Myself the baker.

Over the past couple of months I have become quite the little cook and I didn't even notice it. It seems as if everything I cook comes out tasting pretty good, and now I have more motivation to learn how to cook. I want to be a really great cook like my mom and dad and be able to make healthy meals. I make great salads! But unfortunately..those aren't really that nutritious if you eat them all the time...

Busy day!

Today I was not home at all! I spent the whole day with Keturah and her cousin, Gina. After church we went to lunch with Keturah's family, then we zoomed off to the mall for about two and a half hours, then we went to Tropical smoothie and sat there for almost an hour. We talked, laughed, basically just had a good time. Then we went to Keturah's house and hung out for a bit, then Gina had to leave to head back home. So Keturah and I went to pick up dinner for her family. We ate dinner, then went to wal-mart to get stuff for Keturah's trip back to Texas on Thursday. That's right...she's leaving again for another five and a half months. It's crazy! I can't believe how fast this month and a half has gone by since she's been back home, and now she's already leaving again. I know i'll be fine, though. Yeah, I'll miss her, but I know what it's going to be like this time and I know what to expect while she's gone. Things will only change if I allow them to change. I just wish more people understood that..

Ugly to pretty.

Today my mom and I went to return some clothes that my Grandma has bought me for Christmas that I would never in a million years wear. I love my Grandma to death, but she's a bit old fashioned...
So I ended up getting this new outfit and another shirt. Along with exchanging a jacket for a different size and basically just a whole bunch of running around with my mom. It was a good day.

Sarge the husky wolf.

This was the only picture I took today. Sarge is my big baby boy. He's 12 or 13 years old and i'm starting to worry about him. Sometimes he goes through stages when he doesn't do too well, but then he comes right back. He's lost a lot of weight over the past couple of months though. But I may as well enjoy him while he's around. God has blessed our family with some of the sweetest dogs ever! I know Trinity will come around soon. She's just got quite a few puppy-like tendencies.

Say hello...

To my new camera. Yes!

A Christmas Eve walk.

On the Eve on Christmas my step-dad, step-siblings, Clayton and myself all went for a walk. It was a pretty neat place to take some pretty pictures. This is one of my favorites from the whole walk.

A memorable Christmas.

This is my mom's Christmas gift. I put together a bunch of old pictures and wrote a note for her. When she opened it, it was beautiful.

Back in the day...

I went through a bunch of old pictures on Monday night and has a lot of fun. This one is from a trip to visit our aunt and we went to the zoo. We have a lot of memories at that zoo!

The movies.

On Sunday night when I got home I really just needed to get away from home. So I went the the movies with Keturah. We saw 4 Christmas together. It was a cute movie, although there were a few things about it I didn't like. It was a good movie for some good laughs.

Youth Christmas party.

I went to the youth Christmas party and this is what I came home with. I've been thinking about leaving the youth group because I think i'm too old to be in there now. A whole new group of kids just came in within the past few months and they are all in middle school. I don't think I want to be around that. So I guess this was my last hurrah.

Michael the viking.

I went to the adult Christmas party at my church. It was a good time. We did a chinese gift exchange and Michael ended up grabbing her gift and getting stuck with it. It was hilarious. Then a man that was there that rides motorcycles said that he would take it and ride around on his motorcycle with it on. Good times.

The Christmas concert.

Tonight I went to my old high school for the band Christmas concert. There were some good parts, and some bad parts. I think it was just exciting to see everyone during and after the show. I have to say that I am so not used to being in an environment where everywhere I turn there is profanity coming out of this person's mouth and that person's mouth. It makes me so sad, and it really hurts my ears. It always makes me realize how accustomed I was to hearing all of this disgusting talk before I started homeschooling. Now that i'm pretty much always away from it, it makes me sick to my stomach...*sigh*

Famous salad.

In this household I am famous for my colorful and delicious salads. I made one tonight to go along with dinner. It was delicious. and the tomatoes were SO delicious. Tomatoes are one of my favorite foods ever. I eat it almost every single day.

P.S. The bowl on the right is for compost.

Festive socks!

