Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! The months are flying by. These are a couple of cards I sent out last week. I made another one last night. Mike's boss is too nice to my kids.
Our neighborhood has had a tradition going for the past three years, that the top of the cul-de-sac has built a Large pirate ship and its all tricked out with lights, etc. The neighbors beside them do something too. I'll be checking it out tonight.
Along with about a THOUSAND other people.

I just heard this yesterday. I went and bought a LOT more candy this morning. The news truck was up there yesterday. Apparently they'll block off the cul-de-sac in front of my house. I'll take some pics and show you tomorrow how it all went down.

Trunk of Treat

Hard to believe it snowed on Wednesday. Yesterday was a beautiful day. I wore short sleeves most of the day. Thinking of my friends in Maryland today who have NEVER seen snow in October. Sounds more like a trick than a treat there.
I changed when it was time for Trunk or Treat up at the church. When the sun goes down here, it gets cold. I wore gloves, a coat, a scarf, and the most essential - mittens, to pass out the Halloween candy.
LittleBuddy and his snowflake throwing cohorts. An FBI agent again. He didn't want to repeat, but he had no other ideas, so this is what got thrown together. He has a large nerf gun behind his back. His buddies are Harry Potter and an 80's wrestler. I think his one friend really wanted to be Michael Jackson in the 80's, or Diana Ross dressed casual. . . that wig. . . quite something.
MyGirl went with the family whose car was next to ours. She held little Peter's hand as they walked around the cars until he got too cold. He didn't really want candy anyhow, just a lollipop.
There were quite a few children here. I went through eight bags of candy in less than 45 minutes! I stopped by the store last night to get some more for the trick or treaters. Its hard to say how many will come. I'm used to our isolated little cul-de-sac where on a good night I handed out 35 treats. Now I'm prepared for a lot more than that. Our neighborhood is connected to many neighborhoods. It could be a long night.

Last Week's Creations

MyGirl has gotten out the knitting needles again. With Christmas coming she is making her wonderful cotton dishcloth's. I LOVE them. I hope to be on her list.

LittleBuddy is busy with school projects. He made a cuneiform tablet in social studies. Last night he spent six hours building a cell. I should have taken a picture of it before he brought it in. I'm especially pleased he turned it in today when it isn't due until Monday. He told me last Monday that he had a plan for the week so he could get everything done and Wed. was "cell day." Now he has to finish two hundred pages for a book report also due on Mon. I'm amazed he's so organized.

Today he got detention for throwing a snowball with his best two friends. They all will have lunch detention tomorrow. Seriously? That sounds fun.

When he came home from school his big brother threw a snowball at him, so now bigbrother deserves "lunch detention" tomorrow, right? We are still making up the funny ways he will have to "pay" while he is home from lunch for an hour tomorrow. I'm leaning towards being forced to play Scrabble with me or letting me take more pictures of him. . . going to be a tough punishment, ha! No ESPN is also an option or perhaps making me lunch. I'm still thinking.
We were "boo-ed" twice within a half hour of each other last week, so we whipped up a lot of cupcakes to share with our friends and neighbors.
I loved these bright Halloween plates. I just love Halloween color schemes. I have really liked orange a lot for the past year. It has always been one of BigBuddy's favorite colors. There was a time when he wore orange shirts every day. I think he was around 5 or 6. I'd have to do the wash every couple of days for him until I started buying cheap orange shirts so he could have a week's supply. He still likes orange. If you're into color theory, it does kind of describe him, however. He's social like Yellow's and a leader like Red's. Orange really is a good combination to describe him.
I finally closed the Cricut and got out the sewing machine. Notice all the technology filling up my tiny area - boombox, Cricut, sewing machine and laptop are pretty much the main tools in life I use outside the kitchen. Its always a trick to keep the one I need the most in the forefront and put the others away safely, since there isn't that much space in my little craft corner.
I was busy making privacy sheers for our den. Now when guests come they don't have to see how packed our ugly den is right off the front door. Its my least favorite room in our house. Someday I'd like to turn it into a PotteryBarn replica, but until then, at least we don't have to look at it all day long. I'm quite enjoying that.

The Best Cinnamon Rolls - Really!

Our Frankies turned out fine and tasted really good.


However, it is these cinnamon rolls that made my day! I have been searching for YEARS to find a recipe that is nice and big and fluffy and delicious. This is the best one I've ever tried, and from start to eating one took me less than 2 1/2 hours. Fabulous!

