Lovely Clouds

Yesterday Mom looked out the window during dinner and said, "Look at those pretty clouds!" I glanced out and they were so gorgeous!

This one is out towards the east.

This is the sunset. I went out in front of our house just in time. Five minutes later it wasn't near as nice.

Birthday Photos

I am now officially 14, as of 8:55 pm on January 14.

Whenever one of the kids has a birthday, Mom always tries to take a picture at the minute they were born.

Here are the pictures from my birthday on Saturday.

I had a cake with horse models on top of it a couple years ago, and I had saved the horse models. I had wanted another cake like that one, but Helena hadn't wanted to make it. So we decided to just have cupcakes with the horse models on top. We used blue Sour Belts for the streams, red apples for apples, and jelly beans and chocolate rocks for rocks.

Helena making the cupcakes.

The finished cupcakes from one side...

...from the other side...

...and from the top.

What do you think?

Also presents.

A sweater and a model horse from Mara.

Along with a Klutz twirled paper book.

A big box from Benedick with...

...a puppy inside that wags its tail
when you rub its back.

A cute rubber stamp with a bird on it,
and hair things from Helena.

FRESH CHERRIES!! From Grammy.

And a balloon puzzle, also from Grammy.

The 4th season of the Richard Greene
Robin Hood TV show, from Mom and Dad.

And THE 101 G.A. HENTY NOVELS ON CD!!!!
Also from Mom and Dad.
I have always loved the G.A. Henty books, and
when we came across this I immediately put
it on my wishlist! I am so happy I got it!!! 

I loved watching the 1935 "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for my birthday! It was everything I was expecting, and more!! I had just read it, but I didn't know that the movie was going to be so funny! I especially liked the Pyramus and Thisbe performance at the end! I thought it was hilarious!! The whole movie was great. I guess when you take a book that has some pretty funny parts, and make it into a movie with actors who add little tiny things, and just add their whole manner of acting, it will end up pretty funny. I must have watched it 3 or 4 times since my birthday!

P.S. If you are wondering why it's been so long since I posted, blame it on my Henty CD. I've been reading it as much as possible.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 14th birthday!!
Dad always puts up signs whenever there's a birthday for one of the children. He tries to make the things on the sign have the person's age in them, and make them about things that the child really likes.

Here are some of my birthday signs.

I really love horses, so for my dessert tomorrow -when we celebrate- for dessert we are going to have cupcakes with little horse models on top (not edible).

Tomorrow we are also going to watch the 1935 "A Midsummer Night's Dream!

A couple days ago I got my third follower. Just in time for my birthday! How nice!

When we go out shopping, I always look for dropped money on the ground.

We are going to have spaghetti for dinner tonight, and then have the real celebration tomorrow, when Mara will be home.

We went out shopping yesterday and Mom bought me two helium balloons.

I named them. The purple one is Benedick, and the pink one is Beatrice, from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

My balloon weight. Mom said the lady filling them with helium
picked out the nicest one. 

Fresh Orange Juice

Mom, Helena, Benedick, and me went to Grammy's house awhile back, and while we were there we picked a whole bunch of oranges off her trees. We juiced a lot of them today.

Doesn't it look delicious?

Christmas Decorations Part 2

I know it's after Christmas, but I thought you still might enjoy seeing more Christmas decorations.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments from our tree:

These bells are Mara's.	I really like this cardinal.
Dad says this is his favorite ornament.	You can't really see her, but this ballerina spins in a circle!
We always use this tree topper.	The spinning carousel is Helena's.

Christmas Cookies

Our other Christmasy day-before-Thanksgiving activity was baking cookies.

We made three kinds: sugar cookies (with no frosting), peanut butter cookies (with peanut butter cups), and ginger thins. We listened to Mannheim Steamroller Christmas CDs while we were working, which was fun.

The sugar cookies were "Sugar Drop Cookies with Oil", from Joy of Cooking.

Lots of ingredients.

Putting dry ingredients in the sifter...it looks like a snowy mountain.

It looks like snow after you put it in the sifter too.
You can see it falling!

You make little balls of dough and roll them in a bowl of sugar.
This is a good time to take a lot of tastes of the dough.

Benedick washed the cookie sheets as we emptied them.

Finished sugar cookies! Don't they look good?

We got the recipe for the peanut butter cookies from a recipe Mom got from a friend a while back.

Making the peanut butter cookies.

The dough in the fridge next to our Thanksgiving turkey.

Peanut butter cups ready to go on the cookies.

Finished peanut butter cookies!

The last cookies were Helena's specialty: Ginger Thins from Joy of Cooking. Helena always says she will never make them again, because they are so much work, but Mara talked her into it.

Helena making the ginger thins.

The finished ginger thins!

We're going to send some of the cookies to friends away at college, but we definitely get some for ourselves too. I wish all of you were here to help taste them too!

Christmas Decorations Part 1

I know for some people it just isn't done, but we started putting up our Christmas decorations the day before Thanksgiving.

It was Mara's and my idea to buy additional decorations and put them up this early. Normally we just do a tree and a Nativity and Christmas lights, but we decided we wanted more greenery this year, so we bought some garlands and wreaths (all fake, so we'll be able to reuse them in the future).

Here's a before picture:

Our entryway as seen from the front door

Michael's had all their Christmas decorations on sale, and a 20% off your entire purchase coupon in addition. So for less than $20, we got:

Christmas supplies

Two 18-inch wreaths, two 18-foot garlands, red ribbon, 70 jingle bells, and several miscellaneous gold and red wreath picks.

Eighteen feet is a lot!

Mara hung the garland in the entryway.

We used little pieces of green pipe cleaner, so that it would blend in. We then twisted it around a couple little nails that we put up. We also did the same thing with jingle bells:

Garland with jingle bells

 Here's the after picture:

Decorated entryway as seen from the front door

We still haven't put up the wreaths or the other garland (we can't decide where to put it) but we will put them up soon.