I never thought there would be a day where I featured my foot in a photo, but this is the day! Don't you like my new socks? I do!

Headache,

Yep, you guessed it! I had another headache. What else is new? Story of my life! and i'm exhausted. Way too many late nights and early mornings.

P.S. I know. That's a really disgusting picture of me.

Our special tree.

Every year for Christmas we ALWAYS have real Christmas trees at my mom's house. That's just the way it's always been. Well, this year is a little different and for very good reason. As many of you know, my Grandma is dying of cancer. It's honestly gotten so bad that we all know she won't be around for much longer after Christmas. It's breaking our hearts and I hate every moment of it. But since it will be our last Christmas all together as a family we want to make it as special as possible. The Christmas tree that we have put up in our house is my Grandma and Grandpa's 30+ year old Christmas tree. It's beautiful and it brings back so many memories from Christmases past. My aunts, uncles and cousins know nothing about us having it, so hopefully it will be as special to them as it has been for us.

Brrr!

I always know when it's really cold outside when my bedroom windows are all fogged up. Yes, yes, I know. You're going to ask me "What is really cold for you?" Well..good news for you..I'm not answering that! HAH! I win! I always get super excited when I see what is shown above though, because cold weather just makes me happy and makes me feel free. Too bad it warmed up right away...

Ouch!

On Wednesday I bit my tongue really hard after church. It was still hurting really bad a few days afterward. I know this photo looks really really weird. Oh well!

Warmth.

Today I traveled two and a half hours north of where I live with my mom to bring my brother back home from school for Christmas vacation. It was cloudy and dark when we left this morning because there was a cold front coming. The weather continued to get worse as we went further north. It was 74 when we got off of I-95 and within 10-15 minutes the temperature had dropped 11 degrees. The rain was pouring down and it was perfect timing! Actually..the sarcasm is just oozing out of me. My brother and I got drenched in the rain from running up and down the stairs, getting his stuff out of his dorm room and then running out into the pouring rain to get stuff in the car. After we left and had been on the road for maybe a half an hour we stopped at cracker barrel for lunch and all had hot meals. To top it off, we all got hot cocoa for the road. It was yummy!

Light of the world.

God has been doing some amazing things in my life this past week. He's been teaching me a lot about who I am as a person and he's been teaching me about other people. I want to be a light for the Light of the world. But I can't do that without Him by my side leading me through and lighting up the darkness.

It's fixed!

So I blogged maybe a month and a half or two months back about my sick power chord. Well..early last week it completely died on me. After attempting to order a new one I got sent the wrong part, and this time the second time was the charm. Now it doesn't crackle and pop and it's definitely no all bi-polar about when it wants to work. I like new things.

Bethlehem Skyline tour.

My favorite musicians are all out on tour together right now. Downhere, Jason Gray, Jaime Jamgochian, Daniel Kirkley and Lanae' Hale. Tonight there was a live broadcasting of it and I got to watch a show from Texas in my bedroom. It was a beautiful concert, and it will have to do since I can't make it to a show on this tour.

My village.

I put my Christmas village together on Sunday. It's been the one thing i do all by myself for decorating for a few years now. It's one of my favorite things to do every year and I look forward to it. In the above picture I wasn't done with it yet. I still had to add snow, trees, cars and frozen water. What can I say? It's my own winter wonderland!

Reunited!

Sarah and I haven't really hung out since the summer. She was here all weekend long and we definitely got our sisterly bonding time in. I love this girl, and I miss her so much when she is gone. Especially for long periods of time. Whenever she's gone for long periods of time, I realize how much she is growing up and how fast she is growing up. I wish we had gotten along better four years ago when I first met her, but maybe it didn't happen that way for a reason.

Tea for two.

On Friday night the ladies at my church had a Christmas party. We enjoyed fellowshipping together throughout the night. At the end of the night we got to pick a gift from beneath the Christmas tree. This is what I picked out! Tea for two! I plan on sharing this with my mommy!

Day 100!

This...i forget what day it was, marked the 100th day for my little blog. It's been an exciting journey, so here's to 100 more!

