{april fool's day!}

And I get out of school at 11:45! Oh, happy day! So, here are some harmless tricks to try at home for April Fool's Day.

1. Tape down the phone button on your home phone so the person who picks up the phone thinks the line is dead.

2. Wrap a rubber band around the kitchen sink sprayer so whoever turns on the faucet gets a big wet surprise.
3. Shrunken breakfast: make a miniature meal: a sunny side up egg atop a piece of cocktail bread.
4. Place a fake cockroach is the slipper of a family member.
5. For wives, rearrange your husband's drawers to make him wonder if he's still asleep.
6. Savory surprise: a mashed potatoes and gravy sundae is a good gag!

Also! I'm back with some crafts! You know me, folks.

Painted Sneakers:

What you need:

Newspaper

Clean canvas sneakers

Fabric or acrylic craft paint

Artist paintbrushes

Fabric paint pens

1. Cover a work surface with newspaper.

2. Using fabric paints and paint, decorate sneakers.

3. Let paint dry for 24 hours before painting another shade on top of the original color.

Finger puppet and flowers:

1. Fold top corner down to bottom; reopen. Fold bottom corner up to middle; refold top down.

2. Fold left and right corners down to bottom.

3. Fold bottom points up, angled, beyond top edges (for bear, fold so ears are short)

4. Fold sides in at an angle, as shown

5. Fold bottom point up to meet the top center point; flip over.

5. Fold tips of center points to the back. Shape ears: For dog, fold forward; for bear, fold tips back; for bunny, leave long. Draw on details.

Names?

- Leila
- Colton
- Kyson
- Reese
- Clara
- Preston
- Emmaline

I've definitely fallen in love with the names Clara and Emmaline. Why? I don't know...

{menus...}

Here are some foods that I've been coming up and foods that my family has actually been eating:) Some are snacks, some are breakfast, some are just whatever! You catch my drift.

• Sausage and Egg Burritos, Fruit, Orange juice (something I recommended for Jordan for breakfast and I made the burritos and shoved them in the freezer so he could pop some in the microwave in the morning. He loves it! He has it almost every morning now).
• Things for the grill: Chicken, cantaloupe, bread, green beans.
• Hot dogs, Mac and Cheese, and Canned pears.
• Italian chicken on rice, green beans, and dessert: Chocolate Silk Pie

• Tacos (ground turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, salsa)
• Roasted potatoes, broccoli, corn, strawberries
• Turkey Quesadillas

Anyways, those are just a few of the meals I've been working on! They're healthy and yummy, just how I like it:)

{Young Women's medallion...}

I got my young women's medallion today!!!! WOOOOO!!!! I'm actually done with personal progress. Which is weird, because it seems like just 2 years ago I started. Oh, wait. It was. Oops. Anyways, I didn't know if I wanted it in gold or silver, but the Bishop called me up and handed me a gold one. And it was perfect:) I'm glad it's gold. Sister Musick asked me if I wanted to switch it and I replied with a quick "No!" haha I love the one I have. I'm going to do personal progress again. It's such an amazing program and I'm going to take advantage of it while I can:) Also, I want to try out for Rising Generation, which I'm so excited for! Nothing else exciting really happened today. I still have English homework to do that I'm avoiding as I type. And I want to paint my nails. But that is all. Bye bye.

P.S. - remember that blanket I started a while ago? I finished it a couple weeks ago!! Pictures soon:)

{Young Women's Broadcast...}

Tonight was the Young Women's broadcast and let me tell you, I loved it. I could feel the Spirit lingering there so much! Joy, Cami, my Mom, and I all went to McAllisters to eat and then we went to the Stake Center. When we got to the Stake Center, there was NO one there. Not a soul. Well, actually there was ONE single soul. Ringo, he's the set up guy. He was there. But at first we were there by ourselves, which was really weird because there were only eighteen minutes until the broadcast started. So we sat there, and then one other family came. Then another. Then another. In all, there were fourteen people. Horrible planning. But the broadcast itself was spectacular. I love the Young Women's broadcast because I love being reminded how important the Young Women are to Zion. I really liked it when one girl said, "I don't feel we have to run from the world, or be scared of it, but we can change it and turn what is dark into light." That really pulled my heartstrings. I also got my hair cut today. It's about shoulder length. I'll post pictures later. And I got fake nails to keep me from biting my real ones. They're doing their job...so far...hehe : )

