I am taking a little break to update you on the state of the kitchen…and "The Dinner Roll Project".  As some of you know, I posted my ambitious plan to bake AT LEAST 300 rolls for our ward's Christmas party on Saturday.  Since I am cooking a turkey tomorrow, there would be no time to bake them all tomorrow.  Besides, I have found that while the very best way to serve Rhodes Dinner Rolls is hot out of the oven, they are almost…about 96.5% as good the next day.  So here is my progress at 9:45am:   I have the first batch about 15 minutes away from baking. There are almost 8 bags set out and thawing…counting the ones rising in the oven. I found out that two of the big cookie/cake roll pans I am using will not fit in my oven, but they will be just fine with the defrosting process.  I will have to put off baking my raspberry muffins for about an hour. I am anticipating the smell of warm bread in my house! I am also excited because I may actually get to keep working on those cards that Deb (Pinecone Press) is expecting sometime today…this should make Deb happy as well! Back to baking!  Don't forget to make your prediction for a chance to win some FREE Rhodes Frozen Bread Dough coupons!!!

 I have this crazy idea that I am a super baker, and if I do this right, I should be able to bake 300 or so Rhodes Frozen Dinner Rolls for the ward's Christmas party on Saturday, Friday…all by myself.  I have this all planned out: 5:30am – Take out 2 bags of 36 count dinner rolls and place them on sprayed cookie sheets; spray plastic wrap and cover.  Let rise for 3 – 4 hours.  Bake, one pan at a time, each for 15 minutes.  (The baking for this should start by 9:00 – 9:30am) 6:30am – Take out 2 bags of 36 count dinner rolls and place them on sprayed cookie sheets; spray plastic wrap and cover.  Let rise for 3 – 4 hours.  Bake, one pan at a time, each for 15 minutes.  (The baking for this should start by 10:00 – 10:30am) 7:30 am – Take out 2 bags of 36 count dinner rolls and place them on sprayed cookie sheets; spray plastic wrap and cover.  Let rise for 3 – 4 hours.  Bake, one pan at a time, each for 15 minutes.  (The baking for this should start by 11:00 – 11:30am) 8:30am – Take out 2 bags of 36 count dinner rolls and place them on sprayed cookie sheets; spray plastic wrap and cover.  Let rise for 3 – 4 hours.  Bake, one pan

In a previous post, I spoke of my son Jake and his carrying on the Naylor gingerbread house tradition.  He pointed out to me that I didn't really show his talents and he would like to be famous for good reason.  So here are some examples of his skills…prepare to be dazzled with his talent!  Disclaimer:  All gingerbread is made and baked by Jake…you can't do this with graham crackers!  These houses are major sturdy!  He sorts the M and M's into different colors from different bags.  Anyone have any Shrek bags hanging around?  They have good colors in them!  Flash!!!  Don't try this on a fresh house!  This one is 6 weeks stale…see the dumpster in the background? Here's from a different year… And still another! Isn't he incredibly creative and talented?  Gingerbread house is kind of an understatement!  Trust me, in my children's younger years we never went to this extreme!

My kids have been around enough while I am cooking or working in the kitchen that I expect them to absorb some basic skills.  Some areas of proficiency will never be learned in my kitchen, like boiling lobsters alive or cooking liver.   Kids learn best when they are paying attention, which apparently they don't always do.  Becoming familiar with the recipes or practices of other people will happen when they come in contact with them.   My son Mike has had a cold, that is accompanied by a bit of a sore throat.  No temperature, just a little discomfort.  He has been preparing for an audition and one of his drama classmates suggested chamomile tea with honey and lemon.  So Mike requested that I go buy some chamomile tea.  We don't drink tea in our family, but occasionally I bring some herbal tea home from hotels when I travel, so I went out to the garage to try and find some.  I don't think I have ever fixed anyone in my family a cup of tea before, but I thought that I could figure it out.   Here's where the paying attention comes in.  When I came back into the house, I found Mike pouring honey into a cup - a lot of it - and preparing to drink the cup…of honey.  I asked him what he was doing.  He said "Drinking a cup of honey".  "No, no, no", I replied.  "I don't think that would be

When I was a little girl, I remember bringing the Christmas tree into the house on Christmas Eve and leaving it completely bare for Santa to decorate.  When it was time for bed, and bedtime always seemed to come extra early on this night, we would scurry around, looking for the biggest stocking we could find to leave out on the back of the couch – we didn't have a fireplace to hang it on - in hopes that we would find it filled to the brim with treats from Santa in the morning.  Not everyone remembers that there was a time that we actually used a sock from our drawer.  This was a really long time ago, before the cute homemade stockings or darling store-bought ones that we have now.  It was hard to get to sleep on Christmas Eve and I never remember dreaming about sugar plums, but they were sweet dreams nonetheless.  In the morning, as we crept down the hall to the living room, we would come upon a wonderful, magical sight…the bare tree had been transformed and was beautifully ornamented.  The colored lights were glimmering in the early morning darkness.  The experience was quite miraculous, especially since "Santa" had so many children to take care of.  I never doubted his ability to accomplish the tasks.  I was sure that every child would have an equally wonderful experience.  I don't recall exactly when the changes came, but the

