What I learned this week

Moving is not fun. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment.I had to unpack lots of stuff cause my bags would've weighed too much and I'm too much of a cheapo to pay for an overweight bag or extra bag. I had planned on sending stuff with my brothers who are driving out to school but that plan fell through this morning. There was absolutely no room at all in the car :(
Hopefully I'll feel better once I've gotten all moved in, in less than a week!!!!

Other Fun Stuff I've Been Doing

Here is a little bit of my August 2011.

I went to the Chesapeake Beach Water Park with the cutest babies ever!! And a cute 4th grader though there are no pictures of her here. And their mother! It was a great day and the kids were so good!

Babysitting. Nerf gun fights. Water balloon fights. Gymnastics. Mini Birthday Parties. Tickle Monster. Reading. Cinnamon Rolls. Burning my finger. Piano and singing time. Monkey in the Middle (I pretty much hate this game by now). Star wars. Dragon Ball Z Kai (kill me). My Little Pony.

My friend Danny got baptized. I played the piano at it! It was very scary for me. We had a ysa temple trip. Danny didn't have the priesthood yet so he couldn't go in the temple but one of my brothers took him to the visitors center.

I went to the HoCo fair with two old friends of mine. It was a really nice day to go cause the weather was pretty fabulous. Unfortunately the rides didn't open until 3:00 and we had to leave before that. But was still enjoyed seeing all the animals and crafts and things. Next year Han and I want to enter stuff in the competition. There is so much you can do! Sewing, photography, painting, scrapbook pages, baked goods...the list just goes on and on! Of course I always want to enter something but I never actually do. But maybe 2012 is the year for me!


I have exactly 3 more days of babysitting! And then I'm leaving for school in five more days!!!!! I am pretty much dying of excitement/freaking out like crazy. I hope that my schedule is all good and that everything works out for me!! I have a ton of crap to do when I get to school and it's all cause of my stinking major. Which I decided to change 2 weeks ago. The change from early childhood to elementary education totally screwed up my schedule. I had to redo my perfect schedule not one time, not two times, not three or four times, but FIVE stinking times. It was enough to bring me to tears multiple times. Let's hope it is all okay now and that I get everything done like paperwork, taking the TSA (and passing it), getting fingerprinted, attending my meetings....

More of the West Point Trip

Okayyy so posting on this just really confuses me. Idk if there is a word/picture limit or something...
I could not post any more on that last one though so here is part 2.

We went to lunch/nap at our friends house. Their son was the cutest thing ever. I always have liked little kids, but I reallyyy liked this little boy and he liked me too. At one point I got up from playing with him cause my mom was calling me over. He started crying when I left, so I picked him up and took him with me. Instead of playing and being rambunctious like we were before, he was content just to sit in my lap while I looked through a scrapbook with my mom. It was adorable!

We went out to eat at Cracker Barrel

On Sunday we went to the teeny little West Point Ward (idk if that is its actual name or not). This was the view from outside church.

Me :)

Add caption

So yeahhh.
I Love my little bro.

****Another side story******
This is for you Ashley, my hopeless romantic friend :)

During relief society, the lesson was on Temple Marriage (of course it would be).
But I actually really liked the lesson and it didn't make me feel pressure or anything (I'm sure I'll get that at BYU though). One of the things one of the women said though was soooo adorable!! She said that in her home growing up, the most important holiday of the whole year was not Christmas, not Easter, or any other holiday you'd usually think of. It was her parents anniversary, because her dad wanted them to know how grateful he was that for having the best wife ever and that he got to be sealed with her and their children for time and all eternity. I thought that was just awesome. And I hope my future husband feels the same way!

Haha one more thing. I'm pretty sure I've just trained myself to sleep in the car. Cause I can seriously just sleep for hours and hours. It's great. I think it is a defense mechanism.
1. Defense against car sickness (seriously this trip was not so great for my stomach)
2. Defense against boredom
3. Defense against feeling awkward /having nobody to talk to (not on this trip, this is more for long bus rides to cross country meets)
4. Defense against sadness (I miss my brother. Sleeping makes me forget. Although not gonna lie I had a really super creepy dream last night in which my friends mother killed her and my other friend).

West Point Weekend

On Friday evening my family took a 6 hour drive up to New York to visit our brother New Cadet King at the United States Military Academy. And we only left an hour behind schedule, which is quite an accomplishment for us!!

We went up to New York this weekend because of Acceptance Day. This is when all the new cadets are accepted into the Corps of Cadets. After the parade, everyone gets to visit with their families or sponsors.

I had been waiting for this day ever since June 27 when we dropped my brother off on R Day (Reception Day).

*****A quick Story*****
On Friday night we slept in a hotel. For once in our lives, everyone actually had a bed, and nobody had to sleep on the floor. We didn't get to the hotel until around midnight so we went straight to bed. Around 4:30am I felt something banging on my head. I woke up and yelped "WHY ARE YOU HITTING MY HEAD???" It was my little brother Jared. He just kinda muttered "Uhhhh" as he climbed back into his own bed. The next morning we all had a good laugh over Jared's sleepwalking.

