It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I wanted to spend the day in the kitchen to help my week along after I got home from church. So much to do and so little time, and I knew it would benefit me to just get a jump start on things.

I started by cutting up the Italian bread I had bought and letting it sit a few days to stale perfectly for my stuffing. I had three loaves to tackle, but it didn’t take long. Chris, my husband, was in the kitchen with me at this point, mixing up the pancakes for breakfast. He had the Blackstone fired up in our garage and thought making pancakes and bacon out there would be much easier. Then I could continue to do what I needed to do in the kitchen. Plus, he is way better at making pancakes than me. Hey, I’ll admit that. Chris makes the prettiest little pancakes. Mine, well, they wouldn’t win an award or anything. I love when my honey makes his pancakes.

I took care of the scrambled eggs while slowly starting to work on chopping up many veggies for my cheeseburger soup that would be our dinner for Thanksgiving Eve, so I could cook all day Wednesday and have dinner heating up in the crockpot.

Kenzy was busy setting the table for me when she got home from Sunday school.

“Momma, can I decorate the table pretty?”

I always enjoy putting a candle on the table, and I like decorating it cute for my family on holidays. Kenzy wants it decorated for every meal, which I am totally OK with.

“Absolutely, baby. You know I love it when you set the table so pretty!”

Kenz always does such a cute job and likes to surprise me.

“Don’t look, Momma, OK? I want to make it really special,” she will say.

This fall, she would go outside and find bright-colored leaves to place around the table and always lay a pumpkin pattern napkin down with a candle in the center of it.

She would also grab pumpkin decor from her room. It was so sweet. I wasn’t allowed to throw those leaves out for weeks. Literally. They were too pretty to throw out from what she said, so they laid in one of my primitive stands after breakfast that morning as added fall decor to our home. I secretly chucked the dried leaves when I decorated for Thanksgiving a week later.

As we set all the food out, I took a peek at the table. She had a Thanksgiving napkin all spread out in the middle, with little things from her room around the napkin and a candle lit in the middle. After we sat down and before we prayed, I told Kenzy how nice the table looked and thanked her. It was our last Sunday using our pumpkin mugs, but she wanted to use a smaller scarecrow mug for her hot tea that morning. I told her I didn’t care, but they were much smaller than our pumpkin mugs. Honestly, it was a perfect size for an eight-year-old. Her hot tea sat steaming as we held hands for prayer.

I started passing out the pretty pancakes that Christopher did a smashing job on and noticed what little things Kenzy had on the napkin in the center of the table and how she placed them. I laughed and said, “Kenz! I love how you picked each item for each person and sat them in front of our seating.” My husband took a look, and he started to laugh too. Ty looked up with this blank stare, then shook his head with a smile.

I had a cute little glittery poodle ornament from off her Christmas tree we had gotten out for in her room. She was placed to look right at me and sparkled from the sun hitting her on the table. Chris, well, he had a fire dalmatian wearing a Santa hat ornament also from her tree. Grammy Marlene just bought her both of these at Cracker Barrel a few days prior when she spent the weekend with her. Kenzy had her little elf we call Charlie Jr., because he looks just like our Christmas Elf Charlie, who comes to visit us every Christmas, just way smaller. He sat looking right at Kenzy. Finally, Tyler. Boy, did she pick a special one out for her brother! Haha! It was one of my old ornaments that was a Wendy’s kids’ meal thing back in 2000. A big Grinch head that has a yellow ribbon at the top to be able to hang it on your tree. You used to be able to pull stickers out of it.

There it laid flat on the table, looking straight at Ty. We all started to giggle after I pointed this all out and asked her why brother got the Grinch.

“Because Tyler can be mean sometimes!” she explained.

This child, I can’t with her. Ty thought it was funny, though, and just shook his head.

I mean, he is a typical older brother with a little sister. Kenzy wants her big brother to play with her all the time. Most days, he is so sweet to her, but there are a few days he’s “too cool” to play with his little sister, and Kenz gets sad. I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t like Christmas. That child had his room decorated for Christmas the week before Halloween! His room legit looks like the North Pole. No joke. We don’t play in this family when it comes to Christmas. But, the fact that his sister gave him the Grinch ornament just had us cracking up at breakfast, and I told the kids thanks for giving me the perfect column for next week to write about.

We cleaned up from breakfast so I could continue my afternoon in the kitchen. I had to start making three out of ten pumpkin rolls for the week, finishing my cheeseburger soup, making ham sliders for Monday night dinner ,and a pan of sticky buns was on my hit list before our Sunday movie night. It was a perfect day, and the day before, my momma had spent all day in her kitchen making three bushels of applesauce. Is it ever a bad day spending time in the kitchen preparing and making food for the people you love? Not for me.

Mini Quiches

Ingredients:
• Pillsbury Mini Pie Crust (please don’t judge me that it’s not from scratch)
• 1 cup milk
• 4 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 lb chopped baked ham or 1/2 lb. cooked sausage
• 1/4-1/2 cup Extra Sharp Cheese shredded
• 1/4 cup Mozzarella Cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Using a mini muffin pan, place the minis in each cup.

Add the meat and cheese to the bottom of the pie crust.

In a medium bowl, mix the milk, eggs, salt, and pepper, then pour over the meat and cheese.

Bake for 25-28 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let sit for 5 minutes before eating.