Potluck Pan Rolls ***UPDATED***

This is my favorite roll recipe, although I think making rolls is more a technique than a recipe. My sister-in-law said something that really helped me make better rolls. She said to make the dough as sticky as you can, then use flour on your hands when shaping them into balls.

Potluck Pan Rolls
makes 24 yummy rolls

1 package, or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (I always use instant yeast)
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 - 115 degrees)
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted then cooled a little
2 eggs
1/4 cup powdered milk
1 1/4 tsp salt
5 1/2 - 6 cups flour

If you're using active dry yeast, dissolve yeast and 1 tsp sugar in 1/2 cup water until it does it's yeast thing.
Add butter, eggs, milk powder, 3 cups flour, sugar, and either 1 1/2 cups water and the instant yeast or 1 cup water and the yeast mixture.
Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes or until smooth.
Add the salt and remaining flour (you can add the salt before, but I heard it's better to add it later. Just don't forget to add it.) Add the remaining flour slowly. You'll probably need only 2 more cups if you are kneading it in a mixer. Probably more if for some sad reason you have to mix it by hand. With a mixer, just add enough flour that it pulls away from the sides and isn't wet anymore. It doesn't have to pull all together off the bottom of the mixer, though.
Knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. (It seems to take longer to rise for me, but maybe my yeast is getting old.) When it's done rising, punch down and let rest for a few minutes.
Shape into 24 balls. When I shape them, I pinch off a bit of dough, then roll it in the palms of my hands until it's a smooth ball shape. I like my rolls more fluffy than crusty, so I put 12 in 2 13x9 pans*. Let rise until doubled. Cook at 375 for 17-20 minutes or until golden brown. Rub butter on top and cool on wire racks.

*Usually I just cook 12 and freeze 12 for later. Or I roll out the dough into Orange Rolls, which are like cinnamon rolls but with an orange filling and really good orange frosting. Then I put them in the fridge to rise until the next morning.

(I forgot to write that the rolls should rise after being shaped. My mom called an hour before dinner and asked if they were supposed to rise. Yikes! I hope her rolls are done in time!)

Skwee Scoo

Eli is terribly excited for preschool. When Eleyna first started preschool, he said, as I dropped her off, "I go in there!" A few weeks ago, I think he thought he was going because on the way there he said, "School's fun!" Then he cried when Eleyna got out of the car and he was stuck in his chair. Last week, he took his new white shirt still on the hanger, draped it over his arm like a purse, walked to the front door and said, "I go skwee scoo!"
All morning today he kept saying, "Mom, I ready for skwee scoo!" I took him over to someone's house so they could watch him while I went somewhere, and I think he thought he was at preschool. The lady who watched him said he kept talking about it.

Sorry, buddy, you've got two more years.

Do you know the colors of a rainbow?

Here is our sweet Eleyna from color days at preschool. I've been meaning to post these since August, but the pictures were scattered across three different computers.

First Book Review

Yesterday Evelyn read books to Eleyna for over an hour! I couldn't believe it! They were just books off our bookshelf, not even the easy readers from the library. She's totally taken off with reading, without me doing much more than reading with her a lot. ** I did have to help her overcome the stress of seeing too many words on a page, which we did by reading "Dick and Jane".
Recently we read her first chapter book together, "Ruby the Red Fairy", where we each took turns reading a page.

Here is her review, which also turned into a review of the second book, "Amber the Orange Fairy":
Evelyn: "I like that they found Ruby... I like all of it. I like Amber the Orange Fairy. I like that they found her in a clam."
Me: "Is it interesting or exciting?"
Evelyn: "No, I just like the Rainbow Fairies because they have pretty stuff on their costumes and in their hair."
Hey, I'm all for that if it gets her to read.

My sister-in-law posted about all of the books she's read recently. If I did a similar post, it would be something like this:




**(Really, I think the reason she loves to read so much is because I just don't like playing toys, so we read together instead. It's not working out with Eleyna, though. She would rather play toys.)

Here's Eli first showing interest in books:

A little bit scary, a little bit cute

Happy Halloween! As you can see, we all dressed up in Peter Pan costumes, except Eli was Peter Pirate because he was convinced that he was a pirate. On our way to trick or treat at Jake's office, he just randomly grinned when he realized his hat was still on and said, "I'm a pirate!"
We had a great time trick or treating at Jake's work, which was 2 buildings with three stories each. Each side of each floor was decorated very extravagantly with different themes, including "Nightmare on Wall Street", "Teletubbies", "Willy Wonka", and "Mario Land". If you can stand looking at any more pictures, here they are:


(I had to add the Rainbow Brite picture because that's what I was in Kindergarten. My mom made my costume and we were just reminiscing about how sad it was she sold it a garage sale. This one looked almost as good as my mom's, but not quite.)