Yesterday the girls wanted to make some cookies, and I decided to use the Halloween pan for making mini Halloween cakes or cookies. To make things faster, I decided to use the tub of cookie dough I have in the refridgerator I keep for quick desserts. (Like we need easy access desserts, right?) 
Anyway, I asked the girls, "What color should the pumpkins be?" Kaitlyn being barely 4, and her friend being only 3, thought that pumpkins should be red or purple. So I asked,
"What color are pumpkins?" They decided that pumpkins really are orange. So then I said,
"Well we don't have orange food coloring, but we do have red and yellow. What could happen if we mix them together?"
They had no idea, but were up to the challenge of trying it out to see.
We placed a little of the cookie dough in a bowl, and we squirted a few drops of red and yellow food coloring on it. Then they both helped me stir it around. All the while we were trying to guess what color it would become. Finally we saw that red and yellow in the cookie dough made orange cookie dough!! Science lesson learned.
Next came the fun part of smashing the dough into the pans, cooking them and eating them. Yummy fun!
For Family Home Evening last night I made our own version of Candy Land. I called it "Journey to the promised Land". I took colored construction paper and arranged it on the ground like a giant candy land board. Then I covered it with clear contact paper so that it wouldn't come apart when we stepped on it. Then I made a "dice" or "color cube" by covering a giant square block with the same colors as the path. (you can also use a square shaped box taped together so it's even and smooth on all sides) 
With each roll of the dice they had to answer a question that had to do with Nephi's adventures up until he and his family got to America. We've been reading the Book of Mormon to our kids every night before bed since Alan was 3 and Sarah was 2. We've gone through it almost 3 times now. So I wanted to see how well they knew the beginning of the book. We had 9 different sections on the board identified with pictures and the questions coincided with the sections (notice the white papers stuck to the board).
The sections were : Getting the brass plates, Nephi's vision on the mountain, The Tree of Life vision, Going back for Ishmael's family, The Liahona, The broken bow, Building the ship, The trials on the ship, then the end was reaching the Promised Land. And the Promised Land was eating dessert in the kitchen. (: We like dessert :)
Needless to say, the kid's loved it. And they did suprisingly well on knowing the answers to the questions. If anyone wants a copy of the questions we used, just post a comment about it here.
Here in the south, the time to go out and play is autumn, not summer. In the summer the heat and humidity is so stifling that my kids and their friends don't like to stay outside longer than 10-20 minutes. But now that it's down to low 80's in the daytime, they will spend all hours outdoors!
I was trying to get dinner ready this evening, and William was hungry too, so Alan asked if he could feed his little brother. I was a little worried that there'd be a giant mess if I let him do it, but he did a great job! Whew! 
Alan's Lizard "Spicky" was laid to rest this morning in the shade of the tree in our back yard. He was a large Eastern Fence Lizard that Tom caught for him last year right before Alan's 8th birthday. 
Here he is in his cage about three weeks ago with his friend Salmy the Salamander. 
My birthday was last Saturday while Tom was still in Sweden. He had also missed his birthday while he was there. I've always wanted to make an ice cream cake that was comparable to the over-priced tiny cakes you get at ice cream shops because Tom always wants one for his birthday. I've made them in the past, but they always looked terrible, and tasted OK. I really wanted to do it right this time. So, I decided to try again at making one. I was pretty pleased with the results this time. He came back from Sweden on Monday, and we had the cake waiting for him and I. 
It's just a normal cake baked in a round pan, then I cut it in half, and put a big slab of ice cream in the middle of it. I froze it, then frosted it with whipped cream. Then I froze it again, and frosted the details on with chocolate ice cream, and voila! Ice cream cake!! 
We like to have a fun activity to do on Friday nights. So, after dinner tonight, we cleared the table and all sat down to make our playdough cookies! Here's a little video of the kids shaping them. It's a fun idea I found on allrecipes.com .
You just make sugar cookie dough and divide it into four different balls, tint the balls with food coloring, then let the kids make whatever shape cookie they want.
You might notice the Mozart music in the background. I like Mozart. :)
Here's a few of the cookies before they're cooked:
And here they are coming out of the oven:
They kept their color! Yay! 
I just couldn't resist posting this. I just read on Mary's family website that when she cut my brother Ben's hair it was so thick she had to use a vacuum to get all the excess hair off of him when he was done...
This is one of those very rare moments where my two oldest are actually getting along. Usually they are in opposotion to each other as Alan wants to play something to do with war and guns, while Sarah likes to play like she's a teacher or a news reporter. One thing they can both agree on are the poems of Shel Silverstein.
They're having a snack after church. I usually don't allow books at the table, but they seemed so peaceful reading to each other like that.
