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I am back with another pumpkin recipe! Instead of cookies I'm showing you how to make delicious pumpkin butter to spread on your toast or bagels. My daughter has been enjoying pumpkin butter with her peanut butter sandwiches!

This pumpkin butter is really easy to make and is so delicious.

Now, I canned my pumpkin butter, but I want to give a disclaimer about canning pumpkin butter.

If you get on to the website for the National Center for Home Food Preservation they discourage canning pumpkin puree, and only using pressure canning for cubed pumpkin. They say the problem is that due to pumpkin's low acidity you can't keep it from going bad. However, I have read on other sites that as long as the internal temperature of the pumpkin butter reaches 248 degrees Fahrenheit you'll be ok.

It's up to you. I canned my pumpkin butter using a water bath method. I boiled the pumpkin butter for 1 hour and listed to them all seal shut (it's my favorite canning sound.) If you don't feel comfortable canning the pumpkin butter, you can just fill you jars and freeze them. I actually canned AND froze mine because I made a lot of pumpkin butter and want to give jars to people so I canned them and then froze them so that when I gift the pumpkin butter later I can advise them of what I've done, while ensuring the pumpkin butter's safety when I give it as a gift.

Ok, so this pumpkin butter recipe is for the crock pot. It is so easy. You dump your ingredients in, stir them together, set it for about 3 hours on high, and then stir it up. Then your pumpkin butter will be ready for canning (or freezing!)

Pumpkin butter is the perfect fall jam. It goes great on everything. Mix some pumpkin butter into your oatmeal in the morning. Then enjoy it with a cup of hot chocolate, preferably our pumpkin spice hot cocoa bomb. Doesn't that just sound like the best fall morning?

Homemade Pumpkin Butter

2020 has definitely been a rough year for everyone, and those of us with a small business are definitely no exception. The holidays of the past have often been the busiest time of the year for many of us, in large part due to holiday craft shows. 

Many of those shows just won't be happening this year.

So we thought, why not host a virtual one? We can all hang out online for three days, have some giveaways, interact with and support cool small business owners, and get our holiday shopping done!

So... we are!

We will be hosting the 3 Winks Holly & Mistletoe Boutique this November 19-21, and we have teamed up with so many incredible vendors from a wide variety of businesses and shops. There's really something for everyone!

If you're interested in joining, be sure to join the Facebook group and turn on notifications so you don't miss anything. 

Here's a list of our vendors!

Livvy Lou's Bow Shoppe
Polished and Purdy with Andrea
Jaci Hibshman with doTerra Essential Oils
Last Yesterday
Solo Wood Design
Lori's Card Creations
Bibs4Littles
Tara Fritz with Rodan and Fields
Sew Unique
Wreaths by Shalonda Alexander
Residual Resin
Craftastico
Color Me Culturally Confident
Sweet Louize
Zuckerman's Creations
Tara Fritz Art
Children's Culinary Institute
Baked in America

Plus one more surprise...

Typically, we only sell our hot cocoa bombs locally at craft fairs. This year, the Original Hot Cocoa Bomb will be available in our Etsy shop for the 3 days of the craft fair. Our available flavors will be:
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Original
Cinnamon
Salted Caramel
Cherry Cordial
Butterscotch
Gingerbread
Peppermint
and Hazelnut

These will be sold in packs of 4-12. Stop by early to make sure you get the flavors you want!

So who's excited? We definitely are! Will we see you there? Let us know in the comments!

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       Are you cooking for a crowd this Thanksgiving and are you stressing out about pulling it off? Growing up in a large family and raising a large family of my own has taught me a few tips that I can share to help make your Thanksgiving meal prep much easier and successful.  A little pre-planning can take the stress to a much lower level. Be sure to print off the free timeline printable to hang on your fridge to keep you on track! 