{if it snows again, i'll cry...}

Seriously. It's officially spring and it snowed AGAIN today and yesterday. I've had enough snow to last me a couple years! Nothing really interesting has been going on. Same old, same old. I'm stuck at home bored this weekend. I hate these types of weekends. I wish I had a car because I could go anywhere I wanted (even though gas money these days are ridiculous. Almost 4 dollars!). I reallllyyy want to see the movie Beastly. Tomorrow is the Young Women's broadcast, and we're going with Cami and Joy to the Stake Center and then afterwards we are going out to eat. Now I just have to survive this evening without officially clawing my face off from me being bored to death...

{ET...}

This song makes me so happy. I'm GOING to learn to play this on guitar. Oh, and sing like her. ;) haha

{bishop appointment...}

I had my appointment with the Bishop today so hopefully I can get my Young Women's medallion soon! It was so nice just getting to sit and talk with him, and with it just being the two of us. We learned a lot about each other and we laughed and had so much fun. He's so wonderful to talk to and one of the best listeners. You can tell he sincerely cares about what's happening, and he also throws in some bad puns in here and there (haha just kidding, Bishop). He's amazing. He asked me how I was doing in school, and I told him I had all A's and one B. He asked me what the B was in and I said English, and he was like, "Whaaaattttttt?! English? I heard your teacher loves you in that class!" I was like, "Where'd you hear that from?" And he was like, "Ryan! He told me that you're teacher loves you and that she doesn't like Kory very much." It was funny! It really was nice getting to talk to him and I just wanted my blog to know that so I can remember it. :)

{50's sock hop dance...}

How to describe this dance? This dance was....okay. There have been MUCH better though. First off, hardly anyone showed up. There were maybe 50 people. That's not a lot. Second off, I only danced with like 3 or 4 guys because there were hardly any slow songs. Grrrr. I have to admit, though, I looked pretty good:) I wore a new blue shirt that I got and jean capris (this was a jeans dance, but you don't have to wear jeans if you don't want to. There's only 2 jeans dances throughout the whole year, though, so I took advantage of this) and I wore a yellow flower in my hair. I liked it. I kind of looked like I was from Hawaii. That's always a good thing, right? I think it's just something in the water over there, because those people always pop out of their moms lookin goooodddd. Maybe it's just me. I prefer Samoans, myself;) But the Bishop came to the dance, and it was hysterical. He wore a white shirt with rolled up jeans and he had his hair slicked back! Hahahaha it was so funny! And his wife dressed up, too. She looked really pretty (as usual). I did like how some people dressed up, though. Some girls were wearing poodle skirts or scarfs in their hair and all that jazz. I was going to, but I don't have a nice white shirt or long socks, so I dressed up as me:) People said I looked cute, so that was a plus. Some of the guys had their hair slicked back and long socks. My friend, Conner, came as a jock and he had a letterman jacket on and jeans and it looked like he walked straight out of Grease. It was great. There was also a lot of swing dancing in this dance. YAYYY!! I love swing dancing. They played a lot of Beatles, and that made me very happy times ten. Because if you know me, you know I love the Beatles. It just seemed like there was something from the dance that made it kind of lame. Maybe it was just me again. I'll try and post a picture of me as soon as I can (the pictures were on Klea's camera, so I have to wait for her to tag me). Anyways, today was just one of those days I guess you could say. Interpret that as you will. But, I'm going to get to bed! Goodnight, bloggers.

