did 26 pounds of turkey yesterday, and ended up bringing almost half of it back home! I’m going to go chop it fairly fine, and then vacuum seal it and freeze it for soups and casseroles and other stuff later in the year.

I also have our turkey for Friday thawing in the cooler. Our frig is not big enough to thaw a 14-pound turkey well – the bottom is so cold that it stays frozen, and the other shelves have no room. So every year, we put the turkey in our cooler filled with ice water and thaw it that way. It works quite well. And yes, I make sure the water stays cold so that nobody will get sick.

Our stuffing should be yummy. I made some wheat bread a couple weeks ago, and it turned out much drier than I like, so I diced it, lightly toasted it, and put it in the freezer. That freshly-ground-wheat-bread stuffing should be delicious! I may not put it in the bird – that’s one thing I haven’t decided for sure yet.