Christmas!

    I hope that you had an amazing Christmas, I know that I sure did! The first thing that we did was open our presents from Santa. I got a Flip camcorder. Justin got a metal detector, Ryan got a firehouse, Abigail got a doll nursery, and Tyson got a ................DOG! We were all very excited about that one except for my dad, he is the reason that we haven't had a dog for so long, but we hope that he'll learn to love Gracie (that's our dogs name) as much as we do. By the way, Gracie is a blue heeler-border collie mix. She is very smart, very cute, and very nice. Everyone got basically the same thing in their stockings: socks, underwear, a mini box of cereal, and candy! After that we ate our boxes of cereal for breakfast. Next we opened all of the rest of our presents. Some of my presents were: tennis balls, clothes, lots of books, a thing that you can knit stuff with, yarn to knit stuff with, and some jewelry. Soon after that my grandpa and step-grandma Annabelle came over. We spent some time with them and then had a Christmas dinner of ham, potatoes, rolls,etc. They left to go pick up my aunt Darlene from the airport, and we went and played wally-ball with our friends the Hardy's. We beat them by the way. We then went home and waited for my aunt and grandparents to get back from the airport. They got here, and we ate dessert. After spending a little more time with them, they went home and we went to bed. I had a lot of fun!

I'm Not Dreaming of a White Christmas, I'm Having One!

 Here in Lubbock, Texas, snow is a rare occasion, but today, we woke up to more snow than I have ever seen! In some places it was above my knees! We went out and played in it with our friends the Hardy's. It was pretty fun, but the wind and ice blowing was awful! The snow wasn't very good packing snow as it is. It was still pretty fun though. We made snow angels, threw some snowballs, and started to make a snow fort. After about twenty minutes though, we went inside. I must say though, I think that I would have had more fun if I had a coat on! Ryan didn't last very long before he started crying, but when my mom asked him if he liked snow, he managed a "Yes" through his tears. I'm not sure how well Abigail liked playing in the snow, but she sure did like eating it! It is supposed to not melt today, and snow more tomorrow. We are all really excited!

 

Emily

 

Tyson

Justin

Ryan when we first came out.

Ryan after 15 minutes.

 

Abigail. Yummy!

The Cluff's and Hardy's in the snow!

I'm Not Magic! :(

Yesterday, Ryan was trying to turn off all of the lights in the house so that he could see the Christmas tree lights better. My mom and I needed a light to see by though, so we turned on a light whose light switch is kind of hidden. Ryan was a little upset and asked my mom how to turn it off. She replied, "You have to say, 'abracadabra, zippide-zoo, light turn off, choo choo!'" He did so and we discreetly flipped the switch. He was amazed. "Mom, I'm magic!" he delightedly said. He did this for at least five minutes. We got tired of flipping the switch, so we told him that he should probably stop before his magic ran out. He continued to believed us and stopped. Today, after church, he came down the hall saying, "Mom, I have sad news. I'm not magic." He was on the verge of tears. Apparently, he had said the magic words, but when Tyson tried to flip the switch, he saw. "There's a switch," he sadly informed us. He then went and showed us that the magic words didn't work, someone had to flip the switch. By this point, mom and I were feeling pretty guilty for tricking him, but then he really made us feel bad. "I'm not magic," he said crying, "I'm not even special." it took us quite a while to convince him that no one was magic, and that he was still incredibly special. I feel bad that we tricked him, but he had so much fun "magically" turning on the lights! 

Locks of Love

Yesterday I cut off literally a foot of my hair! My  hair used to be really long, all the way down my back. For the second time in my life, I cut off a huge amount and donated it to a foundation called Locks of Love. They take hair that someone has donated (there must be at least ten inches) and makes it into wigs for people whose hair has fallen out due to treatment for cancer. The last time that I donated, I cried after the haircut. I just didn't look like me without my long hair. The fact that the haircut itself looked bad on me didn't help. This time, I didn't cut off quite so much, and the hairstylist did a wonderful job! I'm still adjusting to having such short hair, but at least this time I like the way it looks. I am glad that I was able to donate my hair.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

On December 1, it snowed in Lubbock! I have Tennis first period in school. We are in off-season, so we were in the cafeteria working out. My coach looked outside and saw that the ground was covered in snow, and that it was still coming down hard. She went out to quickly take pictures, and we followed her and started to play in it. When she was done, she looked at us and told us that if we wanted we could stay out here and play in the snow for the rest of the period. We were ecstatic! For the next 45 minutes, we made mini snowmen, had snowball fights, and just enjoyed having enough snow to play in. We had so much fun! I was really glad that we got to do this, because about ten minutes after tennis ended, it stopped snowing. By the time we got home, there was no trace of the inch of snow that we played in earlier. I am very lucky to have such a nice coach!