The Best Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe by Mary Rockwood

Makes 12 big rolls

Made at 7000 ft.

Adjustments for lower altitudes:

Lower baking temp to 350.

Decrease flour 1/4 cup

This recipe is assuming you have a standing mixer - Bosch, Kitchen Aid, K-Tec, etc.

DOUGH:

3 1/2 c. bread flour

1 1/2 Tb. instant dry yeast

1 cup milk

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

3 eggs

FILLING:

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour or bread flour

1 Tb. ground cinnamon

1/4 cup cold butter

FROSTING:

4 oz. cream cheese

2 Tb. butter

2 Tb. milk or heavy cream

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Warm milk in microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Pour into mixing bowl. Melt butter in microwave. Pour into mixing bowl. Add sugar, yeast, salt, and eggs. Mix in flour, one cup at a time until dough starts to leave the edges of the bowl. Making sure the paddle appropriate for mixing bread is on your mixer, beat an additional 3 -5 minutes until it is moderately soft, smooth, and elastic. Take out of mixer and place in a greased bowl. Cover with waxed paper. Fill up your kitchen sink with warm water, about 1/3 the way up. Place the covered bowl in the water, making sure no water gets into the bowl. When I did this, the bread rose to the top of the bowl in 30 minutes.

When it is rising, mix the filling together so it is nice and crumbly. You can use your hands or a pastry blender.

Take out and put onto a floured surface good for rolling dough. Do not punch dough down. Sprinkle with flour on both sides. Dough should be not too sticky but not too tough either. Using rolling pin, roll dough into a 12 x 8 rectangle. Sprinkle filling over the dough. You may top with 1/2 cup raisins or 1/2 cup pecans next if you'd like or even 1 cup finely chopped apples. I did neither, but I'd like to try the apples next time. Roll up jelly roll style; pinch loose edge tight to seal. With a kitchen knife, mark the dough into 12 equal pieces by first marking at 1/3 and 2/3. Then mark each of these in half, then in half again. Using a thread, cut the dough along your markings. Arrange dough pieces, cut side up, in a greased 12 x 8 metal pan (ours were Wilton baking sheets.)

Cover dough loosely with clear plastic wrap, leaving room for rolls to rise. Rise dough on counter. Mine took an hour to raise enough to fill the pan.

While this is rising, make your frosting by beating it all together in a mixer until consistency is fluffy and makes peaks.

When dough fills the pan, bake in a 375 degree oven for 15 -20 minutes or until light brown. Carefully invert rolls onto the plastic wrap you used to cover them with shortly after they come out. then flip them upright again onto waxed paper. (She explained that this helps to keep the filling better inside the rolls.) Frost while warm. Immediately rinse the pan, as the filling with be hard and difficult to get off if you wait. It did rinse easily after about 5 minutes when I got to it.

This recipe can be doubled. It also can be refrigerated at the 2nd rising stage for 2 - 24 hours. Dough should be taken out 30 minutes to stand or until fully raised before proceeding with baking.

The hunting is now over. I will never need another recipe again for these - YEAH!!!

Sweet Frankie

I'm making these today for a YW Party tonight. They look cute, creative and yummy to me. We love ginger cookies around here. I already started. They are baked and cooling now. It worked out well as MyGirl was taking an algebra test, thus I wasn't needed beside her. I have to say this dough was fantastic to work with. I did add another 2 Tablespoons of milk because they were a little too dry, but I didn't need to refrigerate the dough at all. Just started rolling out and baking. They expand when they're baked. My original rectangles were approximately 2 x 3 and they look to be closer to 2 3/4 x 4 now. You should know that I also make my own frosting and I'll be using Skittles instead of M&M's because that's what I have on hand. And, at my altitude I decreased the baking soda to 1 1/2 tsp. and increased the flour to 3 1/2 c. I also baked at 375 for 7 minutes and they were perfect.

I'm also making a new recipe of cinnamon rolls so I'll be decorating these while that dough rises. Today is the day to make a big mess in the kitchen, then I'm done for the week. We're expecting our first big snowstorm of the year by midnight tonight. Anywhere from 5 - 17 inches is expected over the next two days. . . everyone here is excited, except for MyMike. He doesn't think he'll have to shovel because it will be 40 and 46 the two days after it snows. We'll see. . . .

I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website.

Ginger Frankenstein Cookies

Make these monstrously good spice cookies, spooked up with candies and chocolate chips.