{tra la la...let's be random}

Doesn't this picture remind you of those awkward moments when you're in a bad mood and you don't know why? I HATE it when that happens, even though it rarely does to me. Normally if I'm mad, there's a reason. Some people don't even know what I look like mad. Which, of course, is a good thing because then they don't see the smoke coming out of my ears, my face turning purple. Ya know. The usual. And part of why I posted this picture is because Lilo is on it. I used to watch that show, all day, errrdayy. I WANT TO BE JUST LIKE HER WHEN I GROW UP. :)

Also.

I had pizza like 20 minutes ago at Fortel's. So, this picture is legit. I AM PIZZA.

Oh and also. I've been in a painting frenzy lately. Kind of like an art frenzy. Well. Actually. I always have an art frenzy. I say, if you have the chance to make something creative, why not take it? Just Tuesday at my piano teacher's house, her daughter Karlee and I were looking for some crayons to color a pretty princess picture, when I come across some water color paint laying on the shelves. Hmmm. What the heck? The kids liked it. Especially Erix! He thought it was SO amazing that he had to put the whole paintbrush in his mouth! He thought he could get away with it until his mother saw a bluish rainbowy mess covering his mouth. You ain't so fly, Erix. I'll have to teach you and prepare you for next time;)

And, while I'm ranting, I would like to add that I'm tired of creepers making facebooks. Go back to Myspace. Suriously.

{think spring, think spring...}

The weather is GORGEOUS outside:)no joke. You're probably wondering why I'm in here, but trust me, I plan on going outside to enjoy this nice weather. You have no idea. I had to take time to document this because we have been having such crappy weather lately. It's a bummer. All the snow and cold weather needs to stay away. It's a good 75 degrees outside. Get this - we actually have our FANS out in our living room! I've been waiting for that for forever! Winter has been going by way too slow. Come on spring. COME ON! New names I like: Caleb, Zoee, and Nora:)

Cousins are comforting.

Today, I just kind of want to talk about my cousin Tyler. Tyler is a girl, by the way! A lot of people think that when I talk about her, I mean a boy, but no, she's a girl. She's the only cousin of mine that I really was ever close to. We aren't so close anymore because she lives in Missouri and I live here. We haven't seen each other since 2007? Maybe Maybe even 2006? Anyways, it's been a long time. But I just started thinking about her because she FINALLY made a facebook and sent me a request. I haven't talked to her in SO long. We can't text because she doesn't have a phone, but every time I think of Tyler, my childhood comes whirring through my memory like a tornado. We've been close ever since I was a baby. She's only 1 year older than me, and since we're so close in age, we're probably the closest cousins in our family. She has an older sister, Halie, but she's 23 and she always hung around my sisters. When I was little, I would visit my grandma's house in Warrens burg, Missouri (it's 4 hours away from here) ever other weekend. We'd leave Thursday night and stay till Saturday night and then be home on Sunday. And every time I went over there, Tyler would be there and that would make me so happy! I remember being little and our moms used to dress up like we were on the show Full House in those embarrassing dresses and whatnot. Back then, we just preferred our good, ol' overalls. No joke. We'd walk around barefoot all the time and when we were maybe 2 and getting close to 3, I remember we would spend hours sitting across the kitchen floor with race cars (my mom would buy me a new plastic, indestructible race car every weekend for 99 cents. HOLY COW. Toys for kids nowadays are what? 20 dollars?! Sheesh) and Tyler would sit at one end of the kitchen and I would sit at the other and we would drive our race cars to each other, back and forth, and back and forth. And we'd just talk about 3-year-oldisms. I remember when we would watch Thumbelina and the Little Mermaid for hours on end! Her favorite princess was always Sleeping Beauty, and I could never stand Sleeping Beauty, so whenever she watched it she would make me dance to all the music with her. Our moms used to make us do the dishes (yes, we had to the dishes at 2 and 3 years old), and we would always make them angry because we would splash water on our ugly dresses. Sooner or later, they just made us wear nothing but our diapers when we did the dishes, so there is a lovely baby picture of us standing on chairs in front of my grandma's sink in nothing but our diapers. Thanks ma. We would always try to play pranks on our Grandpa, mainly because he always played pranks on us. We thought the funniest thing ever was putting his hair into ponytail holders and his hair was spiky and it would just stand up straight. We did that while he was sleeping. Tyler and I would play outside all the time, which is mainly why we liked wearing overalls with just a shirt underneath it, because we could get it dirty all we wanted without getting yelled at by our mothers. We ran around barefoot (and I mean, we ran around barefoot ALL the time. I can't remember us wearing shoes until we were a little bit older and we HAD to) and climbed trees and drank strawberry milk (back when I liked milk by itself) and had burping contests and got into our grandma's makeup. Everyone in my family called Tyler "Shirley Temple." Even on her Christmas gifts, the tag would read From: Santa To: Shirley Temple. She had the brightest red hair that curled into a million little curls. Her sister was blonde, her mother was blonde, and her father was brunette, so we know she probably got the red hair from MY mother. Tyler looks like my mom more than anyone out of our family, and she acts like her too.
Here's a picture: You can't really see her face, but you can see her hair.

