Monogramming

  Over Spring Break, I wanted to make a small gift for each of my friends at school.  It had to be something simple, but something new - something that I hadn't done before.  My mom suggested making pillows, but I had already done that too much.  So, I decided to make pillows, but monogram their first initial on the front of the pillow.  It was easy enough, and the results turned out pretty cool.  I used my mom's embroidery machine, which made the job very quick and easy.  I'd say the hardest part was picking out the perfect fabric for each person.

(Hopefully Katie and Chris don't read this before Tuesday...)

Best Friday EVER!!!

As you might have noticed from the title, this is the best Friday EVER!!!  You know how when you're having a bad day, one bad thing happens, then something else bad happens, and it just keeps going downhill from there?  Well, today everything just went uphill.


This morning I finished packing my lunch and getting all ready for school early, so I had a little bit of extra time.  I spent that time enjoying a nice big cup of black coffee.  I was all relaxed and the coffee just tasted really good.  (Recently my language arts teacher had us write an "Happiness Is..." poem, and one of my metaphors was, "Happiness Is... a warm mug of black coffee." :)


Then, in 3rd period Spanish, our teacher decided to spend the class period singing songs in Spanish.  We sang "Waka Waka" by Shakira (Spanish version).  It was so much fun that we decided to make a video of us all singing Waka Waka, so we did.  Everybody went up to the front of the classroom (except me which I really regret) and we turned on the music and sang and danced while two of the members from the Geek Squad filmed.  Even though I stayed in my seat, I still ended up in the video...  It was so much fun!  And even though I didn't go up to the front of the room, I still sang along.


After 3rd period, we all went to lunch.  We were all still talking about the Shakira video, when all the Life Learners (autistic kids) came in, all of them wearing sunglasses and waving their arms around - one of the teachers holding a boom box on their shoulder.  They were all making motions for us to get up and dance with them, so  a couple of kids ran over.  They turned on the music and walked around the cafeteria looking like they were having a lot of fun.  I was still upset that I didn't get up and be in the video, so I convinced my friends to come with me and we ran over to the group and danced marching around the border of the cafeteria and in the lunch line.  Every couple seconds another group of kids would run over to the back of the line.  Pretty soon we were all yelling and dancing and IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

After lunch, we all had to actually do our school work, so I headed to 5th period math.  I had to retake a quiz, and I was really worried.  When I started the quiz, I realized that the retake quiz was the same quiz that I didn't do so well on.  I was so relieved!  I had been studying the old quiz, so now I knew all the answers!  I finished the quiz really fast, but I felt really confident about how I'd done.  I am sure that I got 100%.  I won't know until after Spring Break, but I was just so surprised at the easiness of the quiz.

In the middle of math class, the bell rang for 7th period which for me is Physical Education.  Our P.E. unit right now really hasn't been my favorite until today.  Badminton and Tennis.  Last P.E. class I could NOT serve AT ALL.  I have always been terrible at Badminton.  But today I partnered up with my friend Zoe and we practiced serves.  Every single time I hit the birdie, it would sell over the net gracefully, landing right where I wanted.  I was so happy!  It was like I had learned overnight!

After P.E., I had history.  I went into history very worried about a quiz we were supposed to have today.  Sarah, who sat across from me was freaking out as well.  When she asked our teacher how many questions the quiz had, he replied 300 short answer questions, each a paragraph in length.  (Ha,ha.)  When we were finally able to get him to tell us the truth, he said there was no quiz today.  His first period class hadn't gotten to it, so he didn't think it would be fair for us to have to take it.  Yay!!!

And to make things even better, I found that I got a 100% on my Spanish Family Tree.  I hadn't gotten ANYTHING wrong, on the presentation, poster, or paragraphs about my family.  It turns out there was only a couple of people who got 100%, and I was one of them!  Also, on Wednesday we took our unit test on the Pythagorean theorem and our class average was a 95.7%.  This meant that our class would get to wear jeans our first Friday back from Spring Break.  (Since we have uniforms at our school, whenever a class gets an average of 94% or more, they get to wear jeans that Friday).

This day has been so amazing and I'm so happy that I have a God who cares for me and planned this all out - just so that I could have a great day.

(And to top this all off, we are having Turtle Creme Pie for dessert to celebrate the start of Spring Break).

Happy Thanksgiving!

And Happy 20th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!


I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, because I sure did!  We had a progressive dinner, starting at the Carlsons'* house for the appetizers, then to our house for the main dinner, then to my Grandma's house for dessert, movies and games.  We also got to go outside and play with mini rockets and airplanes at a nearby parking lot, which was really fun.  Anyways, enough about me.  How was your Thanksgiving?  Leave plenty of comments!!!


* Look under April, and see I'm Back!

The Art of Jenga

Yes.  The art.

The height of a stack of Jenga blocks at the beginning of the game.

The height after playing for a while.  That's 7 inches taller!  We probably added one more row after this and then it fell.

The first moves.  Real smart.

How does it fall so perfectly???