Prep Time

1:00

Hr:Mins

Total Time

2:20

Hrs:Mins

Makes

3

dozen

1 1/2

cups sugar

1

cup butter or margarine, softened

3

tablespoons mild-flavor (light) molasses

1

egg

2

tablespoons milk

3 1/4

cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

2

teaspoons baking soda

2

teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2

teaspoons ground ginger

1/2

teaspoon ground cloves

1/2

teaspoon ground cardamom

1

container (1 lb) Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting

5

drops green food color

1/3

cup candy-coated chocolate candies (72 candies)

3/4

cup candy corn (72 candies)

1

cup semisweet chocolate chips

A Week in the Life

You may or may not have heard about a couple of scrapbooking styles called Project Life and Week in the Life. Project Life takes a picture a day for a year, does some journaling and enjoys the simplicity of it all. Nothing fancy, just chronicling your life. Week in the Life tracks your life for one week, writing what occured at each hour of the day and also causes you to reflect on observations, things overheard, what you're grateful for that day, and the favorite moment, as well as writing down what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm intrigued by both of these because they give a more accurate look at your real life, and I can see that in the future these might be fascinating. So for this week, I am trying Week in the Life. aliedwards.com has a great free download which made it easy for me just to fill out. I'm still working on it until Saturday. I have to remember to take at least a few pictures every day, and here are some from the past week.
The fall colors are all out this week - reds, oranges, golds and browns. I love it. I'm still shocked that we get so many more colors here than we used to get when we lived in Colorado before. Its

just another little blessing that I really do appreciate, like seeing the cattle close by.
How cute are these two? This was taken after Sunday dinner at our house. Always lots of smiles and joy when we are all together.
Dessert was carrot cake. I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman's blog. The key to the moisture - pureeing the carrots in the food processor.
Our temple opened again Oct. 5 after being closed for two months. It was fun to bring our boy back.
MyMike and I decided that there really is no greater joy than taking your children with you to the temple. The spirit is so strong, especially when you go as a family. He and I stood in the Celestial Room and were really drawn to the chandelier and spent about five minutes in a discussion (quietly) about it. Then in church on Sunday a member of the temple presidency came and spoke and at the end talked about the chandelier. What another great blessing!
LittleBuddy's cute pumpkin face he drew. I only made one batch of Rice Krispie treats with the two boxes I bought. The boys ate the rest and enjoyed the Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Actually they just really enjoy eating, and BigBudding needs to gain more weight before he loses a bunch in Brazil, so I'm encouraging him to eat all the healthy calories he wants, and cereal fits into that category at our house.
One thing I have enjoyed is seeing him so into the book that I loved earlier in the year. He's reading Gerald Lund's, "The Undaunted," and has spent much of his spare time this week devouring its pages. Life is good. Cowgirl bought another bargain airfare to come see us after the new year. Algebra is going better this week. LittleBuddy has some really nice friends. Got to keep taking more pictures and recording more. . . so much more easy to be IN real life than to Preserve it.

Corn Maze or Not

Last week when Cowgirl was here we all wanted to go to the Corn Maze. Our first plan was to go when she arrived, but since it was white out conditions that day, we opted to wait until the last day she was here, since it was on the way to the airport. It was a lovely 72 degrees.
This corn maze was pretty big and not as easy to navigate as the last one we went to in Maryland, so that was good for my growing children.
LittleBuddy still qualifies for a free pumpkin with admission. Sadly, they were already picked. Its definitely more fun to pick your own when they're still on the vine. But, he found one he liked. MyGirl found a little bitty one for her decorating. We also went on a hayride pulled by this tractor. It was very informative.
MyGirl really liked the animals. She had fun petting this little piggy. The last time I touched one, back in probably the year 2000 it was on the lips, courtesy of Cowgirl volunteering me for the "fun." SOOO GROSS! I still have the taste of pig and pretzel (which I held in my mouth) whenever I get near them. I've tried to avoid them since.
There were actually three mazes at this farm. The other two were a hay bale maze and a snake maze. The boys jumped over the hay bales, because walking would be no fun if you can see where you're going. Then there was a snake maze, which was black plastic over the hay bales . . . also deemed somewhat lame.

