Chex Mix and Crafts

Good morning!

On Sunday, I headed down to my sister's place for a day filled with homemade Chex mix and crafts. My mom, sister, and I have been making homemade Chex mix each year since Andrea and I were little. It's a snack that we always look forward to and the bags that we produce rarely make it to see Christmas Day. 

We all brought a few ingredients and got to work! We made three batches so that we each could take one home to share with our husbands. Each year we make the classic recipe that is on the back of the seasoning packet, but we also make a few changes:

• We add Kix and Cheerios (or Joe's O's this year)
• Extra pretzels
• Extra wheat Chex since those are our favorite
• No bagel chips

This is how we've always done it and it is so good. I love all of the flavors and textures that are in each handful.

Check out my sister's huge measuring cup--that baby holds 4 cups! I mixed and measured all of the cereal and dry ingredients while my mom and sister melted butter mixed with the seasoning packet.

Stirring it all together to ensure an even distribution of flavors. You'd better believe we snacked on the dry mix a bit before tossing it into the oven to bake.

Working on batch two! By the third round, we had quite the system down!

My mom poured the mixture into baking pans before tossing it into the oven--stirring the mix every 15 minutes for even coverage.

Finally it was done! It made the house smell so good!

Crafts

My sister and her husband are picking up their new puppy tomorrow! His name is Hurley and he is a mix of a chocolate lab and a Corgi. From the pictures I've seen, he is adorable! They already have his bowl, food, collar, etc. all laid out and ready for him. I can't wait to meet this new addition to their family on Thanksgiving.

My whole family puts their trees up before Christmas--not just me! How cute is my sister's purple and silver themed tree? Please ignore the fact that I cut off the star at the top. Gah!

While the Chex mix roasted in the oven, we helped my mom with a Thanksgiving day craft. Well, my mom and I worked on them--my sister surfed the web and ate Chex mix while watching us do the crafts. 

My mom needed help creating and assembling little paper turkeys as placeholders for our Thanksgiving dinner. Speaking of which, we'll be headed to my in-law's on Thanksgiving day and my parent's on Sunday. Twice the celebration!

It was fun to sit back and do a craft while chatting with my family. I haven't done a cute project like this in so long! I often forget how fun it is to create things off screen rather than just on the computer.

We munched some salad while we worked--we weren't too hungry after all of that Chex mix so we kept it simple.

I cut out the turkey beaks and had way too much fun with them before they were glued down...

Seasonal candy was also consumed during the craft.

The finished product! We made 12 altogether and the letters stand for the initials of everyone's name. Here are the Laura and Andy turkeys. 

The whole army! Hopefully they stay strong this Thanksgiving so that we can use them again next year.

Today

Well, I'm off to go get ready for the day. Thankfully it's a short work-week this week and it's already almost half over. I'm working on some holiday e-card designs with animated snowflakes falling down and so far they're turning out well! This is a client that I don't usually design for, so it was nice to switch things up with a totally fresh look rather than a standard corporate style.

After work, I'm hitting the stores in search of some new jeans--the zipper came off the track of my favorite pair so they're kind of useless now!

Do you have name cards on your Thanksgiving table?

Homemade Chex mix fan?

When does your Thanksgiving break start?