Oh Abigail!

Lately, Abigail has found a new hobby; destroying everything in sight. Almost daily I come home to find that my room has been destroyed, and that some things are beyond hope of fixing. Already she has broken two of my necklaces, dumped out my dried flower petals more times that I bothered to count, and almost broken my dresser drawers. Yesterday, she colored on my homework that I had spent over 15 minutes on. Today, although she didn't destroy anything of mine, she did take Ryan's stamp and "decorate herself with it." This drives me crazy, but like my mom says, "At least that she should be past this phase by next year." I eagerly await the day when I can walk into my room without fear of what Abigail has done to it!

Power Outage

Today there was a huge power outage in the area I live. It only lasted a little over an hour, but it made me realize just how dependent we are on electricity. It was in the evening, so it was quite dark without any lights on. Also, I was babysitting my siblings at the time, and I sure did miss being able to just let them watch TV while I did homework and such. Even the traffic lights were out, so the police were there trying to direct the traffic. I guess that you have to have something taken away from you before you realize just how important it is!

My Busy Day

Yesterday was Saturday, a day that's normally pretty busy, but especially this week. My day started at 6:45 when I had to wake up and get ready for a tennis tournament that I started at 8:00. I left at 7:30 and then stayed at the tournament until about eleven. I won my first set, but lost my second. After that I went to Tyson's soccer game (sadly they lost.) Then we went home, and I baby-sat for my mom. Shortly after we went to the Fall Fest ( a school Halloween event.) It was pretty fun, I was in charge of Abigail, so I got to help her play some of the games. I had to leave early though, because I was baby-sitting for the Stevens, a family in the ward, at six (my first time to baby-sit a family other than my own!) I got to the Stevens' at 6:15 and stayed there until exactly 11:05. The baby-sitting went well, and I enjoyed it, but by the time I got home, all that I wanted to do was go to bed!

Marshmallow Guns

This Friday our friends the Hardys and us made marshmallow guns out of plumbing pipes. We had a lot of fun. After we made the guns we spray-painted them. We all had big plans, but one by one the spray paints ran out. Let's just say that we ended up with some interesting multi-colored guns! It doesn't really matter though, we still have big plans! We have lots of ideas for games, such as Capture the Flag, Hide-and-Go-Seek Tag, and more!

Ouch!

This Thursday, I jammed my finger really bad! My mom was visiting teaching and Landon, Miller, Tyson, and I were playing Three Flies Up (a game played with a football-similar to Jackpot)in our backyard. We were having a lot of fun! But then while I was running to catch the ball, Tyson and Landon ran into me. The football hit my finger and I then fell on it. Well, it was all down-hill from there. I ran into the house, and waited with an icepack on my finger for about two hours until my mom got home. It's better now, but still bruised and a little swollen. I guess this is just one of those things that hurts now and you laugh about later!

Birthday Time!