P.S. I know that i've been really bad about updating my blog these past few days. I feel like i'm on a roller coaster and I just want to get off. But i'm going to make an effort to not go five days without updating.

Scared out of my mind.

I just did one of the scariest things I have ever done in my life. I put God in complete control of my life and I don't like it one bit. He told me that I need to go to Texas for five months for Youth With A Mission. I don't like God very much right now at all. I don't want to leave my family for five months while my Grandma is dying, but for some reason He's telling me it's okay. I don't want to go out of my comfort zone, but for some reason he's telling me to take a leap of faith and just do it. I'm already out of my comfort zone and I haven't even left yet. Please pray for me.

Girls night out.

Tonight was supposed to be a girls night out. We went to Applebee's for dinner and Brittany's family all ended up being there. That's cool. Afterward we went to Brittany's boyfriends basketball game. I think I had the most fun laughing at the loss of the team. That sounds mean..but if you were there you probably would have laughed, too!

Mint Medley.

I had a really bad headache last night. So I drank some tea and it didn't really make me feel better. But it still felt good to drink some delicious tea...

Heather and Jeremiah.

These are my wonderful youth leaders. On Sunday a few people from the youth group went to their new house that they just bought and helped paint. There's a lot of painting that needs to be done, but by the time we left it looked so much better than it did when we walked in. There was a point when the fumes from the paint and cleaner and everything just started getting to us though. Then we went insane and started painting ourselves. It was a good time, and we got a lot done.

Secret sis.

On Saturday night I went to my friend Kim's birthday party. I've known her for a long time. She was also my secret sis this year and I revealed myself to her on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. She moved at the end of October. I'll miss her. :-(

Magnificent memories.

My aunt allowed me to go through pictures that she's taken over the past year and pick out my favorites. The three on the top are from Labor Day. Along with the one in the middle and the one of the right. The one of the left is from Memorial Day, I think and the one on the bottom is from my birthday weekend. On Labor Day I was having a really hard time with everything going on with my Grandma. I spent basically the whole entire time in my room crying and you can see the tears in my eyes in those pictures. I love the way my grandma looks at her whole battle with cancer. She remains positive throughout it all, even when things are tough. i spent a long time talking to her on Thanksgiving and she just thinks it's a bunch of nonsense. That's what she called it. I know that she's not ready to give up, but it hurts me to see her not having a choice...

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had our whole family over on Thanksgiving. All 17 of us gathered around three different tables with very much food. This Thanksgiving I was particularly thankful for my family. The fact that we could all be together one more year was amazing. Sadly, i'm afraid it won't that way next year. My Grandma is getting worse as the days pass and my Grandpa is getting worn out. I pray that we can be just as strong next year as we have been this year.

My youth group.

This is my youth group. Tonight we had a thingy for thanksgiving I guess. It was really awesome. We ate first, then did worship, then spent a lot of time in deep prayer. As time went on, I didn't even feel like I was sitting in that room. It felt like I was in heaven. It was one of the most amazing feelings ever. I pray that I can really take something from tonight and apply it to my life. All those things that we were praying. I pray that it all becomes true in my life.

Refrigerator explosion.

This morning my mom had just gotten back from buying all of the things we need for Thanksgiving. We are having all of our family over, so we have a huge 25 pound turkey, five million bags of stuffing, a billion potatoes, a trillion apples. You get the idea. Well..my mom was cleaning out the refrigerator before she put this huge abundance of food in. Washing the shelves and everything. So she took the bottom shelf out, let it sit for a little while to warm up on its own, put it in hot soapy water to wash it, then took it out and was putting it back into the refrigerator when it suddenly exploded right in her hands. Yeah...pretty crazy! So all of this glass went EVERYWHERE! and I was the one that got to shop vac it up.

I don't get joy out of the mundane.

Today was a day that I just kept thinking "I want to go back to sleep, I want to go back to sleep, I WANT to go back to sleep" The only thing that I did today that's worth mentioning is emptied the dishwasher. Yeah...boring, right? I thought so too. I have had a splitting headache since after lunch and it will NOT go away. I took an hour and a half nap and it went away from approximately five minutes. I hate the mundane things of life sometimes...