On the left is my other cousin, Halie, and then in the middle is my Uncle, who sadly, never got the boy he wished for. I think Tyler is the closest thing he will ever get to a boy. Her hair was always such a bright red, and it looks just like my moms. I think this was taken in 1999, so she was 4 and I was 3. Check out the nice overalls, eh? :)

I remember when our sisters would blow up balloons on the couch and then stuff them down their shirts so it looked like they had really big bosoms! Tyler and I thought that was the funniest thing in the world, so of course, we wanted to give it a try. Our sisters would watch old TV shows, like Saved by the Bell. They always thought Zack was the cutest and they would sit there for forever and talk about how cute he was. We thought they were disgusting, and we'd rather stick with our Little Mermaid.
Seeing her just always brings up memories. I can't look at her without remembering part of my childhood. It's like she carries part of it with her, and I'm sure I do the same with her.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember as much as she used to. It's been so long since we've seen each other. But seeing her reminds me of the joyful, carefree times we used to have, running around, being scrawny little girls in overalls with curly hair climbing trees and playing pranks on our grandpa. I miss that..

More names I've been interested in lately...

I need to keep track of these so I can go back and look at what I liked when I'm older:)


Logan
Savannah
Dayton
Kaia or Kya
Nolan
Delaney
Ella Madeline
Makenzie
cody
Kendra
Joseph
Maya
Tristan
Lexi
Sienna
Rori
Aiden
Kaylee
Hannah
Olivia
Blakely
Brennan
Klare
Keeley
Jace
Kambryn
Dylan
Brett

People think I like a lot of weird names, but it only matters about what I think and what makes me happy:) I think they're all unique and pretty in their own way.

Favorites:

