Pumpkin Scones with Berry Butter

YUM! That was the consensus when I made these for our little playgroup a couple weeks ago. Many of the mommies asked for the recipe, so here it is, for you all to check out. I had never made scones before and they were surprisingly easy and oh so good!

Pumpkin Scones with Berry Butter
2 Tbsp craisins
1/2 c. boiling water
1/2 c. butter, softened
3 Tbsp confectioners' sugar
Dough:
2 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 c cold butter
1 egg
1/2 c. canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/3 c. milk
2 Tbsp chopped pecans, optional (I didn't use these)

Place cranberries in a small bowl; add boiling water and let stand 5 min; drain and chop. In a small mixing bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar and cranberries; mix well. cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, pie spice, salt, and baking soda. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, pumpkin and milk; add to crumb mixture just until moistened. Stir in pecans if desired.
Turn dough onto a floured surface; knead 10 times. Pat into an 8 inch circle. Cut into eight wedges; separate wedges and place on a greased baking sheet.
Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown (took mine longer). Serve warm with berry butter. (I took butter out to soften just a tad before serving).
ENJOY!!!!

We Have Music!

Well, in trying to keep up with the "Tennessee Merkles," I've added some music to our blog. I hope you enjoy the songs as you read and check out the photos. All you Merkles, make sure you click on Apache and do our little dance once in awhile! ha ha!!!
Thanks, Laura, for helping me get that set up!
See you guys in a few days! We can't wait!

Fun Times Around the House

Can I just tell you how blessed we feel that Jake and Jon are truly the best of friends? So rarely do they fight and when they do (come on, they're brothers, of course they do once in awhile) it's over and forgotten so quickly. Whenever there are other kids around, they still play with each other. It's amazing.
While the boys played in the sandbox, I sat with Lizzie on the Air Rider and swung us a bit. SHE LOVED IT!!! Her little legs were just kicking away and she had a smile on her face the whole time!

Jon giving his little sister a big hug. He is so sweet with her and is always trying to make her laugh (quite successfully, I might add!) He dances, sings silly songs, you name it, all in the name of getting his sister to smile!

Isn't this just the cutest?

Lizzie dancing with her Daddy. How sweet is that? Can you say "wrapped"?

I have the best husband ever!

We have a CRAWLER!!!!

Look out world...or at least look out Jake and Jon! Your toys are no longer safe! Lizzie is on the prowl! We've been waiting for this and she's finally got the crawling thing down. Yeah Liz! So today, Jon and I filled all the little plugs with outlet covers and the boys are trying extra hard to keep all their little toys, books, papers, etc. out of reach. Nothing is safe from Lizzilla!!! ha ha!!!

Also, she's recently started eating Cheerios. Can I tell you how much this girl loves Cheerios? She chows!! And, I also bought her one of those little mesh bags that you can put food in (bananas, ripe pears, etc.). She loves that thing, too! What a big girl she is!!! It's nice that I can sit her in her booster seat, put a few Cheerios on her tray to hold her over until I can actually feed her. She is the happiest little girl, but not so patient when it's time to eat!! This actually buys me some time.

The Burkes in Taiwan

Jon and Kristy Burke, our very dear friends that used to live here in Dover are now stationed in Colorado Springs. Jon is working at the Air Force Academy and Kristy is staying home with their two awesome kids, Jackson and Grace. They've been in the adoption process for a LONG time now, trying to adopt a baby from Taiwan. Finally, they are in Taiwan ready to bring little Andy home. I just read her blog for an update and as it turns out, they are also hoping to bring home Andy's sister who is in foster care. So, please PRAY for them. And if you don't believe in prayer, think lots of positive thoughts for them, please! You have no idea what an amazing family this is and what a blessing this would be to them as well as to these children. Gook luck, Jon and Kristy and we can't wait to see pictures of you WITH little Andy and hopefully even his sister! That would be fantastic! Praying, too, for safe travels...
Miss you guys!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Watching the World Series, Jake asked, "what's J.C. stand for?" "You know, Jake, I'm not sure," Andy said. "How 'bout Jokes Cat," Jake decided. "Okay, Jokes Cat Romero. Sounds good to me," Andy agreed.

Jon, while trying to relieve an itch on his foot says, "I have a scratch and I can't get it off!"

And now for the kicker:

We were talking about the dimensions of new sofas we were looking at buying (overall size versus the size of the actual seat part) and Andy said, "so you would think a + b would = c." Jake responded, "I didn't know you could add letters! So, there could be no u + u because there aren't 40 letters in the alphabet!"
Okay, so he was off by one letter, but pretty sharp for a 5 year old that he assigned numbers to each of the letters to figure that out in a matter of like 2 seconds!

Trick-Or-Treat!

Little Miss Lizzie Ladybug

Yup, decided to get creative and make the boys' costumes this year. Jake was a tractor-and-trailer (Poppop, you ought to like that one) and Jon was Thomas...again. The boys did so much of the work themselves and we had a lot of fun putting them all together. We had some walking issues (we'll have to downsize next year!! ha ha!), but we managed to make it around the block. I was tickled and so were the boys at the wonderful response the neighbors gave them (and Jake's classmates at their school party earlier in the day). Everyone thought the costumes were great.