Baby Sitting!

   I sometimes have to babysit Abe, my younger brother, and we often play with our two favorite stuffed animals, Kitty, (Katherine, [Kat] Elizabeth Meowie) and Scurvie, (Scurvy Bones Pirate Dog.)

We have had our misadventures when I babysit him. Like once, the toilet overflowed and flooded a ton, and like when we baked a cake that was a failure, along with many others.

But we didn't only have misadventures. Today for instance we had a ball!

We had Scurvie and Kitty sailing in the Sink Sea. (Scurvie got in a shipwreck)

We made them, go climbing in the lilac jungle.

We made them climb a mountain.















We made them play hide and go seek.
















And of course, we let them sleep.


















It is hard work, but I do enjoy babysitting!

Home Cook'n

      There is nothing I love more than home cooked rolls. Unfortunately my mom doesn't love making them as much as I love eating them so I don't get them as frequently as I would like.

But when my mother decides to make us a full home cooked meal with rolls, there is much rejoicing in my house.

Today, my mom made us a roast and rolls, and I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. The amount of cleaning up was immense, but the satisfaction of eating it was enough for me.

(And the fact that my mom did most of the cleaning up )

Happy Birthday!: To Me!

              I woke up a few days ago, and I had that intense feeling of joy that you only get when you know the day is special. At first I was only relishing the feeling and trying to remember why I woke up in such a good mood. And then I remembered.

It was my birthday!

It was pure black outside, (due to the fact that it was five in the morning,) but I was wide awake. 

Fortunately for me, I was not the only person who was wide awake. My Auntie Em and my mom run three times a week and my birthday was on a running day, so I got up and ran two and a half miles on my birthday at 5:00 am.

Sadie and I made each other cakes this year and I think it made them taste extra good!

After Dinner we opened gifts, some of my favorite gifts were:

• My Kitchen Aid Hand Mixer
• My Teapot and Teacup and Mug
• My Soccer Bag
• My Two Wonderful Cookbooks
• My Cake pan and Spatula 
• My Gift Cards
• My Stationary

I had a wonderful birthday!

Thank you family and friends for all you did to make my birthday so special!

Dinner :~(

     My blog mainly posts about the good parts of my life, but I still face trials, and I still have bad days. I am tired right now, and therefore a grump.

Tacos and black bean enchiladas, are for dinner tonight.

Some of our good friends gave us a scrumptious black bean enchilada recipe and it has become a family favorite. Abe and I don't exactly relish all the veggies wrapped in that tiny tortilla, but he and I do savor the scrumptious smell (and taste) of tacos, and so that is our alternative on Mexican food nights.

The black bean enchiladas are a family- friend secret, so I have to be exclusive on the recipe, but you probably can tell generally what some of the ingredients are.

I always need to get plenty of sleep and after a long day of labor, (mainly at school) I need sleep and nourishment. (Which I needed then very much)

Hopefully after a good night's rest I will be ready for another day.

Bethany

   I have soccer every Tuesday and Thursday, and my second cousin, Bethany, comes to babysit for us sometimes.

Bethany goes to my all-time favorite college, Wheaton College, and she hangs out with us all the time.
She is rather fun and knows how to deal with us in a friendly and kind way.

Last night, she offered to babysit for us while my parents went out on a date. She, Sadie, and my dad picked me up at soccer, and so the night began.

I ate my Spaghetti, corn, and fruit as I listened to my siblings playing downstairs.

Ella, Abe, and Sadie were having a ball downsairs. From the looks of it, they were playing my favorite game and legos. Barnabas, as usual, was slinking around, looking for attention, spiders and stray puppets to chew.

There wasn't much playing time left when I came downstairs, but there was enough time to be a reporter for my blog.

I think/hope that my parents had a nice night, but I have no doubt that I had a nice one!

Kitty!

  Every since Sadie and I were one, Sadie and I have had our stuffed animal cats. Hers is called Hanna, And mine is named Katherine Elizabeth Meowie, (Kitty for short). Kitty and Hanna are twins, and from these two stuffed animals a whole world appeared.

Kitty and Hanna were from the Meowie family, and because their parents were at war, their older sister, Meow-Meow, (I know, cool name) had to take car of them. Their parents died in the war, but before they died, they had another daughter, Lucky. (Meow-Meow adopted another five children)

I write an epic novel for my sibling about the trials and blessings of this family. We have been playing, "Catland" as we call the game ever since Sadie and I were five and Ella and Abe added their families into the game when they reached five.

Kitty had been my steadfast companion for over a decade and she, though quite thin around the middle, is still my best friend. She is getting older but I still love her as much as I did when I first sucked on her cute little nose. (Trust me, I had a bad habit of doing it)

The Mysterious Benedict Society Trilogy

The Mysterious Benedict Society books are some of my favorite books. They are well written and have wonderful characters.

They start with an ad in the newspaper. "Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?" It reads. A storm of children answer the call but only four children successfully complete the mind bending tests. They form a team and they work as secret agents.

The problem with books these days is that there are never enough of them in a series. It  is not a problem with these books. There are three good- sized books and they are enough to keep even me, (a bookworm) happy!

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Baking: Failure to Success

As my close friends would know, I have a great love for baking.

Baking is like math, you have to know the basics in order to be able to experiment and add your own touches. I finally have learned the basics, but the learning process is still not over for me. I have much to learn in many things.

Two day ago or so I attempted to make my family's favorite cinnamon-sugar coffee cake. The recipe is from my great-grandma and it reigns supreme over all cakes of its kind.

I got up early and was totally ready to bake the cake for breakfast, but I quickly found that my mom had forgotten to lay out the recipe!

Try as I may, I could not find the recipe anywhere, and so I had to use a lousy substitute recipe instead.

The cake I did make was dry and tasteless and was flat and thin because I had forgotten to add the baking powder.

I tried again to make the cake, with the right recipe, and out superb. 

My family really enjoyed the delicacy that this cake was and I can only hope that my mother wants me to make it again.

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/one-bowl-chocolate-cake-iii/detail.aspx

This Link leads to a wonderful recipe.

The recipe is for a chocolate cake which is so superb and easy, that you simply must try making it at home.

My mom has this wonderful coffee-cake recipe and she had promised me that she would lay the recipe out for me yesterday, so that I might bake it. Unfortunately, she forgot, and I used a a lousy "substitute" recipe, and I forgot the powder, which makes it rise. In the end, we had a dry, flat, tasteless thing and I was depressed.

All the children in my family have a love for baking and I like to give them baking lessons. Ella has a easy-bake- oven and so I asked my mom if we could bake a cake in the oven.

The answer was absolutely no.

Every thing Ella bakes turns out, well different then the box said it would. Ella is an excellent baker for her age, and so my mom just assumes it is the oven that creates the mishap.

But, there was a ray of hope, my mom said that if we found a superior cake  recipe, then we could bake something.

There was this "one bowl chocolate cake" recipe that we had used twice before, and my mom agreed.

And I am proud to say that we did bake it, and without any help form my mom!