DALLAS DREAMS

 In honor of halloween, I decided to try to make a Pumpkin pie.  I will see how it tastes tomorrow (I'm too full to eat it now).  I think the filling part looks pretty good, but I'm unsure about the crust.   I think I keep over cooking the crust.  Recipes always recommend shielding the crust to prevent it from getting too crispy.  I got a pie shield for my birthday, but I think its too big for my pies, and its really hard to manually put foil around your crust halfway through.  Next time i think I'm going to shield the crust the entire cooking time, see if I can get it to be less crispy.  Also, I think I broke a pie rule today, i put some cinnamon and sugar into the crust.  Most pies try to make sure the crust is not sweet at all, but I thought the cinnamon would make it look better and you can't use cinnamon without sugar.  I guess we will see how it tastes tomorrow.  Also, I had some extra dough and extra filling so I made a ...

 Well the Smith Family Pumpkin carving tradition continues: somehow I always end up carving everybody's pumpkin after they go to sleep. We just always wait too late to start.  This year, all of our pumpkins went bad way to early.  We probably got them too early and its been raining.  Really the punpkins are a mess and mostly mush and I didn't want the girls touching all the gross pumpkin goop anyway.  You can see from the pictures, everyones pumpkins look pretty sick (Emma's has a large hole where the pumpkin rotted all the way through!  So I had each of them draw a picture of what they wanted the face to be and I went out and carved them all while they were sleeping.  I even did two baby ones for the twins! Maybe next year everyone will help with the pumpkins.  Alice woke up at Midnight and was wide awake for some reason.  She wanted to come out and she her pumpkin even though it was still raining. 

Today, I decided to make a pie that I don't know if I have ever had before, but certianly on all the classic pie lists.  The classic southern Pecan Pie.  My crust this time Ithough was going to be pretty good, but for some reason it ended up really tough.  It might be because it was underneath the pecan custard filling, or maybe I just did a lowsy job on the crust.   I think the pie turned out OK, but honestly it is not my favorite pie.  I really like pecans as a nut and I like butter pecan icecream. But the pie was just too rich for my taste, too intense.  I needed a glass of milk with every bite.  Plus, this pie is possibly the most unhealthy pie i have made so far.  At least is looks pretty...

Today, I had to take Alice to the doctor, so I didn't go to work again.  But that meant I got to do more fun things with the girls.  Amy's parents are still here so we always do lots of adventure with them.  After I got home from the doctor we went to Kinder Farms and I got to do some disc golf with Amy, while her parents watched the kids.  I love to play disc golf (though I am not super good).  I have about 6 discs, (3 drivers, 2 mids, and a putter) some bought and some found.  I probably had one of the best disc golf days of my life.  At least my drives were pretty far and pretty straight.  And the course at Kinder farms is REALLY nice.  Next time I get a free saturday, I will try to go again. It was fun going with Amy.  She's even worse than me, so it makes me feel great to beat her.  After this we went to the mall and ate at red robin, one of our families favorite place to eat (bottom-less steak fries).

 This happened Yesterday and I forgot to write about it... We went to a pumpkin patch.  This is something we usually do every year: pick out a few pumpkins, take a few cute pictures, I usually try to wear a flannel shirt. I have two babies, and Lucy also has 2 babies (hers are also named Olive and Mabel) Corn Maze

 My mother in law is visiting, and I promised anyone who comes to visit us will get to choose the pie of the week.  She asked for a plain old berry pie, which I already made on week 3.  So I decided I could do a berry pie with a little me spice, ginger spice.  So today I made a berry pie WITH ginger.  I also got to use all of the pie making tools from my birthday. The clothe board was SO nice to roll the dough out.  I was even able to make a pretty nice lattice!  I think maybe I shouldn't have used frozen berries, since I think it made the filling too liquidy, but I guess we will see how it tastes.  I haven't eaten the pie yet because we went out for dinner and I ate too much. So we are going to eat it tomorrow when we can really enjoy it!  (The video didn't work this week :( but I still have pictures. I will do another video next week) Here we are eating out at the "Hideaway" YUMMY

 Ok, I think this is actually my last day home, tomorrow, I'm back at work.  I spent a lot of time playing with kids and holding babies.  Somehow we acquired the game, "Mouse trap."  This was a game that I remember playing at friends houses when I was little (and never getting the mouse trap to work. )  This game now has been updated since I was a kid, much more kid friendly.  Now you build the whole trap before the game starts and just try to catch each other mice.  The trap is also smaller and simplified. When we played, the trap worked every time!  Maybe it just works a lot better because Adult-Dallas built it for his kids instead of 7 year old Dallas.   Anyway, the kids loved catching the mice. So did I. It was a hit.  Here are the pictures: 

 For one of my last days home, we decided to take a trip to the National Zoo.  This is something the girls have wanted to do for a long time and we though we should take advantage of me being home and the two other adults visiting to make it happen.  It was fun to go and see a few animals, but the zoo is pretty sparse right now.  Many of the exhibit were closed.  Most of the buildings were closed.  A large portion of the zoo was under construction.  We didn't see a single monkey.  That being said, we did get to see and wolf, an elephant, a lion and a tiger and all of them were pretty active.  Though, I think the girls favorite thing was the little prairie dog exhibit.  Anyway, here are some pictures: Lunch time: Looking at an Elephant Prarie Dogs Walking Looking Pointing And the Babies were there too!

It's finally here! Dallas' birthday! The girls have been counting down the days to this most important day for WEEKS. Especially Emma. Emma is incredible at remembering things and waking up early and making sure we get everything done. Last night Dallas reminded me that he was born at 3:32 a.m. and asked if I was going to wake up and wish him happy birthday then. Why yes, of course! I told him and whipped out my phone and added an alarm for 3:31 a.m. I already had one set for 4 a.m. because I thought I would get up and finish working on the song I was supposed to prepare for his birthday and also I was going to go get his very favorite salsa so we could have it for some of our birthday meals.  The alarm went off at 3:31 a.m. I wished Dallas happy birthday and he sang a short happy birthday song to himself and then I started to fall back asleep and remembered I had another alarm coming in less than half an hour. Ah, I don't need that. I can write the song and get the salsa l...