1st Day Back To School Report

Status: 21 days till move


Mood: Sick and Sleepy


Plans for After School: Sleep, Sleep, Sleep!


Notes: 
            Dear Readers,
My addled mind is unable to think this morning, much less blog. I am still thinking in CA time, and so it is 5:00 AM right now. After I sleep for an hour, I'm not sure what my plans are. I've been hoping to go to Hobby Lobby to buy earring backs for some earrings I"m making. The earrings are to be made of rocks from the top of a mountain I climbed. 


The Sleepy-head recedes.


-Mia Susan

Animal Photo Shoot

Whenever we get new clothes, we like to do "photo shoots." Today, we went a little out of our minds and we decided to blog about it: we decided to pierce our stuffed animals' ears.

Yes, I know, you might think of us as bullies to stuffed animals, but Sadie and I just got our ears pierced, and I was sickened by Sadie pinning buttons into her stuffed animal's ears for earrings. So we pierced decided to pierce our stuffed animals' ears. To do this, we put pins in them, then we put our new earrings in them. To show off the new fashion statement in the stuffed animal world, we went outside and started the modeling.

First, to give some class to our photos, we draped some of our stuffed animals in linen napkins, and, with our dear neighbors stuffed animals as well, we took some photos.

And, to end our fun day, we made video of us through our stuffed animals in the air.

  

Going, Going,

Gone.

As of a few hours ago, when I woke up, we began the final packing for Palm Springs:  carry-ons. I am packing:

• My mini laptop
• My kindle
• My camera
• My wallet
• A book that I don't have on my kindle
• a pencil case
• a notebook
• And other little oddities like gum for my motion sickness
• Oh yes, and knitting (of course)

I hope the plane trip will fly with these useful items. I am really looking forward to the plane flight and what comes with it, soda, snacks, takeoff, landing, but what I am looking for just as much is how we are going to get there. For one thing, we are going there in a LIMO, which I have never been in before, and secondly, I just love airports and the general business that our large airport is. 

I am super exited about the "flying" thing, but most of all, I am exited because we are going with our dear neighbors. 

Limo, takeoff, and landing, here I come!

P.S Based on the fact that there is no internet connection, I will have to post my thoughts and photos after we land. 

P.P.S I have decided that whenever I am NOT at home, I will have this airplane background as my background.

Happy B-Day to Ella!

Hello! I would like to take this oppritunity to proclaim that today is my sister Ella's birthday.  If she were the one telling you, she probably would first tell you that she was turning eight, as age matters almost as much as the presents on one's birthday. Then she would probably tell you about her "fudgy bunny" (or supposed to be called Fudgy Baby) cupcakes.  But as it is I, her older sister, that is posting,  I'm afraid that I won't go into that.

As we all know, birthdays are celabrations of our lives, and each birthday is like a milestone. To celabrate Ella's life, and this day, I decided to use pictures to display her life.  Happy 8th birthday Ella!

I Bake! Again

Today I came home from school and I immediately wanted to bake. My mom was working, Ella and Abe were busy, and Sadie was at tennis: this was one of the rare times in my life that was ideal for baking. I got permission from my mom and soon I was looking through every cookbook I own, trying to find a recipe that was quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious. As I have done many times before, I fell to using one of my favorite cookbooks, The Big Book of Cupcakes, which my dear friend Anna gave me for my birthday. I looked through it, trying to find a recipe without frosting that tasted good and that was super quick. I quickly found the perfect recipe, Fudgie Babies, and I can tell you that they turned out very well.

I started by melting the chocolate and the butter in the microwave. 

• Confession #1: Instead of putting the chocolate and butter in a bowl and putting the bowl over a pot of boiling water to melt it, I simply melted it in the microwave.
• Confession #2: I used 3/4 cups of chocolate chips instead of chocolate baking squares

While I let this cool, in as large mixing bowl I mixed flour, sugar, and eggs together. 

I sadly say goodbye to to the cleanliness of this white bowl as I prepare to start mixing.

Then I added the chocolate mixture to the flour-egg-sugar mixture.

I made lots of mistakes,

As you can see, I accidentally mixed a little too energetically.

When I was pouring the chocolate mixture into the flour-egg-sugar mixture, I accidentally dropped the chocolate mixture into the other ingredients.

I made lots of other mistakes, (I didn't even bother to take a picture of my sleeve) but they got into the oven without any serious mishap,

And soon they were out of the oven, and in my mouth!

Tonight, our dinner was provide by my mom's dear friend who has been praying for us and who got us flowers along with dinner. We all are now enjoying our delicious meal!

Fudgy Baby Cakes

From: The Big Book of Cupcakes Cookbook

You will need:

• 6 (1-oz.) semisweet chocolate baking squares 
• 1 cup butter
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose soft-wheat flour
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• paper baking cups
• vegetable cooking spray
• powdered sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Pour water to a depth of 1 inch into the bottom of a double boiler over medium heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer; place chocolate and butter on top of double boiler over simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes or until melted. Remove mixture from heat, and cool ten minutes. 

3. Whisk together sugar, flour, and eggs in a large bowl; add chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla and salt.

4. Place paper baking cups in 2 (12 cups) muffin pans, and coat with cooking spray; spoon batter into cups, filling 2/3 full.
5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Be careful not to over bake; they should be gooey. (They will crack and sink in the middle;  this is normal). Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely.
6. Sift powdered sugar over the top of each  cupcake.

Tips: Please Read

• If you don't have chocolate baking squares, just use 3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips. Mine turned out fine.
• For #2 , it is easier to simply melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan or in your microwave. 

Enjoy them!

-Mia Susan

One of My Favorite Christmas Movies

One of my favorite movies is Christmas in Connecticut. This movie is about a young magizine writer who writes a section called "Diary of a Housewife"  about her husband, baby, farm in Connecticut, and delcious dishes that don't exist. In fact, she's a single woman who lives in New York who can't even boil water. This funny movie is not very moral, but it has become a favorite among my family.

(You can watch it here.)