Yesterday was my birthday, and the day before that was my party. I had a ton of fun! I had a candy themed party Saturday, July 10th. It was a small party, only me, and my friends Somer, Rachel, and Mikaela, but it was still a lot of fun! We started out with cake and ice cream, my mom had made the most amazing cake! After that, we played a game where there's a sandcastle of flour with a whopper on top. You take turns cutting the mound of flour until someone make the whopper fall, the person who made the whopper fall has to pick it up with their mouth, while in the process, inevitably covering their face in flour. We payed this game many times, often with numerous whoppers on top. Throughout all of this, I was the only one who didn't once make the whopper fall. My mom suggested that I become a surgeon instead of a lawyer, I denied her suggestion. Next, we played a game in which you put socks on your hands and see who can unwrap and eat ten candy bars the fastest. I won that game, but regretted doing so when I started feeling sick. We then played a game called the Skittle Challenge. In this game, you take turns drawing two skittles out of a bowl without looking. If you get two of the same color, you can eat them, if you get two that aren't the same color, you have to put them in your mouth, but can't chew or swallow them until you draw two of the same color. You continue doing this until you have only one person left who hasn't spit theirs out. Rachel easily won this with a grand total of forty-six skittles in her mouth at one time (the highest number out of the rest of us was twenty-four.) We then did our last thing which was a candy scavenger hunt in the dark. We used flashlights to find the candy. Once we had all found all of the candies on the list, we made candy trains out of the candy we had gathered. After we were all done, we played on our Bonzai (an amazing blow up water slide) the rest of the time.
The next day was my real birthday, we started out the day with presents. My favorite was the iPod touch which was awesome! After that my parents and I went to pick up my grandpa and Annabell so we could all go out to breakfast. Annabell's birthday had been the day before and we had had a family party at her house. We went to Cracker Barrel, which has surprisingly good breakfasts. After that we had to rush to my brother Tyson's basketball game. We pretty much hung out at my house the rest of the day until seven-o-clock when we went to see Ice Age Three: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It was REALLY good, and the perfect end to a great day!

Tennis Camp

For the past four days I have been going to Tiger Tennis Camp from 1:00-4:00. I loved it! I got to work with the coaches that I will have next year for my middle school tennis team, and a lot of my friends were there. The coaches were really nice, and I learned a lot! Today, since it was our last day, we did a doubles tournament, where you play with two people on each side. We played six original rounds, and then about three or so tie-breaker rounds. In the end, there was an individual winner, a second place team, and a third place team. Believe it or not, my team won second! I was very excited(and hot and tired.) I had a ton of fun at the camp, and I can't wait to play next year!

Blogs Galore!

This week, I really wanted to get Tyson to start a blog. I suggested to him that he start a blog in which he would keep up with B.Y.U.'s sports games. My idea worked, but I ended up having to make the blog (Tyson supervised.) Well, of course, when Justin saw that now both Tyson and I had blogs, he wanted one too. I agreeded to this and made him a blog as well. I thought that this would be the last of it, but then Justin needed help writing in his blog, and of course, I was the lucky one asked to help him. Now, none of this seemed too bad, and I was glad that they were both starting blogs, but then they decided that they needed to add more to their blogs. I had to help Justin find a background on www.thecutestblogontheblock.com, which took a while because, since he is a boy, and since Tyson was there telling him that all of the backgrounds were much too girly, he had some trouble finding one that was masculine enough for him. Then Tyson decided to use my mom's suggestion of putting a poll on his blog, where people can vote for who they think should be B.Y.U.'s MVP. Well, let's just say that it took a while for me to find out how to make a poll, and to actually get it to work. All in all, a simple suggestion turned out to work a little better than I wanted it to. But even with all that, I am glad that I was able to finally convince them to start blogs!

Oh Where, Oh Where Could it Be?

In July, I will start going to Young Womens. One of my goals this year is to complete the activities in my Faith in God booklet before I go to Young Womens so that I can earn my Faith in God award. I am having some trouble doing that because after completing my pedigree chart, I couldn't find it, I figured that I had just left it somewhere, and that it would turn up soon, so I didn't think much of it. Well, it's been about a month now, and it still hasn't turned up! As the days go by, my suspicions of either Ryan or Abigail having taken it, are continuosly growing. I sure do hope it turns up soon!

Valentines Party

This year, my mom decided to let me have a Valentines party. She suggested that I do a mystery, so I did. She got one off of the Internet, and got it all ready, the clues, the dinner, the setting, she did it all, except the invitations and the guest list. I invited Mikaela Sircable, Rachel Ramos, Hannah Stapp, Amanda Ganas, Abby Smith, and Sommer Harris (Mikaela was sick so my mom had to fill in for her.) When they got here, we played sticker tag, which was a ton of fun, (who knew trying to get stickers on people could be so tiring.) Then we got started with the mystery, we prented to be detectives, and had an important meeting. We then had dinner, during which we figured out who the culprit was. Then we solved riddles and cracked codes to find the dangerous hidden secret(my mom was amazed at how quickly we figured the codes and riddles out). We found out what it was and then celebrated by playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark, and having fried ice cream for desert(it's much better than it sounds.) Afterwords, we played giant spoons, and then took everybody home. I had a ton of fun and am very grateful to my mom for working so hard to make the party fun!

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