busy bakers

For the past 4 years the night before Thanksgiving has been a major baking night around our house, as I'm sure it is around yours too!  I usually am responsible for bringing 2 sides for our Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't start on those until Thanksgiving morning. The night before we make martha washington's, peanut butter balls, and crunchy pecan pie bites. Most years we make and decorate sugar cookies, also. This year we didn't attempt the sugar cookies, but we did so much baking that we "baked 'til we ached"!!  :) This has become such a fun tradition 'round here. Of course the more friends and family that join us the more fun it is. We crank up the Christmas music and get to bakin'!  My sisters Kim and Steph and my friend and future sis in law, Jessica join me in my kitchen. One year, my very best friend, Amy even joined in on the fun. That was a special year because Amy and her husband are currently living in Tokyo, Japan.

This year Kim wasn't able to join us because, she, along with her husband Justin and sweet baby girl Madelaine, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Oklahoma with Justin's family. So Stephanie, Jessica and I did all the baking....in our matching aprons.....and we had a blast! We did miss Kim a WHOLE lot though!

Since there were 3 of us and 3 desserts, we each took one.
Steph started on the martha washington's.

her recipe consisted of the following ingredients...

Jess whipped up some yummy peanut butter balls.....

.....using these wonderful ingredients.

I made the crispy pecan pie bites.

Lookin' good ladies! :)

After a few hours of mixing ingredients, roasting pecans, rolling little balls, filling mini fillo shells, and dipping chocolate, we were ready to share our results!

crunchy pecan pie bites

peanut butter balls and martha washington's

These were just a few of the wonderful things we had this Thanksgiving. Oh my. Did we have some wonderful things! But, the time is now 11 pm and I have been going since 4:30 this morning. (Had to get up early for those early bird specials!) So, I am off to bed, but, I'll be back soon with more pictures from our family Thanksgiving dinner. Night y'all!