Happy Halloween!

Connor is not Harry Potter, he is Connor, a wizard friend of Ron's.

Tanner is not Ashe, the well known Pokemon trainer, he's just a regular pokemon trainer.

Sydney is exactly what she looks like, a cute little blue m & m.

Oaks Farm

It had been about 5 years since we had been to a corn maze/pumpkin patch so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall day and go.  We were impressed with the high quality destination of Oaks Farm in Corryington, Tennessee.



We started off with the hayride pumpkin patch where Tanner and Connor took about 30 seconds to pick out their perfect pumpkins.  Sydney surprised us by choosing one in just a few minutes and only changing her mind once.  Tanner said he knew right away which one was his pumpkin because it was warm and had a small stem, like him.  I thought it was interesting that they picked small, medium and large pumpkins.

We then ventured into a huge corn maze, which at an aerial view is cut to spell out "corn maze".  We each took turns finding the next number station to punch on our cards and loved climbing up the bridge which gave you a beautiful view just above the tops of the corn stalks.  

The kids said one of their favorite things to do was run around and chase each other on the hay bales.

NYC!

We had a fantastic, full, whirlwind fall break with Trey and Allie in the Big Apple.  We walked and walked and ate and ate...not sure if it balanced out or not.  Some fun things we did:  NBC studio tour, Madame Tussauds wax museum, Museum of Natural History, Circle Line ferry tour down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock, Top of Empire State Building, King Tut Exhibit, walk through Central Park, Times Square, Mary Poppins Broadway show, 39 Steps off broadway show, National Comedy Theatre show, Ground Zero, FAO Swartz.  And just as important, here is where we ate:  Crumbs, Juniors, Eatery, Lombardi's, 5 Napkin Burgers, Shake Shack....Mmmmm

Conference weekend = cinnamon rolls

I love conference weekend.  Watching conference together as a family is an uplifting spiritual experience, and it's good cuddle time too!  Something I look forward to is when David and Trey go to the Priesthood session together and Allie and I make cinnamon rolls together.  It's been a fun tradition for us.  We usually watch something like The Biggest Loser or Chopped while we wait for the dough to rise and then by time the boys come home the house smells like cinnamonny deliciousness.

This year was a little different.  We were chatting away while we added ingredients and when it came time to combine the two it was obvious there was a problem.  Hmmm, what's wrong with the dough, it's all liquidy and not pulling away from the bowl?  Ahhh!  With much discussion we realize that we made the following mistakes:

1 cup of brown sugar was added that was meant for the cinnamon filling
1/2 c. of butter was added instead of 1/4 c.

Instead of dumping it out we go ahead and make them for a comparison to the real thing.   We then made another batch, this time double checking our measurements and not chatting as much.  The messed up version did not rise at all but we went ahead and baked them with our good batch.  This morning Tanner and Sydney tried one of each and said the messed up one "wasn't too bad".

                    Allie, wearing the 100% party girl apron, hand sifting the flour with a cheese grater

Can you tell the good from the bad?