Logan Daniel
Jace Dylan
Brett William

Delaney Elyse
Ella Madeline
Rori Danielle

Dog names I like:
Girl: Coco & Lucy
Boy: Sam & Koda

My weekend

So, over the weekend, Taylor Daughtrey (I've been friends with her since age 2), was talking to me on Facebook and asked me to come over. So, I was like what the heck, and went to her house! It was a blast! Accept for her little brother, Minden, who's 5, wasn't there, which made me sad :( He has this crush on me and it's so CUTE! Whenever I left, Taylor's stepmom, Lisa said that Minden kept asking and asking when I was going to come over again and he would try to sound so nonchalant about the whole thing! That little 5-year-old Casanova! Haha :) He seriously is cute, though, and I felt realllllyyyy bad because he's been waiting so long for me to come over and the day I come over he's not there. So I told Taylor to have Minden call me tonight! Haha we sound like we're a couple and he's only 5. He has the cutest Canadian accent, though, not going to lie. I think it's so cute that I'm his first crush :) He's going to be a little stud when he gets older. A troublemaker, but nonetheless a STUD. We watched movies and painted our nails and did our hair, then we had pizza, talked about our future and went to bed. The homemade pizza was really good. Then, we decided to take pictures today so we took like 64 pictures, uploaded them on facebook (which took FOREVER because we edited all of them and then had to figure out why her computer was being jank!). But, we took an adventure to the woods, which, for me, was the best part. Her backyard is technically all woods. And it's SOO fun to climb the hills and there was this really long log that was over this nasty creek and we had to balance to get across. And then we walked on this like 10 foot wall that was above all her woods and the view was so pretty. I felt like Pocahontas (whom I wish I was) roaming through the woods, and I felt like I was sneaking around. It was really fun for me! I got the movie Thumbelina tonight. I try to collect Disney movies on DVD because I know, eventually, they aren't going to have VCR's around at all. But I'm going to keep my DVD player so when I have kids I can play all their movies on the DVD player. I want them to watch movies and have part of their childhood, so that way when they ask me when they're older what they're favorite Disney movie was, I can be like, "Beauty and the Beast" or "Sword and the Stone." I'm also scared that Disney movies will disappear by the time I'm older, so that's why I'm collecting them now. Anyways, my plans for tonight are to clean my room, watch Thumbelina while eating Taco Salad, relax, and then wake up for church tomorrow. Daylights saving time starts soon so it's going to feel like I lose an hour of sleep. I'm kind of excited though because it's going to stay lighter longer, which I love. I'm going to stop rambling now and come back later! Bye bloggers!

My recent goals.

So, I've come up with new goals! I hope I can achieve them, and I'm going to work my best to earn them.

- Paint my room orange and purple! (And probably add some zebra, maybe?) Hopefully this can get done during this spring! And if we get that done, then I want to kind of redo my room. Like, rearrange it and get more stencils. Stencils, sadly, didn't work out last time because I lost them, but I saw some really, cute simple stencils at Joann's that I liked a lot!

- For my birthday, I want my Dad to get me a new camera, but like a professional one. I saw one that I like a lot at wal-mart. The thing is, is that it's expensive:( But then again, he spends loads of money for jordan's xbox and wii and whatnot. Maybe i'll get lucky.

- Get good grades on my finals coming up soon!

Crafts, crafts, crafts!:)

Yes. I know what you're thinking. She has no life, does she? I was just wondering the same thing. It's like we're twins, right? ;) Anyways, as Easter and St. Patty's day draw closer, I was looking for some cool crafts to do (at least, if I had kids, I would do them. I think they're pretty nifty). The first craft is very basic. An Easter bunny mask:) I think EVERY kid deserves to have the experience of making an Easter mask for at least ONE Easter of their life. Here's how to do it:

What you'll need:
1/2 sheet craft foam
4" x 1" strip of craft foam in contrasting color
Glitter glue (pink and white) optional
scissors
12" elastic
Stapler
Electrical tape
Pattern

There's the link to the pattern.

1. Print the pattern and cut it out
2. Place pattern onto the craft foam. Leave enough room on the left side of the foam as you will fold the foam and cut it.
3. Trace the pattern onto the foam.
4. Fold the foam in half so that the left side of the pattern is in line with the fold.
5. Hold the foam firmly so that it does not move around and cut around the pattern. Unfold the craft foam and you should have a full face mask.

6. Cut the eyes out.
7. Use glitter glue (optional)
8. Cut the whiskers from the 4" x 1" strip of craft foam. Glue three whiskers on each cheek.
9. Staple the elastic to the mask, stapling to the back side.
10. Trim any excess and cover the sharp edges the staples with black electrical tape.

St. Patty's Day craft: Handprint Rainbow

What you need:
1 sheet light blue construction paper
Acrylic craft paint: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white

1. Place construction paper on work surface in front of child
2. Have child curve their hand and paint (start with red) the side of the hand along the pinky and down to the heel.
3. Gently press side of painted hand onto the construction paper to form half of the first rainbow ray.