Now for the pictures :)

My brother's bff...super excited!

Waiting foreverrrrr for the parade to start

Finallyyy :)

the mule team?? haha

During the actual parade, of course we could not find my brother. Everyone looks exactly the same. We had prearranged the Admissions building as our meeting spot for after the parade. We waited and waited and waited for what seemed like forever! But finally we caught a glimpse of this fine looking young man...

Mom gets the first hug

First Family Photo with Cadet King

I love my brother!

 

A Carnival Birthday Party

For all my readers out there (hahaha ummm all three of you) here is how to throw an awesome carnival birthday bash!

Step 1. Create a hilarious youtube video with your birthday buddy as an invitation and send it to the people you are inviting. Don't be an idiot and put your personal info in the video though. You don't want random strangers seeing the video and showing up at your house (don't worry, I don't have any experience with that, I just saw an article about a facebook invite getting sent out to a crap ton of people and they all showed up at some girls house).

Step 2. Procrastinate. There is plenty of time until the party. Seriously. It's like a month away. You don't even need to think about it right now. Except maybe you should look up cute ideas on the internet. But really that is all that is necessary.

Step 3. Okay, now the party is about a week away. Maybe you should think about it again.

Step 4. All right, for real now, the party is in like 3 days. Get your butt out the door and go shopping. Go to the store 32 times, because you WILL  forget something. I promise.
Get the following items.
Balloons (the regular kind and also the long skinny ones that clowns use to make animals and stuff).
Some sort of container and a bag of starbursts to go in it.
Cookie dough (let's face it. at this point you do not have time to make them from scratch. unless you are super woman. and i'm sorry to disappoint, but i am not).
Chips
POPCORN
Soda or whatever drinks you want
Cake Mixes
Frosting and the kind of icing you write with
Candles (ours were cute ones that looked like ballons)
Veggie and Fruit Trays
Prizes (maybe 5 or so goofy little things)
Streamers!
Marshmallows (S'mores!)
Chocolate (S'mores)
Graham Crackers (S'mores)
Mini Marshmallows (For fondant)
Vanilla Extract (For fondant)
Powdered Sugar (For fondant)
Foamy Posterboard thingy from Staples
Paint/Paint Brushes
Bean Bags
Water Bottles

Step 5. Now it is the day before the party. Put your homework down. Right now. It's not important. Seriously. You'll do it later.


Step 6. Call your friends. If they love you, they'll bake cookies with you. And cakes. And make fondant. And decorate the cakes. (Thanks Han, you are pretty much amazing). What we did was make three cakes. Two with regular frosting and one with fondant. Here they are! I have to say I am very proud of our fondant cake since that was our very first attempt at using it and we made it ourselves! Also, if you notice the blue on the first cake, we had originally written happy birthday in blue, but then ended up not liking it so Han saved the day and got those cute little happy birthday thingys and we just smeared the blue into the white frosting below it. That is a fabulous trick if you ever mess up a cake!

Step 7. Now that all the cooking is done, it is about midnight. Time to start making the photo boards!
Draw them on and paint them!

Step 8. Finish your homework! Gosh why are you so irresponsible and why did you leave it for the last minute?!?! Do you ever learn your lesson?? (The answer is no, I never do).

Step 9. Party Day! Freak out a little.

Step 10. Get your friend's boyfriend to make these games for you. He put them together, and we painted them the day of the party.

One of the games is a bean bag toss that you try to get the bean bags through the holes. The other one you put water bottles on the ledges and try to knock them down.

Step 11. Practice making a few animal balloons. Realize you actually have no idea how to make any. Leave them out for the party goers to have fun with. Set up the photo boards and other games. Decorate with streamers and balloons. Set up all the food.

Step 12. Remember that you forgot your "Who knows us the best Quiz?" Make up questions and write down your answers.


Step 13. Crap! The starbursts! Find a jar to put them in. Wait! Did someone count how many there were?? Okay, you did?? Okay how many? Don't tell anyone! Get out slips of paper for people to write their guesses on.

Step 14. Okay now people are arriving. Calm down. Really. They are all your friends and will not judge if the party is a flop.... hahahah YEAH RIGHT. It has to be perfect.

Step 15. Over the course of the party, encourage people to take pictures, guess how many starbursts there are, play the games (leave out some board games and also it helps to have a ping pong available). At some point go to your bonfire and make s'mores. Also, have everyone take your quiz. The winners of hte starburst game and quiz game get prizes (DON'T MISPLACE THE PRIZES). Cut your cake. Smash cake in your bff's face. After all, there is no way in heck you are following that tradition at your wedding. So this is your only chance for cake smashing.

Step 16. HAVE FUN!

THE END!!

The Birthday Girls!