I salvaged this stuffed turkey from the donation box at my mother-in-love’s house. This so-ugly-it’s-cute turkey now has a destiny! Below are two silly Thanksgiving activities. I am looking forward to playing these games with my family this year.

Materials:     a stuffed animal turkey, a few players, photo copies or drawings of turkeys

Turkey Gone-a-Hiding

1. Hide a stuffed animal turkey somewhere in the room or outside (weather permitting). If you don’t have a turkey just use a drawing.
2. Have the players search for the turkey.
3. Whoever finds the turkey gets to hide it the next time.

Turkey Trot

1. Send a scout outdoors to plant turkeys (copies or drawings) along your walking path for the players to hunt.
2. This fun task will make your family walk into a delightful turkey trot.
3. You can use a reward system for turkeys collected i.e. Every turkey snatched = Extra dollop of whipped cream on your pie!

We are making progress on our main level and only living area which feels like getting 2 steps ahead.

We are all suffering from head colds which is turning us into head cases which feels like taking 1 step back.

Here are some of our steps so far…

The wood-laminate flooring is in!

The bases of the kitchen cabinets are painted. Cottage White by Behr, shown here-only the first coat was completed. Bye dark brown 80's stain!

Cabinet doors- Washed, hand sanded, power sanded and stacked for painting. Molly is having a tea party with our medicine cups. Oh yes, of course our walls are painted too, Harvest Brown by Behr.

Well we can only take one step at a time! Though right now I am going to drink up my Airborne and close my eyes for sake of common sense! Though the dishes are calling me, painting, laundry….I’ll just have to let the answering machine pick up…if only it were that easy.

I am joining in with Heavenly Homemakers today for a round of Gratituesday.

Laundry Room Lessons

Upon learning that my washing machine was in fact unrepairable I felt bummed. When I found out I broke the machine from jamming it too full for too many years I was disheartened.

We had a one month during which all of our clothes were being piled high and toted around to Grammy’s “Laundry-Mat”.

Yes, my son is jumping into the dirty "hamper".

Of course since we are in the middle of “redoing” the main level I was less than thrilled to reallocate funds from decor toward a washer. I mean, I was just about to buy fabric re-enter the fabric store for the 5th time hoping this would be the time I didn’t have a dizzy spell and dry mouth from utter disorientation.

But look it came with a friend. Awww

I thought for sure that when this day came I would kiss the pretty buttons and hug the machine for its awesomeness. But, instead what I found was a huge amount of gratitude for the simple ability to do the wash.

I am very grateful today for the honor to load up my family’s dirty duds. I hope this new found respect for clothing maintenance lasts a long, long time.