Fortunately, the real corn maze was a lot of fun, but I don't know if it can really be called a corn maze. Do you see any corn on these stalks? No, of course you don't, because its not corn. These are all corn-less stalks, which are called sorghum. I learned something new that day. Why grow sorghum? The farmer said, "It makes it a lot less messy when walking in the corn maze." Yes, but didn't he just say . . . ? I try not to be difficult in public, but this thought went through my mind.
There were some surprises, like this spider, the size of one found in a Harry Potter novel, along with several skeletons and scarecrows. A couple looked like they were glow-in-the-dark. . . glad we were here during daylight.
Big and LittleBuddy quickly found their way after a few wrong turns at the beginning. Mygirl was close behind. Notice how nicely paved this row was. Sometimes that was a clue which way we should go, and sometimes it wasn't. It was kind of tricky.
Fortunately, while Cowgirl and I were getting ourselves lost, the boys and MyGirl had already found the center, and were perched on the piles of hay giving us directions. Then we all had to figure out how to get out. LittleBuddy led the way, and knew right where he was going. I'm pretty sure he ran on every single path of the maze at least once. We couldn't follow him, he was running ahead too much, but he enjoyed jumping out at us as we went by, and then whichever way he darted after that, always seemed to be right. How do kids do it? Its fun to have them lead the way and me just enjoy the adventure. I love having older kids. It was a fun activity to do together.

Fall Color

Its looking and feeling like Fall here. I've seen lots of gorgeous color, which makes me so happy. The only leaf color I haven't seen is the bright orange, but we do grow pumpkins here too, so they're my orange for the season.
This is my neighborhood, looking down the street as I was turning into my driveway. The truck is parked in front of my parent's house to give you an idea how close they are to us.

From our view out the back the scrub oak is starting to change colors and some are losing their leaves. Soon we'll be back to barren bush, but its still pretty to look over the fields and hills. I saw a large buck in the bushes yesterday, munching on leaves, shaking the bush with his big antlers. The grasses are more golden again and the leaves on the scrub oak have turned yellow and gold.
Last but not least, our maple tree gives the backyard a beautiful spot of color. I love seeing the multiple colors of leaves. I'll probably always miss the gorgeous displays of fall color on the East coast, but grateful that we have our own version to enjoy where we are. My neighbor told me my tree is something she looks forward to every fall. Yes, I miss the oranges, but its pretty here in its own way and I love the beautiful blue skies that seem to be part of almost every single day.

2nd Week of October

Busy week. I didn't post because Cowgirl was here for the last four days. The morning I went to pick her up it was cold, slick and snowy. What should have taken two hours roundtrip, took three. Fortunately, we made it, though there were whiteout conditions more than once. There was a major pileup on the freeway shortly after I was on it, so I was grateful to have avoided the four lane shutdown. This picture was taken around 12:30pm, about an hour after we got home.
Shortly after that I went with Mike to a funeral for his secretary's 24 year old son. That was sad, though I was pleased to hear the same scriptures shared that I believe in, focusing on the resurrection and life after death with the Savior. The only consolation at such a great loss is the hope of seeing them again. How grateful I am for faith!
The next evening there was no snow on the ground. Welcome to Colorado, where the sun shines most of the time, and the snow melts quickly. Its been a beautiful week ever since. Fall is definitely here and its a good thing. I would have been sad to skip my favorite season completely.

Cowgirl wanted her picture taken out back like her brother, so in the middle of making dinner we ran out back for a quick photo shoot then tried again after dinner. The lighting was definitely different, but I liked both of these photos best. She doesn't like either of them, but that's often the way. We are our own worst critics. It still think she's beautiful and it was good to have her here with us again.

Two Months, Eight Days

Hard to believe that we only have a short time left with this young man before he leaves us for a long time. Last week I just had to take him outside at dusk and take a few pictures of him. I need more to hold onto when he's gone. This one was my favorite. I will miss him. A lot. He and I are very close. I enjoy talking to him and spending time with him. As old as he is, though, I still see a couple of things that I want to teach him, and bless his heart, he's open to it, but I still have to approach it carefully. He's a man now, and has his own life and mind and I have to step back more and more and yet I find that I am enjoying that too. It brings me happiness watching him run his life successfully, both with his job and with his calling. I do not need to worry about him. He will be fine.
While we turned in all the Visa paperwork by the end of July I have heard that those who turned theirs in by June just received their Visa's last week, so I have no idea whether it will get here or not in time, and if he'll really end up in Brazil for Christmas or in Provo. Either way he will be trained and that will be good.

He is excited to go. I am excited for him.

He loves to serve. I want him to be that happy.

He won't need me there to help him. This is what I raised him to do.

He will learn to need the Lord even more, and that is exactly what I want for him. Its going to be a great experience!