Morning Glory

Last night, when I was taking my dog, Barnabas, outside, I saw beautiful stars. I was inspired and so I woke up early, or somewhat early, for some shots of a sunrise. The sunrise wasn't the most colorful, but it helped me with my photography skills.


Just thought I'd share.

How I Almost Rode into a Sunset

Today, after school, I was bummed. I had a lot of homework, or so I felt, I was tired, etc. So, when my friend called, inviting my twin and I to bike to her house, my soul was renewed. I helped her started a blog, and we had a blast. When we left, in was around 5:15, and the sun was beginning to set at that time. The point of this post begins just when we were leaving our friend's house.

Sadie and I were joking around and I realized how agreeable Sadie is when she is not yelling at me. Who said twins can't be best friends? (Well, actually I said it, but I didn't believe it at the moment) I started to tell Sadie that we should try harder to be friends, but then I stopped short. In front of me was a beautiful sunset.

Fortunately I had my camera with me and I took a snapshot. I continued to take snapshots as the sunset developed and as we got closer, (seemingly) to it. Just as the sunset developed to its most beautiful point, I realized that we could take a route that led directly into the sunset! It was a bloggers and a photographers dream! I rode my bike eagerly and just as I felt like nothing could be better, I heard a shriek, "Mia!" I looked back- Sadie wanted to go a different route.

I sighed as I turned my bike around. I wasn't able to get many good shots, but I managed to get a few.

Dutch Windmill Cookies

Seriously, I have no idea how the name of these cookies got changed to "Windmill Cookies." I think it is completely irrelevant to the cookies entirely. For example, today I cut them out in the shape of a maple leaf because I wanted to be fancy and crazy. I have no idea how I got to the subject of this, but anyway, they aren't windmill cookies.

I started by creaming butter with, I'm sorry, crisco.

Then, I added white sugar...

And brown sugar.

Then I creamed them with the butter,

And added an egg.

While I let that mix,

I started taking out my dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, oatmeal, and almonds.

I started with the flour, which I decided to tone down from two cups to one and a half. Then I put in the soda and salt.

I next put in the spices, 

cloves,

nutmeg,

cinnamon 

I finished off the measuring by dumping in the oatmeal and almonds,

And the spicy rubbish turned into cookie dough!

I decided to be fancy and crazy as I previously said, and I cut out the cookie dough into the shape of a maple leaf. Because I doubled the recipe and I ended up making 8 dozen, this took hours. (It didn't help that I was juggling making spaghetti also)

But, after intense labor, I had the joy of seeing perfect maple-almond-oatmeal-anything but windmill, cookies.

Yum!

Dutch Windmill Cookie:
From: Grandma Lam


You will need:

• 1 cup butter 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cloves
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1 cup slivered or sliced almonds

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter,sugar, and egg. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in almonds. Shape dough into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees fir 10 to 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

P.S I'm sorry to post this late, but my mom was busy researching the house of a relative of Corrie Ten Boom, and she got engrossed in her research on "my blogging computer."

A Spring Hopeful Photo Shoot

For the longest time Sadie and I have been into doing photo shoots, or trying to. We have been planning to do a Spring photo shoot, and we decided to do it on Saturday, today. Our spirits weren't dampened by the snow fall, and we set off to get ready for the photo shoot.

It was a lot of work. We had to find color coordinated outfits, we had to wash our hair, I had to blow dry our hair, Sadie had to do our hair, etc. So, we locked ourselves in Sadie and my bedroom suite to get ready. Finally, after several hours, we were ready. It took spunk, bribing, and nearly freezing to do it, but we finally did!

I hope you enjoy the fruit of our labors!

I had so much fun (don't tell anyone) and I hope that maybe there will be another opportunity to do a photo shoot!

We Go Furniture Shopping

Today, we went shopping for furniture at Jubilee Furniture. We had so much fun picking out furniture that was our favorite.

Some of our favorites were:

My favorite headboard.

Ella's Favorite Headboard

Sadie's favorite headboard

Sadie's favorite headboard: a closeup

Abe's favorite headboard

A cool crescent mirror thing.

Dishes

Aren't the windmill designs awesome?

Isen't the note funny? I think the sofa isn't that spoiled though.

In Catland, a game my siblings play, Ella's family, the Whuffers, who are rich, have this in their house in every room.

Again, in every room the Whuffers have these reading lamps.

For the Whuffer's house.

For the the Whuffers house.

For the Whuffers house

Do I really need to say it again?

For Sadie's favorite stuffed animal, Hanna's, room

For my favorite stuffed animal, Kitty's, room.

The grand lamp in the Meowie's (Kitty and Hanna's family) house.

Whuffer

Whuffer 

Whuffer

You can guess.

Meowie! (Finally!)

Sadie's kettle, or so she wishes.

"Sadie's" desk

Beautiful gold trimming!

My pine desk.

Ella's desk.

Ella's mirror

Ella's table

Lovely table!

Ella's sofa

We left Jubilee Furniture hungry and with half a set of dishes. I had such a blast searching for furniture that I would readily go again.

P.S Everything you see we wish we had, but is not really ours.