Hover-boards and Steampunks. (Sugar cookie recipe included).

Every Tuesday and Thursday we have some of the neighborhood kids over for cookies and homework. It's an open house from 3:30-4:30, and they are welcome to come and do their homework (I try to help if they need me), and eat as many cookies as they want. Nobody has puked yet.

 This last Thursday they requested Halloween cookies, so we threw a few out there. These were no works of art, because with some of these boys, the focus needs to be on quantity more than quality!

 The Frankensteins were the most time consuming, and guess which ones they didn't want? We had a lot of green cookies left over!

(recipe added below)

 We've been trying to get over to the BYU planetarium for weeks to see the stars, and Friday we finally made it. Great choice just by chance, as it was their "Astronomy and Harry Potter" show. We had a professor from Hogwarts take us on a tour through through the castle, and up to the astronomy tower, then use the time-turner to move the sky around for us. Really fun.  On our way out, we found these students testing out their hovercraft. Kai and I had to try it out. 

 Hopefully that video worked!

 For Halloween I decided to be Iris Apfel (link to the documentary trailer) weeks ago, but got really discouraged with the wig and ditched it for our Halloween party. Halloween night, when we did our neighborhood "street of treats", I just threw it on my head and went with it.

We saw some great neighborhood costumes.

Everyone enjoyed the treat table. Who knows why we need a dang treat table when the kids are all collecting candy, but there you are. That's Utah for you. Our main vice is sugar.

 Kai was a "steampunk guy" for his costume. 

 Ari was a treasure map. We made her shirt ourselves here, and she sewed the pants at school, in sewing class. So nice that they had their own ideas this year! That's the worst part of Halloween for me -- the ideas for costumes. I'm really going to be lost without Tia next time. She's been a great idea girl for us the last three years. What am I going to do without her? I almost cried this morning thinking about it.

OK, I had a request for the sugar cookie recipe. I use one from Mrs. Field's, although I always bake at 350 for a shorter amount of time, and I like a bit of almond extract or a drop of almond oil candy flavoring instead of vanilla.

Perfect Sugar Cookies

2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup salted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda with a wire whisk. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well mixed. Scrape down sides of bowl, then add the flour mixture. Blend on low speed just until combined. Do not over mix. Gather dough into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disk and wrap tightly with plastic wrap, then refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

On a floured surface, roll out dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut dough into desired shapes and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 7-8 minutes for two pans, rotating racks halfway through. Be careful not to brown! Immediately transfer cookies with a spatula to a cool, flat surface.

Frosting

1/3 c. butter

1/4 c. milk (or orange juice for orange frosting, or lemon juice for lemon, etc.)

4 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 1/2 t. vanilla (or orange extract, lemon, almond --my kids' favorite)

Beat butter until fluffy, add half of sugar, beat in, beat in liquid, then rest of sugar. To color, add one drop of food coloring at a time -- go slow! If you need black, consider using black cocoa powder. Tastes much better than a lot of black dye.

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