For those of you wishing to get my dad's modified recipe, SORRY! You know him he never shares his modifications not even with his own daughter. I do however have the original recipe he used as his base to modify; I'll include my modifications to it in italics. Here is a lovely picture of my dad's cake this year, oh ah!

Use an 8-inch springform pan for this recipe. It will also work with two 9-inch pie plates - you will just end up with two smaller cheesecakes.

• 1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla I added 1 tsp of walnut extract as well
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg I couldn't find my nutmeg or allspice but I had a thing of pumkin pie spice so I did 1/3 tsp of that
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• whipped cream (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Make the crust by combining the graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter and 1 tablespoon sugar in a medium bowl. Stir well enough to coat all of the crumbs with the melted butter, but not so much as to turn the mixture into paste. Keep it crumbly.
3. Press the crumbs onto the bottom and about two-thirds of the way up the sides of the springform pan. You don't want the crust to form all of the way up the bak of each slice of cheesecake. Bake the crust for 5 minutes, then set aside until you are ready to fill.
4. In a large mixing bowl combine the cream cheeese, 1 cup sugar, and vanilla. Mix with an electric mixer until smooth.
5. Add the pumpkin, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice and continue to beat until smooth and creamy.

6. Pour the filling into the pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes. The top will turn a bit darker at this point. Remove from oven and allow the cheesecake to cool.
7. When the cheesecake has come to room temperature, put it into the refrigerator. When the cheesecake has chilled, remove the pan sides and cut the cake into 8 equal pieces. Serve with a generous portion of whipped cream on top.

I made smaller individual cakes so I tested them at 30 minutes.

It's a two for one folks! The Hubby and I cooked together today can you believe it? Those of you who know me know I'm a little protective of my kitchen and I usually prefer not to be around when he cooks because of the kitchen disaster zone; but we did it and no one got hurt!

Corn Salsa

• 1 Bag of frozen corn OR 6 ears of corn
• 1/3 cup red onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup celantro
• 1/4 cup grape tomato
• 1/4 sweet pepper
• 3 tbs lime juice
• 1 tbs olive oil

Cook the corn while you dice up to prefection all the other ingredients. Once teh sorn is cooked rise with cool water and combine with the other ingredients. I like to also add some goat cheese crumbs to this shortly before I serve to counter act the lime a little. It's good with out the goat cheese (which can be expensive).

Jason's Crazy Hot Salsa

• 4-6 roma tomato
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/3 cup celantro
• 7-12 peppers (he used a mixture of Jalepenos, Cow horns, Tabascos, and Ceranos from his uncles garden)
• Juice from 1/2 lime
• Salt to taste

Pop everything except the celantro into a 400 degree oven and let roast for about 18-20 minutes. Peel the tomatoes when they come out of the oven. Dice up the celantro and throw all everything into a bowl and blend with an immersion blender. Viola your done.

Supplies:

• Various silk flowers
• 1/4 in ribbon
• Felt
• Gator clips
• Hair bands
• Buttons
• Hot glue gun

Step one & two: Starting under the alligator clip hot glue the ribbon on. Then wrap the ribbon up and hot glue to the to of the cilp

Step three: Start by taking the flower apart from the plastic holding it together. Then hot glue the petals all together, ending with a button in the middle to hide the hole.

Step four: For clips Hot glue the flow directly onto the clip, for bands cut a square of felt and hot glue the band to the felt around the band.

Allow the glue to cool down and dry then wear them around.

Girls craft night kit $30. Includes the supplies for 3-6 girls (3 clips and 3 head bands - hot glue gun not included). Current colors to choose from are Purple (shown above), Bright Orange, Bright Red, and Cream.

It's snowing back home and while the weather is cooling down here in Georgia I don't see any snow in the forseeable forecast so my toddle and I decided to remedy that with our own "Southern Snowflake"

Finished Product:

Step one: Gather up some leaves and get out the iron and Wax or freezer paper.

Step Two: Place the leaves sandwhiched between the wax paper (waxy side touching the leaves) and Iron on a low setting for about 10-15 seconds.

Step Three: Get out some white paint and glitter. Plae the white paint into a tubberware container and use a sponge brush to apply white paint all over the leaves.

Step Four: With the paint still wet shake glitter all over the leaves.

Step Five & Six: Place leaves on Wax paper to dry then hang them from string all around. Sorry for the poor pictures my old iphone is what I've got for a camera right now.