Making the best of goodbyes.

Today was my last day with my wonderful friends. It was definitely sad to say goodbye to them. I have no idea when the next time is that I see Gina and that makes me sad. But I may get to see Ryan in January at the Jason Gray concert at my church. That would be a lot of fun it if worked out. Gina and I had a fun photoshoot in the back of the car today to make up for what we missed the rest of the weekend being so busy. It was fun. Back to real life tomorrow. Boo!

Fabulous friends.

So..on this fine night Gina, Ryan and I all went out and played pool for two hours. I thought I was really bad at pool, but I guess I was wrong. By the end of the first hour I had won two games and Ryan and won two games. Gina had won none, but that's okay! She was very gracious about it. Then by the end of the second hour Ryan and I just couldn't break the tie. I had won three and he had also done the same. Gina ended up winning two. So she definitely redeemed herself. We went back to their house and Ryan made us frappachino's and we ate some cookies together. Some other very awkward things went on between the pool hall, the car ride and home. Let's just say that my pool stick has a mind of it's own. Ryan has a problem with kissing your hand and hitting the roof while you go under a yellow light, and Ryan likes to bathe with his intruments.

Homemade cookies.

On Friday I went down to Boynton Beach for a fun weekend with my friends Gina and Ryan. Gina is from the downhere message boards and Ryan is her brother. I met them both back in December at my first Jason Gray show. But anyways...we didn't really do much on Friday, but we did made cookies. They were GOOD. Gina is a cookie monster. :-P

The sunset.

This was the beauty that I watched all the way down to Sarah's soccer game on Thursday night. It was so breathtaking. God's creation is so amazing!

Break-in's.

Last night there were apparently 10 car robberies on my street. The house two doors down from me had their car window smashed in and a purse was stolen out of the car. I don't really know why you would leave your purse in your car, but still..it's unfortunate. The house across the street from me was stolen from. Car..same difference. Those are the only two that I know of, but it's still crazy! Our cars were fine. We have two. My mom's and then my brothers. My brother doesn't keep anything valuable in his car and he locks his doors, so that's probably why. The above picture is from when the people from the news station were reporting down the street from us on the 5:30 news. Thank you Jesus for keeping us safe!

The great return of Keturah!

Keturah came home last night, and I got to see her today! Keturah, her boyfriend Wayne, her two brothers and myself drove around town and had adventures together. This afternoon while we were driving around her car definitely over heated, started smoking and couldn't be driven, or it probably would have exploded at any given moment. That was probably the most adventurous thing that happened. I look forward to better adventures than that this next month and a half that she's home.

P.S. I have no idea why my hair looks so bad in this picture. But it does. BOO!

Nikole and the accidental invite.

Tonight my friend Nikole sent me an IM inviting me to a chat on meebo. I checked it out, but it turned out it was accidental. But we then ended up to continue chatting, which was perfectly fine with me! I usually only video chat with my friends from far away lands, but it was nice to see Nikole's face tonight while I was just relaxing after a stressful day.

Joyful memories.

This afternoon I was talking to my wonderful friend, Gina, and she motivated me to get caught up on my memory book. I guess you could call it that. I save things from the really fun things that happen in my life. I started it last May when I went to Cornerstone Florida. There are a lot of concert tickets and stuff like that from concerts. Which is definitely one of my most favorite things. In this picture there are cards from my wonderful friends Julie and Liz. Then some stuff from the Switchfoot show I went to back on April 26th. Definitely one of the best live shows I have ever attended. I have kept all of the cards I have gotten from all of my friends from far away, because I think they are very sweet and they bring joy to my heart. Especially since I still have yet to meet half of them, they allow me to look forward to when we actually do meet face to face.

Beauty from pain.