Baking

Yesterday, my friend Jacquelin and I had been ordered (joking) to make a dessert for our Taco Lunch at church today.  We decided to make cupcakes because they are usually easy to make.  My mom suggested these really cool chocolate cupcakes with a layer of peanut butter inside.  We made up the batter and started to put the cupcakes together, when we realized that there was not enough chocolate batter for the top layer.  We started to make another batch when we ran out of Peanut Butter.  So we sent mom out to the store to buy Peanut Butter, Butter, and Chocolate Icing.  When we got back, we finished pouring the batter into the liners.  The Peanut Butter mixture stuck through the top layer of chocolate, and made it look like we had stuck some moldy cheese into the cupcakes, so we tried to flatten it out.  It didn't work.  We decided to just put them into the oven, and hope for the best.  This is how they turned out.

Beautiful, right?

We tried them out, and they tasted AWESOME.  But they were not presentable.  Way too ugly.  Mom suggested we just take them to church anyways, and people would be too disgusted to try them, and we would get them back at the end.  But I couldn't bring those in.  I would be SO embarrassed!  We just split up the brownies, 11 for me, and 11 for her.  Jacquelin said 

we could just make another batch, but put it in a brownie pan.  So we made two more batches, and stuck it on the oven.

 

 These were the results after the Taco Lunch.  Mom's famous Peanut Butter Bar recipe had been given out to a bunch of people, and someone had made it.  Everyone recognized it and ate it up.  Near the end though, word spread round how great our brownies' were, and they started to get eaten.  We grabbed them before they were all gone though.  So our brownies' were a success!!!  Yay!

(That brownie on the edge just melted in the car.  The brownies' weren't THAT gooey!)

When I was sitting in the car, waiting to go home, Mr. McMullen came up and said, "Hey.  Did you make those Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies?  Well, those were STINKIN' AWESOME!  You'd better give me the recipe sometime!"  And I said yes.  :)

HAPPY (late) 4TH OF JULY!

Okay, so I was away at my friend's house during the weekend, and we stayed to celebrate the 4th.  You know all that, right?  Anyways, I found this really cool cake thing in a cupcake book, "Hello, Cupcake."  I've been wanting to make it, but it's a flag.  For the 4th of July.  So I waited, and waited, and then, IT WAS THE FOURTH!!!!  So I showed the picture to my friend, and we made it!  The picture isn't too good, so you probably can't see it too well.  It's all made of cupcakes.  The red mini cupcakes were placed on top of the bigger white cupcakes to form the red stripes.  Anyways, it took a total of 94-96 cupcakes to make!!!  That's a lot!  We spent all morning just preparing for the fun part, the DECORATING!  On each of the red cupcakes is some type of goody, like gummi bears, or jelly beans, or something like that.  And on top of the blue cupcakes are sprinkles.  So... do you like it?

I think I kinda forgot what I put for the title...

HAPPY (late)  FOURTH, EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you all had a great time with glow sticks and fire works, and whatever things you usually do.  I hope you remembered to put your flag out!!!

Gone

      My friends, Jaala and Salem, and their four other sisters are leaving for their Granparent's house tomorrow.  Then they will leave to Kentucky.  Yesterday was the last day I got to see them.  I am sad.  I know I've said this before, but, I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE MOVE!!!!!!!!!!  Why?  Why do they have to move?  I already know the answer.  Because they're a military family.  Why?  Why, Why, Why?  WHY CAN'T EVERYBODY JUST STAY WHERE THEY ARE???????

Sad...

       Rmember that post about me going to my friend's grandparents' house???  Well, Salem and Jaala are moving! I'm SO sad.  I will miss them so much.  I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE MOVE!!!!!!!!!!

DONE (for real)

     School is over until September!!!! Yay!!!!!

                           I already miss my friends... :(
                                         Abigail is moving to Ethiopia 

Back! (again)

   I just got back from my short trip... IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!  It was one of the BEST time's I ever had.  Jaala and Salem's grandparents had a HUGE garden, complete with peaches, strawberries, corn, rhubarb, peas, beans, blueberries and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't remember!  We got to garden, swim in their pool, and there was a bonfire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't wait to go back!!! 

'Bout To Leave

    In about, like 3 minutes, I will be leaving to spend 2 nights at my friend's Grandparent's house.  I can't wait!!!  Oh yeah, their names are Jaala and Salem.  (Friends from church.)  Say "hi" to them everybody!!!!  Anyways, I won't be here 'till Sunday, so... I won't be blogging?  Yeah.  So, keep guessing what 12 and a half means!!! Bye!

I'm Back!

    I just got back from Farmville yesterday.  We had spent Friday and Saturday with our friends, the Carlsons, at their lil' cabin.  It was really fun.  I went rowboating and fishing.  (Although, I didn't catch anything...)  My brother got his fishing merit badge by catching about 13 fishies.  Then, we had to eat them.  That was probably my least favorite part of the trip.   
    Mrs. Carlson's mother just died recently, so she felt like spending some time in the country.  Sometimes, that is the perfect thing to do.  So, whenever any of you guys are feeling down, take a visit to the country.  Believe me, you NEED some fresh air.  Anyways, Mrs.Carlson needs some support at this moment, so your prayers would be a big help!!!