T-minus 1 -- and counting

Thanksgiving is almost here -- ready or not. Today was baking day. What is it about the holidays that makes you want to bake?

Kylie came over today to help me do the baking for Thanksgiving. I finally finished another apron and it was just so cute that I gave it to Kylie and she looked adorable in it. Here we are all ready to start baking -- or should I say mugging for the camera just before we got started.

We started off making cranberry-orange bread then pumpkin bread. Did you know that ripe cranberries bounce? We had a lot of fun trying to bounce cranberries into the pie plate, but I digress. Then, we moved on to baking the pumpkin pies. The weather outside was dismal, but it was a good day to be stuck inside baking. This year, we moved the chairs away from the dining room table - so we didn't have a repeat performance from Bailey (eating half a pound cake like he did last year).

My goodness, baking sure does dirty a lot of dishes! We had to run the dishwasher after the breads were in the oven; and we still had a lot of baking left to do.

While waiting for the pies to finish, I hand-washed the rest of the dishes (yuck) and we we sat and played a few games of cards. Then, it was time to make the chocolate chip cookies. Kylie and I both agreed that eating the dough is better than the cookies. When I told Kylie that she could clean the bowl -- she was one happy camper.

I just about had to pry the bowl away from her to make the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.