12th Birthday Party

Wow! I just had an AWESOME day! I got to spend time with my best friend, and then I had an awesome party with some of the people I love most. My party this year had no theme, but it was a backyard party complete with a slip and slide, water balloons, volleyball, and Minute to Win It games.
For dinner, we had hot dogs. As for dessert this year, I couldn't make up my mind. It was down to ice cream cake, cookie cake, and ice cream cupcakes. I chose cupcakes in the end. They didn't have Blue Bell in them, but they were still pretty amazing! :)
But one of my favorite parts of the party was the party favors. This year, I wanted to do something a little different. The first thing I thought of was a candy bar where you go through and fill a box with any candy you want. It was a great way to send people home all sugared up!
These are some of the birthday party highlights:


Chillin'


What was left of watermelon














Card in the melon Minute to Win It (REALLY fun to say!)


Getting a card in the watermelon








Ice cream cupcakes


Giant Jenga


Slip and Slide


Slip and Slide


Water balloons





Cotton ball/Vaseline Minute to Win it challenge


Birthday selfie (Photo courtesy of Pibby)

Pecan Day!

After church today, Grandma came over to crack and shell pecans (from our yard) for pecan pie. While Mommy and Grandma were at the table on the porch doing that, Noble and I walked around the backyard with our pecan picker-uppers hunting for pecans. Mommy made a deal with us that for every pecan we picked up, she would pay us 5 cents. That way, we would want to pick up pecans.

After we worked for almost two hours, I collected a total of 514 pecans, and Noble collected 130. While we picked up that many, Mommy and Grandma only cracked a few because it was hard. They thought it would be easy, but they quickly learned it was not. These are the pecans they cracked...



And these are the pecans Noble and I picked up today, and on Thanksgiving.

Volunteering

On Wednesday afternoon, Mommy and Noble went to our animal shelter while I was at my Junior Ment meeting. They went to ask about something for our cats (now that they are allowed outside), and while they were there they signed us up to volunteer after-school today.
   So, this afternoon, Mommy, Noble, Daddy and I went to volunteer at the animal shelter. We were only there for 30 minutes, but in that amount of time we had so much fun! We got to see all of the animals that are up for adoption, and we got to play with 4 different cats (SO cute!) and 3 dogs (precious!). They were all so lovable, and we wanted to take all of them home. And when Mommy and Noble went on Wednesday, they had three puppies that Mommy wanted to adopt SO BADLY. But, they thought there was something wrong with them, and we wouldn't have been able to keep them. And today while we were there, the lady that helped us said that there really wasn't anything wrong with the puppies, they just thought there was. She also said that they had all been adopted already. Mommy was really sad to hear that!
P.S. We are taking donations for the shelter like old blankets, newspapers, and wet cat food. If you have anything that is old or you don't use, I think the animal shelter would be grateful for anything you could donate.

Harry Potter Marathon

Over the Christmas Holidays, I hosted a Harry Potter marathon at my house for my friends. We watched all 8 movies in 23 hours and 45 minutes, only because we slept through a movie and a half, then replayed them both. We tried to have a British theme with the food, so we had fish and chips for dinner, and I made butterbeer cupcakes for dessert. (Which were excellent by the way.)



http://sugarbeanbakers.blogspot.com/2013/10/butterbeer-cupcakes.html?m=1









I was supposed to make a butterbeer buttercream, but it was last minute no we didn't have one ingredient. So, I whipped up some vanilla buttercream that was wonderful with the cake. For liners and toppers, I used some London themed decorations that I got as a set from Sur La Table. (Does anyone know how to say that correctly?)



While we watched the movies, we snacked on chips, candy, nuts, crackers, and all sorts of other good stuff. (I can't even tell you how much junk food I ate that night!) This is our snack and candy counter.










And to complete our night of fun, we took selfies with the TV and put mustaches on Ron. :)














































(Personally, I think Ron looks better with a mustache!)

We're not going to Walmart....

Last night at dinner, Mommy was trying to get Noble to eat, and she said it was because we had to go to Walmart to pick up pictures. She was trying to get him to hurry, because the photo lab was going to close. So, she hurried us into the car, and we headed to Walmart. (We were going a CRAZY way! Nobody goes to Walmart the way we were going!) And, Mommy asked Daddy where we were going in that parent voice. (Parent voice- we are up to something, so listen closely.) And Daddy said that he was going to turn around. We pulled into the movie theater, and he pulled the car around. He was actually just parking in a crazy spot to make Noble believe him. And when we parked, Noble was kind of upset (I know, right!) that we were at the movie theater!
  It turned out that we were going to see Annie for the second time. (Mommy, Noble, and I saw it in Granbury. Daddy hadn't seen it.) Noble and I sang along with the songs, because we knew them all! If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it! Afterwards, we went home and got ready for bed. While we were putting our pajamas on, Mommy took down our book Christmas tree, and she found one of Daddy's favorite books from when he was little. It was One Mitten Lewis. He read that to us before we went to bed, and it was about a boy that always loses one of his two mittens. After going through, like, 7 pairs of mittens, he figures out that he can wear them mismatched. Way to go, Lewis! :)

Best. Bread. Ever.

Last night, Noble and I spent the night at my Grandma's house while my parents had an evening alone together. And lately, my Grandma has been wanting me to make a loaf of homemade bread ever since our friends brought some over when they came to our house for dinner. The bread they made was delicious! So, this morning, Grandma and I found a quick and easy crusty bread recipe that we could take to lunch with GoGo and Angus. It didn't take long to make the dough, and it didn't take long to rise. We had meatball soup for lunch, and we served my bread with it. It was wonderful! I would definitely make it again! :)
(I wish I would have taken pictures to post! Well, next time.)
Link for bread recipe

Welcome to my new old Blog!

Welcome to my new blog! I have redone it to fit my personality now. I originally wanted to redo my blog so I could share what I bake. (I love to bake, mostly cupcakes) But now, I figured I could use it for several things. 

  So, I was going through some off my old posts the other day, and I smiled at every single one I looked at. I was in kindergarten in first grade in most of those. Now I'm 11 and in sixth grade!!

   I had an assignment at school this week to write an essay about my New Year's resolutions. I don't usually have resolutions, but I did this year. My main goal was to start posting on my blog more often. So far I think I am doing pretty good! :)