Vintage Style

Hi everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  :)  We did!  We celebrated Thanksgiving in our usual, casual style beginning the day with a Turkey Trot.  It was just 8 of us running up and down my road, but a fun 5K and a great way to start the day.  Emma was determined to win (she's a little competitive, don't know where she gets it...) and blew us all away with a time of 34 minutes.  Chris didn't run because he didn't want to was smoking turkeys for lunch so he kept time for us and he didn't believe Em when she came back alone saying she was done.  Homegirl put it on us.

About halfway through I could see Oren was starting to tire out, so I let Em go ahead and did the rest with him.  He had said he didn't want to do the race at all, and when I told him he could walk it with Grammy but he would be doing it he left before the rest of us and got a big headstart!  Come to find out, he was afraid not only his sister would beat him, but everyone would, so after some encouragement from me and some running, some walking and a few stops, he and I finished hand-in-hand and with big smiles and a 2nd place finish!

The rest of the family came in soon after.  It was my Mom's goal to finish a 5K by her birthday (next week!) and she and Dad did great.  My brother is so busy with school he hadn't run in a month and my sister ran some, went back and walked with Mom and Dad some and then waited on her husband who went the extra mile (literally) and ran 5 miles instead of 3.

Seriously--check out Oren's face in both pics he's in--hilarious!!!!

Afterward, we had a big lunch, some napping and some talking and a great day all around.

Since then, we've packed up all the vibrant fall colors around the house and begun to prepare for Christmas! Our trees are up (yep, we get 2 trees each year) and most of the decorations are out.  The kids and I have made some little trees for our Christmas forest and I'm planning more projects.  I try to do something small with them each day to make it special for them.

Ok--now that we're all caught up, I really wanted to tell you about a book I checked out from the library last week.  My small-town library is tiny and not the most current...  So I was surprised to find Vintage Cakes on the New Releases Nonfiction shelf last week.  I'd read a review by Amy Karol not long ago and she raved about the recipes in this book.  So, of course I snatched it up and honestly, I don't want to take it back.  I will definitely get a copy of this to keep.

via Amazon

Written by Julie Richardson, this book is a collection of all sorts of vintage cakes given a modern twist.  There are easy weeknight style cakes, icebox cakes, a section on cupcakes, layer cakes, flips and rolls, etc...

For Thanksgiving, I decided to make the Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing.  And it was delicious.  I will say it wasn't near as beautiful as Julie's cake, because I have to admit that my icing was less than spectacular looking.  My brown butter began to burn before getting too brown and the icing separated to look like a bechemel sauce or gravy gone wrong before I frosted the cake.  BUT after some time in the fridge, it hardened back and up and was DELICIOUS!!

For this vintage cake picture I broke out one of my vintage saucers from my Great Grandma.  She left a specific one for each grandkid--this one has mums on it since my birthday is in November.  

So, I encourage you to check this book out--maybe put it on your Christmas list.  It's going on mine!

Linked up with Debbie for the last time this month!