Adventures in Thanksgiving Prep.

I like to prep as much as possible the day before the main event, so I'm not scrambling around the day of. So I was in the kitchen for about 8 hours today. During that time, I:

1. Peeled and cut potatoes, carrots and squash.
2. Baked a scratch apple pie.
3. Baked several loaves of homemade cardamon bread.
4. Made a nice salty brine bath for Tom Turkey.

Pictured: Cardamon bread.

While that was pretty cool, the main reason for this post is the fun things that happened while I was doing those things. Here you go.

1. I taught my two little ones, Aidan, age 4 and Regan, 20 months, to make handprint turkeys. I helped with the tracing and left them to color. The baby colored for about a minute, then started throwing crayons everywhere. Aidan got annoyed because his turkeys didn't look like real turkeys, and opted to build towers with the crayons instead.

2. Aidan asked for leftover pie crust to play with, which I gave him. He tried to use it like play-dough, but his sister kept eating his creations.

3. I was playing music and singing along while working. Every time I would stop singing, the baby would run into the kitchen and yell at me.

4. Aidan rocked out hardcore to "Welcome to the Jungle", and insisted I replay it several times.

5. Aidan asked for pie, and when he was told it was for Thanksgiving tomorrow, eyed me and said, "Well, it's dark out, it must be ALMOST tomorrow."

So in addition to the normal cleanup, the entire kitchen was destroyed. I love my kids.

Happy Thanksgiving!