A Christmas Memory and Fresh Baked Bread!!!

I think our mornings are my favorite time of day.

We have kept the fireplace burning all day long and it has felt so warm and cozy and very much like Thanksgiving is upon us!

Every December we read out loud from our many Christmas books after we read the Bible.

This was our first time to read A Christmas Memory.

We usually spent 2 hours with our coffee, news, and reading. We're slow starters!

Then Louis Dean went to the kitchen to start his bread making marathon!

I cleared off the counters for him and then stayed out of his way.

Louis Dean has to focus on what he's doing and he is so easily distracted that he asked me not to even talk to him.

  I continued with my cleaning in preparation for the decorating to begin soon.

However, I DID put on my clothes - grungy ones - and a little make up so when Louis Dean asked me to make an emergency trip to the store to get him another jar of yeast, I was quickly on my way!  

By the time I got back home the first batch was in the oven baking and the house smelled so good!

I went back to my 'rat killing' but it wasn't long before Louis Dean had another emergency.

This time the battery had died in the little white scales he uses to weigh his rolls.

It's important to him that each and every roll weigh exactly the same.

Every single one is 1.7 ounces.

He made six batches and was in the kitchen for just about 8 hours!

He was one tired baker!

He made 112 dinner rolls and they all turned out perfectly!

He went off to take a nice long hot bath while I put the kitchen back to order.

We make a pretty good team.

I have the fruitcake cookies all tinned up, two bottles of wine,and the tubs of rolls all ready to take to Fort Worth in the morning. I'm going to set my alarm and put the ham on in the morning.

This will be the fourth ham Louis Dean brought in.

This is what I wrote to my sisters this morning:

Louis Dean just bought our FOURTH ham! He finally got the one I asked for in the first place! The first one was a picnic that you must cook. I don’t know how he did it but the bottom part turned to MUSH! I mean MUSH! The second one he got out of the freezer and it was the exact same kind as the first one so he decided not to use it and went to the store this morning for another one. Well, he paid big bucks and got a tiny little ham! He turned around and went back to the store and got a spiral cut honey ham! And I will get up early and put it in the roaster in the morning as it is fully cooked and must be heated up! Now we have two big bags of the good part of the first ham in the fridge and two hams - a big one and a little one - in the deep freeze! And one in the gazebo fridge for tomorrow! Now he’s on to making the dinner rolls!

We have a LOT of fresh baked bread now!

Wishing you all a blessed Thanksgiving Day tomorrow.