First Snow Fun!

The snow began with large, picturesque flakes...

...and soon accumulated. Enough to make a doggy snow angel on the back porch!

We baked the day away and then they broke out to play in the evening.

Snowed!

Creative snow enhancement!

Thanksgiving

We have so many and so much to be thankful for.

Megan, David, (Mother), Dusty, Cohen

Mac, Myself, D., A., M., Ivy, Gus, Bekah

Uncle Nathan, Ivy

Cade watches Cousin Nicholas work off dinner with Cohen, Ivy, Grandma

Gram, Al, Nicholas, Glenn, Husband, A.

A. and massage chair, work off that dinner Nick

We Like Each Other

(Which is a good thing to be able to say about your relatives-especially the in-laws!)

Cade, Meg, Lauren, W. Gus

Gus, Sam, J., A., Alan

A., Alan, Karen, Kristi

Bekah, Kris, A., Iversyn

Mother and the "kids" and spouses, Dena, Gaylin, Myself

Husband and Karen Gaylin, Glenn, Ivy

Nicholas, Al, Alan, Pat, M., Bekah, W.

Grateful

O Thou who has given us so much, mercifully grant us one thing more: a grateful heart.-George Herbert

Real Leaf Table Runner

Every year we pick up and press leaves. I saw some blog posts about dipping leaves into beeswax or decoupaging them to make them more supple and bring back the color. We tried the decoupage on the leaves, and it did make them look great. Then we thought maybe we could layer them and decoupage them together into a table runner. Well.... they moved too much to decoupage them. Then I took some Tacky Glue and spot glued the overlapping tips of the laid out leaves together, then weighted them down with a couple of cookie sheets until the glue dried. THEN we decoupaged them. Turned out pretty well. I might take it to my Mother-I-L's for Thanksgiving.

Farm Wife Buns

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so here is a tutorial on how the modern farm wife makes great "homemade" buns for those special occasions. I usually make these for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Easy. GOOD!

Get out your pans. I usually do three 9x 13's. (We have big families on both sides.) Get out your frozen, pre-formed, uncooked dinner rolls. They come 12 to a package. They will usually cost less per dozen than the already cooked "homemade" buns from the bakery section. Generic brands of the frozen rolls taste as good as the name brands to us. Spray your pan with no-stick spray. (Or, if you are a more traditional farm wife, grease the pan by hand with butter or Crisco.)

This part is very important: You need to put 20 buns into each 9 x 13 pan: 4 across, 5 down. This sounds like too many, but if you put too few (usually people try to space them out to 12 in a pan) the buns do not raise up tall. They will be too spread out and flat when they bake.
Spray the tops of the buns with the no-stick spray.

Cut open the plastic bags the frozen buns came in and no-stick spray the backs of the bags. Use one to cover each pan of rolls while they raise.

Let rise until about double in size. Read the back of the frozen bun bag for more detailed instructions if you have not baked much.

Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees, or as instructed on the frozen roll bag back.

When they come out of the oven, brush the tops with butter. If you don't have a pastry brush, just peel down the paper on a stick of refrigerated butter and rub it on your buns. (You know what I mean-the BAKED buns.)

Leave them in the pans to cool and swat the hands of anyone who wants to eat them before the meal. I have the snap-on lids for these pans, so they are great for storing until the next day and for transporting.

There it is. Sixty home baked buns ready to go. I'm worn out from all the work, but it's all worth it to spoil my family with home baked bread.

Frost

There was frost on the pumpkins this morning. The roads were icy for the first time this season.