Tonight we held a surprise birthday party for a lady at my church named Susan. It was a whirlwind of different things. It was fun, as you can see above, it was emotional, but in the end the only word I can use to describe it is beautiful. This woman is so inspirational. She is battling cancer and is a true role model. She constantly has a glowing smile on her face that can light up a whole room. Her radiance just rubs off on you, and when I see her smiling she literally makes my day better. She sits in the very front row in church on Sunday's and is always praising the Lord with all that she has. We went around the room tonight and told her why our lives are better with her in them. I didn't talk, because everyone around the room said all that I wanted to say. Throughout all of this, I couldn't help but to think of two people that are very dear to my heart. My grandma being one of them and Ron being the other. This morning I got news that Ron wasn't doing well at all and that he was being taken off of chemo and starting care with hospice. It literally broke my heart for Ron, Lori and their young son, Ben. I've met all three of them, and they are all so very sweet. Not only that, but I know the pain right after being notified that there will no longer be any treatment to try and kill this wretched thing known as cancer. I was there when my mom got the call from my Grandpa back on August 19th, 2008. I watched it tear my mom's insides up and sat there fearful, because my mom was breaking in two. I sat there not knowing how to handle my emotions. I was scared, worried, sad...I didn't know how to handle it. So I sat in my room completely numb. I believe that I have been numb up until today. Trying to ignore the fact that my Grandma is dying. Hoping that she will be here to see me get married one day. But I know that she won't be. My Grandma means so much to me and she is a total inspiration to me, too. I know that once she leaves this earth and goes to live with Jesus Christ, along with Susan and Ron that they will be in paradise. Living with their King. No longer suffering and in pain. While the ones they left behind may be suffering in their wake, we still have the hope of Jesus Christ. We know where we are going in the end. Jesus will be holding us in the palm of his hand comforting us the whole way. We can get through this. We all can.

I failed today.

I failed to take a picture yesterday, because to be quite honest, my day was extremely dull and boring. Last night I got picked up at 10:30 to see the new James Bond movie with four other guys. Yeah..it was a weird situation. My friend David still had to pick up our other friend Josh from work, so that was another 10 minutes, then 10 more minutes to the mall. By the time we got there it was 11:00 or something and it was too late for us to go into the movie. So David, Josh and myself ended up going to Walmart to buy a movie to go to the house that David is house sitting at and watch it. So Josh bought Get Smart. I saw it when it first came out, and loved it then. I don't watch many movies because I don't like how so many movies have to have sex in them for absolutely no reason at all. Get Smart is a pretty clean movie. Except for a few things that are a little questionable, I enjoyed it. Enough for me to watch it a second time. Which is saying something. I didn't get home until after 2 this morning. Crazy! But fun!

Banjo Kazooie.

Yes, I play video games sometimes. I played a Nintendo 64 for the first time when I was 5 years old. Throughout that time we got many different games to play on it. Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie were two of those games. Well..yesterday Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts came out for Xbox 360. My brother reserved it and bought it yesterday. I've played my fair share these past two days and am loving it! It's so crazy how much STUFF there is to do in this game. I played for quite a few hours today and I feel like i've done nothing. Not only that, but it took me an hour and a half to beat the dumb witch because I don't know how to build my own car. When I said I play video games sometimes, that doesn't mean I actually really know how to play them. Or drive the stinking car either!

A moonlight drive.

The moon was outrageous tonight after church. It was lighting up the whole parking lot while I was sitting there. I watched it on my way home. I love the moon! Just not when it shines brightly through my blinds and keeps me awake at night.

The knot.

The past two days I have had a knot or something on the left side of my neck. I think I must have slept on it wrong or something. But it sure has been uncomfortable.

I ended up taking this picture today. I discovered this setting on my camera called Copy that I had never used before. I absolutely love it though. I love the focusing it does on my photos. I ended up experimenting with it a bit this afternoon taking pictures of flowers and stuff. I'm really pleased with the way they came out.

The Library Card.

This library card has a story of its own. It has over 10 years of stories built into it. I got my very own library card when I was 4 or 5 and I was so proud of myself for it. I always feared that I was going to lose it and then I would be in BIG trouble. I still have yet to lose it, and I don't want to get rid of it now. I laugh every single time I see my little signature on it, then that day comes back into my mind. I remember the trouble I had with that N. I was so frustrated that I messed it up, because I wanted it to look perfect. I miss being 5 years old.