First things first, make a menu and choose your recipes! If you decide that you want to try something new, you may want to give it a trial run, but do that early, before the real crunch starts. I suggest trying something that you feel pretty confident will turn out well and be a crowd pleaser.  Also, it may be best to keep  your new recipes down to 1 or 2 dishes.  Traditional Thanksgiving recipes are looked forward to, comforting and expected by many and changing things too much could leave some people disappointed. A couple of new dishes added to the traditional can be surprising and fun! You might even start a new tradition.  I wasn't raised with pecan pie growing up, but it is a tradition in my home now. Also, I can still remember the year pumpkin rolls first appeared and we have enjoyed them ever since. 
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     Speaking of pies, we have a whole category devoted to pies on our blog.  You can start with my mom's absolutely best crust recipe here and go onto the many other varieties of pies that are all delicious, here. For even more pie ideas, you can purchase and download our For the Love of Pie ebook.   You might find a new, wonderful pie to add to your Thanksgiving dessert table this year! 

If you are asking people to bring some of the food and drinks, be sure to make those assignments well in advance so that they have time to plan ahead as well.  Especially if you are just asking for a general thing, like a salad or a dessert, they may want to have time to try out a recipe before they bring it.  Or, they may need to budget into their budget the cost of ingredients.  I would say that 2 weeks notice is a good amount of time and you can give a heads up reminder a few days before Thanksgiving. 

Sometimes people already have an idea of what they would like to contribute, so it is good to be open to those suggestions and work around them.  If your sister asks what you would like her to bring, you could give her a few suggestions and let her choose.  Also, accept any offers from people who would like to come early and help!  

Before you head off to the grocery store, clean your fridge! I am lucky enough to have two refrigerators, so I have to clean them both. But seriously, you are going to need a lot of room.  You will be bringing home produce, a turkey, butter, veggies of various varieties, cream, dips, cranberry sauce, pickles, olives...And then you have to plan on the leftovers! Don't forget that if people are bringing dishes to add to the feast, you will need a place to put any cold items that may need to be chilled until serving time. So, the week before Thanksgiving week, be sure to plan meals that do not generate a lot of leftovers. Then,  get in that fridge and get rid of those little dabs of leftovers, throw out the old, expired condiments, flush away the "science experiments" tucked away in the back corner, and wipe everything down so that you have a nice, clean refrigerator.  If you think that you may not have enough space for everything, break out or purchase a cooler to handle some of the overflow. This one on wheels would be great!  

​Another important thing to do before you shop is to take an inventory of what you have already and what you will need to make your planned menu.  Do you have enough eggs?  How about little things like sage or even salt?  Do you have the evaporated milk for the pumpkin pie? Make a list and check it twice! 

At the beginning of November there will be tons of good sales on all of the fixings for a Thanksgiving Dinner. (This is also a good time to stock up on canned goods for your pantry and to buy food for donations to food banks!) Check your ads!  If you will also want a turkey for Christmas, get one now and put it in the freezer because the prices are at their best right now! Here are a few things to add to your shopping list that you may not have thought about:

• Freezer Storage Bags! 
• Containers that seal and won't leak.  Here are a couple suggestions:​

• If you are using paper plates, get good sturdy ones.  I prefer to use real plates for big dinners, because they look prettier, they are sturdy enough to handle the gravy and other juicy foods and won't fall apart under a knife.   Also, make sure you have enough dessert plates! I like to check the clearance aisles for good deals on pretty dishes. 

• Plastic wrap, or another fun thing to do to send home leftovers in is to make your own wax cloths like Maddy blogged about here.  We use them all of the time and they are a great way to be a little more green. They would be a nice little gift to send home with your guests, wrapped around some leftover dinner rolls perhaps! Use some Fall colored prints!

• You may assign out whipped cream or Cool Whip, but I always like to have some extra on hand.
• Butter for those rolls!
• Save some time on Tuesday of Thanksgiving Week to go back for produce closer to Thanksgiving Day so that it will be fresh.

Once you are finished shopping and have everything you need, make yourself a timeline of things that need to be done.  Here is an overview of how I generally organize myself the week of Thanksgiving. Be sure to get the free Thanksgiving Prep Timeline below. Just press the button.

