The kitchen is clean (for the most part), the food put away, and Thanksgiving is almost over.  It was a great day, wonderful, in fact, but it all started yesterday with  . . .

BAKING DAY! 

I always spend the day before Thanksgiving baking all my desserts, which saves a ton of trouble on the big day.  Lily had been counting down to baking day, so excited to help.  I was anticipating it as well, and I kept walking around the house singing my changed version of the "Racing Day" song from Backyardigan's "Race Around the World" episode.  Lily, very upset, kept telling me, "Mom, you are singing it wrong!  The words are not baking day!"  And of course, this made me sing it more :).

Derek also enjoyed baking day, but mostly because I was so preoccupied that he got to sneak all sorts of things – like pop tarts and powdered sugar.  What a silly guy!  Lily's favorite part of baking day is eating raw pie crust.  Strange, I know, but hey, there aren't any raw eggs in it :).

I had my plan and we went to work.  First the Pumpkin Roll, then the pumpkin pie, finger jello (I know, not baking, but it counts.), and apple pie.  It was 11am, I and I was almost finished :).  The last thing on my list for the day was a lemon pie, however, I had a dilemma.  I had forgotten that my metal pie pan had been mutilated by Derek earlier in the year, and my two glass pie pans already contained pies. 

A pie pan short, I called Kevin and had him pick one up on his way home from work.  Unfortunately, since he didn't get home until almost four, my uncooked pie crust remained uncooked for too long.  I am not sure what I did to the poor crust, but instead of baking to perfection like the other two pies did, it shrunk!!  It ended up a blobby pile in the center of the pan – pretty crazy, and quite funny.  I tossed it and decided that instead of lemon pie, we would have lemon pudding (I had already made the filling.).

THANKSGIVING!!

This morning I was once again with a plan and all set to put it into play.  And actually, things went very well, except the fact that I ran out of eggs, but thank goodness for friendly neighbors. Everything turned out great, and so the lemon pie was the only casualty of the day :).  Lily and Derek both watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade while I was busy in the kitchen, which was a great distraction for them.  Although Lily could sense when I had finished the roll dough, and was right there waiting to  have a taste (She LOVES dough!).

At 2:30pm our friends, the Oggs, came over for dinner.  It was so fun.  They have two little girls, ages 3 and 4, and so they got to sit at a special table and loved it.  Dinner turned out perfectly, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Derek especially loved Thanksgiving.  He had all his favorite things – mashed potatoes (which he kept talking to), rolls, and orange finger jello.  And that was all before dessert.  I was a great meal and we had so much fun with our friends Dawn and Robert.

After dessert, the two of our families went off to the movies to see Enchanted.  It was fabulous!!  I loved it – so much fun.  Now we are home and I am exhausted.  I better get to bed soon . . . holiday shopping bright and early tomorrow morning :). 

I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving as well!!