 I love the musical "Scrooge" with Albert Finney in the lead role, based on Charles Dickens's, A Christmas Carol.  Stories told with music and lyrics can bring to mind many lines that I most likely would otherwise forget.  After an especially long night, with visits from his old partner Marley and Christmases Past, Present and Future, Scrooge awakes to find himself alive and with a new outlook on life -"I've got a chance to change and I will not be the man I was!"  Nothing helps repentance like a near death experience!  Faced with a wasted life and a future of endless COLD and misery, Scrooge does not accept his doom, but rather takes this second chance to make the changes in his life that will bring him to a much more pleasant existence.  A little excerpt from the visit by Jacob Marley: "Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!” “But you were

 I was talking to my girls a few days ago and every yummy idea I was coming up with involved one common ingredient…Peppermint!  Did I have any in the house?  Nope!  So this morning I stopped at the grocery store during EMS (Early Morning Seminary) and bought 3 big boxes of peppermint candy canes.  I didn't even mind when I started taking the wrappers off and found that most of them were broken…this time I wasn't even slightly disappointed because the next thing I did was to put them into a heavy freezer Ziploc and smash them into tiny pieces…not a total winning method as the canes are a little sharp and poke holes into the ziploc. But it did the job.  A couple of days ago I posted the Double Chocolate Cocoa Cones…here's an idea I adapted by putting the crushed peppermint on top of the marshmallows, and deleting the chocolate chips from the mix.  They are so pretty!  However, I have a big DISCLAIMER:  As I was handling the cute little packages this morning, I noticed that the crushed peppermint was pretty hard and seemed to have melded together.  I am going to go down right now to boil some water and make sure it will make a good cup of Peppermint Cocoa…otherwise, I just made a whole bunch of pretty for nothing!  My day ended on a better note.  My assignment (for myself) was

It is cold, no freezing outside!  When you live in San Diego, that's a true sign that winter is here.  By mid-day, it will be delightfully warm outside in the sunshine, but in my house, it definitely feels like winter.  That…and the fact that it's DECEMBER 1st and I haven't started decorating for Christmas yet can cause a good deal of panic at my house!  When I presented the idea of getting down the Christmas boxes from the attic shelf in the garage last night, my dear husband suggested that getting the laundry done first might be wise – I don't know…maybe because he needs to put the ladder somewhere!  So this morning, laundry is going full blast, next comes the dusting and cleaning, so that when he gets home this afternoon, there will be no excuses!  It is so much work to set it up that we like to have it around for at least the whole month of December, and frequently keep it around until the first full week of January is over. Along with the cold weather and decorating, the Christmas season brings lots of handmade crafts, goodies and gifts.  I am attempting to actually handcraft a pile of gifts  this year and there are always things that get in the way.  But if I do one or two things a day, I can accumulate quite a stash.  Here are a couple of cards

I love alphabets…big ones, little ones, cursive, typewriter, bold, epoxy, chipboard, stickers…I love the element that stickers add to paper projects.  Unfortunately, I am always running out of certain letters.  It just happens.  This is my solution.  Anyone can do their own, but I like working on them in Adobe Illustrator because I can adjust size and change the fonts easily.  You can make them in any basic word processing program, but if you'd like it to be easy, you can download them and print them.  Try one, and if you like them, print them on different colors of cardstock.  It makes for a cheap filler for missing letters, or just use them all by themselves. For storage, I cut them vertically in half, eyeballing where the best middle is.  Then I cut them, with scissors, in between the different rows.  This way you can easily cut off the letters you need when you need them.  Don't worry about keeping the sides totally straight.  I like them random!  Here is a card that I made with the letters. Sometimes I like to mix up the upper and lower case letters in other than the grammatically correct pattern!  Have fun and if you like them, let me know and maybe I'll make more for you to download and use!  Download alphabet.pdf (1738.1K)

It has been a really long weekend.  Holidays usually are.  But when there is a designated period of time (Thanksgiving weekend – 4 whole days) it seems like we are required to keep busy during this time.  It's okay…I prefer to be busy, but sometimes that leaves me just a little tired and wishing that I could get that Sunday afternoon nap.  It occasionally happens, but not often enough.  I kind of feel guilty when I do, but always more rested, so I have to weigh that guilt against my sense of well-being!  I guess it isn't something to waste a lot of sleep over!  But that brings me to the scripture for today.  Our lessons in Gospel Doctrine are always so timely.  One of the scriptures we talked about was in Doctrine and Covenants 58:26 -  For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Our Heavenly Father doesn't want to have to always tell us every little or big thing that we should become involved in.  Sometimes we do things because we are commanded, but isn't it better to take initiative and do good ourselves?  I know that that if I ask someone to do the dishes, that it will get done.  But what a delight