• Make sure the turkey is in the refrigerator defrosting by Monday at the latest. Big turkeys take longer.  A 20 pound turkey can take 5 days to defrost.
• Clean the house really well on Tuesday.  You can also put together some of your dishes, such as the stuffing, in advance on this day.  Then on Thursday you can just pop it in the oven. Also, the cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes can be prepared in advance.
• Bake the pies, rolls and other desserts on Wednesday, because the oven will be very busy on Thursday with the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc.
• After baking on Wednesday, sweep and straighten the house and set the table, unless you have very tiny children who will just mess it up.  Then you can have someone help you with it on Thursday.
• Thursday morning, put a couple of spoonfuls of stuffing in the cavity of the bird for flavor, but bake most of it in a casserole dish.  Prepare the turkey by rinsing it and removing the giblets.  I cook the giblets separately on the stove in a seasoned broth to chop up and use in the gravy. When the turkey is done roasting later on, don't forget to remove the stuffing from the inside.
• When the turkey comes out of the oven, pop the stuffing, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole into the oven while it rests. Move the turkey to a platter to rest and make the gravy in the bottom of the roasting pan. 

Accept help! Let others put out the cranberry sauce, pickles, olives and other condiments.  Allow someone to mash the potatoes, put out the rolls and butter.  You can give instructions as you make the giblet gravy! Then, at last, it will all come together, everything will be hot and you will have a feast to be thankful for.  
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Keep an eye out for some basic recipes here on the blog to help you out with holiday dinners!

    My son and his wife have moved an hour and a half away from us, taking with them 2 of our grandchildren!  It isn't as bad as the ones who live 12 hours away in different directions, but it still kills me! So, I have determined that an hour and a half really isn't that terrible, and I am going to make that drive as often as I can to visit them, if only just for a day.  The Grandparent adventure booklets that we told you about in this post are going to help me make those visits memorable! 

    These two particular grandchildren are ages 2 and 4, a girl and a boy respectively.  I had the smaller books printed off for them because I thought that they would be great for their tiny hands.  You can choose to print off a booklet that says "Adventures with Grandparents" or "...Grandma" or "...Grandpa."  I meant to print off Grandparents, but accidentally printed Grandma, so I just wrote, "& Grandpa" on mine.  

    You may be wondering what I put in that Tupperware container!  
    Since my granddaughter is 2 years old, I know that she would love to bake and decorate cookies with me.  We've done that at my house before.  I've already made her a little apron to wear when she helps her mommy cook or when she plays in her play kitchen.  One of the pages of the book suggests that grandparents cook together with their grandchildren.  I decided that if I'm driving up there for an afternoon, we could spend a little bit of time just decorating the cookies, so I put together a cookie kit a gift that we can do together.  

   I put in the pre-baked sugar cookies, a container of my homemade frosting and some little packages of sprinkles.  (I love those little $1 packs that you can get at Michael's.)  I made sure to put in pink sprinkles because they are her favorite color!  I packed everything in Tupperware to keep it all fresh and safe.  I love decorating cookies with kids.  They have so much fun.  I wrote about my method of keeping everything somewhat organized when decorating with kids on this post. 

    My grandson, who is 4 years old, is a really good artist.  He loves to draw and he enjoys having me draw with him as we watch Art for Kids Hub on YouTube.  It is a lot of fun.  One of the pages in the grandparents booklet suggests doing art with your grandchildren.  So, I went to DollarTree and bought him a giant art sketch pad and some new crayons.  I know that he already has crayons, but who doesn't love a nice fresh box? 

     The fun part will be that they will both want to participate in the other's activity, which will be great and we can color in 2 parts of the booklet that day!  I'm so excited to get up there, see the new house and have some fun with these cute little ones!  I'll try to remember to post pictures on Instagram! 

    Have you thought of ideas for experience gifts to give to your grandchildren?  Share them with me! And head over to our Etsy Shop and pick up your own PDF Files of the booklet or the poster!  They will be a great way to give Christmas gifts this year!