4. Repeat step 2 and 3 with red paint on the other hand to form the other half of the rainbow.

5. Repeat these steps with all the colors of the rainbow, washing hands in between each other. Starting from the top of the rainbow and working downward, the order is: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
6. When rainbow is complete, have child make a fist, then paint the side of the fist generously with white paint. Press onto bottom of the rainbow to form clouds.

7. Repeat across paper under the rainbow until entirely lined by clouds.
8. Allow to dry completely.

Easter craft: Bunny Ears!

What you'll need:
White poster board
Pink construction paper
Scissors
Pencil
tacky glue or School glue
Tape or stapler
Easter stickers (optional)
Markers, crayons, or colored pencils (optional)

1. Cut a strip of poster board about 2" wide by about 24" long
2. Cut out 2 ears out of poster board
3. Cut 2 smaller ears out of pink construction paper
4. Glue the pink ears inside the white ears
5. Glue the ears inside the band, positioning to fit behind the child's head
6. Let the child decorate the headband with stickers, markers, crayons, or colored pencils if they wish.
7. Tape or staple the band to fit the child. Cut off any excess.

Found most of these at crafts.kaboose.com

I'll post some more crafts tomorrow! Enjoy!!:)

Gone for the weekend!

So on Friday, I went over to my "aunt" Cami's house and stayed there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I came home today. We had so much fun! It's always nice to get away from home for a little bit and have fun with your friends, but it's also always nice to come home. Cami's sister, Michelle, came over on Sunday, and made some pineapple cake? (my mom says it's upside down cake?). But it was REALLY good! I need to start making that at my house because it was so easy to make. Michelle brought her kids Natalie (5), Julia (3), and her new baby Andrea. It was awesome getting to see all of them since I haven't seen them since I went to visit Michelle in the hospital after having Andrea. Julia is still quite the little gremlin that she was the last time I saw her. But a cute gremlin =) Every time I laid down on the carpet Julia would climb on me and want to wrestle. That girl could wrestle for forever! She loves dinosaurs and dragons, and she's so different from her sister, Natalie. Natalie is much more dramatic, but she tells the funniest stories. Natalie waited so long because she wanted Grandma Joy to dance with her. She kept saying, "I wish Grandma Joy was here RIGHT NOW!" Natalie likes Disney princesses, and movies, and dancing. So different from her rough-house sister, Julia! Also, Julia is a little more naughty from the last time I saw her! Her and Natalie were arguing over who got to spin in the spinny chair by the computer, so Julia bit Natalie's arm and Grandpa Don and Michelle had to put her in time out. They're getting to the ages where they argue a lot more now. Good luck with that Michelle ;D But they're still some of the cutest things on the planet. Michelle french braided my hair and I fell asleep with it in, and this morning when I went to take it out it was a huge mass of waves! But I liked it! Cami and I did each other's hair for Stake Conference, which was Sunday, and we did a pretty good job! We got lots of compliments on our hair. Before I went to Cami's house we went to a party at our Young Women leader's house and just hung out. It was so much fun! We played murder in the dark in their basement and that was hilarious. I didn't think it would be fun at first but it was so cool! I was never the murder haha. Sadly, tomorrow we start school again and this whole English project has me stressed out! Tomorrow I'm probably going to have to go to my friend's house in Belleville so we can start this project, because it's due Wednesday! I hope our group doesn't have to go tomorrow! I also hope that Joy can take me to her house after piano lessons. I just don't know how we're going to do this! Ugh. This is why I hate Honors English. It puts so much stress on you! Our group wanted to do it today, but Caitlyn has to sell her horse today so we couldn't. This would've been the perfect day to do it, too, because no one else in our group had plans. Once this project is over, I won't be as nearly as stressed out. On Wednesday, I have another project due in English as well but that's not as nearly as hard to do. I just need cardstock and glue. But the weekend is over and it's back to the daily grind. Oh joy.

Sara, don't move to Scipio! We love you too much!

Julia:)

Natalie:)

She's such an animal lover!