New Beginnings and Lately

New Beginnings is the YW activity at the beginning of the year when we welcome all of the new YW into the ward.  There is usually a program or something that is really great.  Last year I was in Redlands and the leaders did a skit for us.  This year we had a real live broadway singer come and sing to us!  Her name is Heather Pond.  She was in Les Miserables and the Jersey Boys and has a Tony and Grammy award.  She gave a wonderful talk about her journey in Broadway and sang us two songs.  The whole thing was absolutely amazing.  The spirit was so strong.  She was a wonderful missionary on Broadway.  She said that some people hated her in the beginning just because she was a Mormon and when she left some of them were her best friends.  There were some amazing stories.  One that was really funny, but not really about missionary work, but anyway.  She was really good friends with Nick Jonas!  He was the little kid (probably about my age or a little younger) in Les Miserables.  She was good friends with him and Nick's parents really appreciated her because she was such a good girl and example for their son.  I guess they were really dedicated Christians.  So, that was kind of funny.

But there were some really cool missionary stories.  She said that someone, I don't remember who-it wasn't another singer-it was like a producer or something, anyway, this person would ask Heather every Sunday what she learned in church that day.  And Heather would tell her, like really tell her.  Not just briefly.  When she told her about the atonement her friend was like, "Wow, that sounds kind of depressing." and Heather said, "Actually, it's really amazing and makes me really happy."  She asked Heather what she learned in church every Sunday and now, when she is married and living in Sierra Madre, Heather still gets texts every once in a while saying, "So what did you learn in church today?"  Isn't that amazing?

In Broadway, since they have to perform on holidays, they always celebrate them together.  It was a really big deal.  So, once they were used to her they asked Heather if there were any Mormon holidays they could celebrate.  She's like, "We're Christian.  We celebrate the same holidays that you do.  Just Easter and Christmas."  "But there must be something."  "Well... there's Pioneer Day."  So they celebrated Pioneer Day.  Heather wrote up flyers about the pioneers with pictures of Brigham Young and put them up all over.  There was a potluck and everyone wore bonnets and she even wrote a song for it.  It's on youtube.  We watched it.  It's hilarious.  She's playing the ukelele and everything.  And when you watch it you can just tell that she is really comfortable about who she is and about talking and representing the church.  But don't get the wrong idea about her voice if you watch it.  She has a beautiful voice.  But that song was just silly.  They celebrated Pioneer Day every year after that.  

The whole time she was there she was so real and genuine.  Mom said that you can pick out a singer in the crowd just because they have a certain full of themselves way about them, but Heather didn't.  I loved her.  It was kind of funny.  The girls that are coming in this year asked her, "So, are you like... famous?" And one of them asked her to just touch her necklace for her.  She signed three autographs.  No, I did not ask for one.  :)  The whole night was just a blast.  We had breakfast food for dinner and I even got recognized as a new YW because I just moved in.  We all said that it was weird calling me up because it felt like I had been there for a long time, but they gave me a torch necklace and one of those mini For the Strength of Youth pamphlets.  We're supposed to get those when you go into YWs but I never did, so it made me feel really good.

We had our last day of WISH today.  We actually had our last day of classes last week and there's a picnic next week, but today was our last week at the building.  All day we watched the different drama classes and a Flashmob and Glee club perform.  I was worried we would be bored watching play after play, but it was not boring at all!  It was amazing.  All of them except one were comedies and all of them except one were fairytales.  There were ones that made fun of fairytales and changed them and it was just hilarious.  Anna and Gracie were in different fairytale ones and were awesome.  The last play was done by my age group (I wasn't in it) and was about an hour long.  It was a Murder Mystery Comedy.  It was hilarious.  The star was a girl named Sophia who played the Investigator with a french accent.  So, she introduced herself as "Ze Investuhgatol!" Do you get it?   She had a totally goofy character and she did an awesome, thick, french accent.  I loved it.  I loved them all.  It was laughing all day.  It was great.

So, I've been frustrated with my acne lately.  My cheeks are fine.  My forehead is as bad as it had always been, but I've been getting it on my upper lip lately.  I hate it!  It's so weird.  We bought Crunchy Betty's (we got the Oil Cleansing Method from her blog) e-book all about oily and acne prone skin and I'm reading through it.  I have only been doing the OCM at night and just rinsing it in the morning.  So after reading part of her book I think I'm going to do a honey wash in the morning.  I guess it's supposed to make your skin just glow.  We'll see.  The OCM was supposed to work wonders and nothing has changed for me.  We'll see.

Well, that's it.  As much as I love WISH I am glad it's done.  No more homework and I can crochet!  I haven't been able to for so long because I've had to work on my embroidery, which I have to take a picture of.  I will work on that. :)

Where we live.

We live in the amazing California.  We lived in Idaho for years, which doesn't really have anything special about it.  Never would have guessed that we would live here.  I remember visiting Lizzie and wondering how she does it.  I mean, Palm Springs is way hotter than Pasadena so I still wonder that when we visit there, but I understand it more now.  It's amazing how we adapt.  In Idaho it could be in the 40s in May and that felt warm.  In the 50s we would go out in t-shirts.  Now, we are such babies.  But I think I already blogged about this so moving on.  

Steve went to a show last weekend, I think, and asked us which celebrities to keep an eye out for.  He has seriously seen celebrities around there.  Not any that we would know, though.  

Speaking of celebrities, we know one.  You have all seen Napoleon Dynamite, right?  Well, Kip is in our ward.  He's Brother Ruell.  It's so crazy because Nathan (oldest step brother) quotes that movie all the time and loves Kip, but I haven't even seen it.  After Mom found out, we had to watch the movie so we finally watched it.  It's pretty funny.  Sister Ruell, his wife who is in the movie for about one minute, is one of my YW leaders.  They live within walking distance and have a daughter named Merine (not sure how to spell it.  I call her Mimi).  I babysit her all the time.  If it's during the day I walk.  If it's dark it's not far to drive.  It's really nice.  It's just funny because Nathan has always been a fan of Kip and the movie and I, who have never seen the movie beforehand, am the one who gets to go to their house and see them all the time.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, it's just funny. :) 

Oh!  And this has really been bugging me.  So, I'll just say it and forget about it.  I didn't think I would like all of Greyson Chance's songs so I just listened to them and bought the ones I liked.  Which turned out to be all of them (every single one) so instead of buying the albums I spent (not wasted) about $5 more than I needed to.  That just really bugs me because I am so careful with my money!  But he's worth it, I won't do it next time and now that I've put it out there I can move on.  :)

What a family...

For Gracie's birthday she asked for two (specifically two) chocolate pies.  When we had it for her birthday with the candles and everything we only finished half of one of them.  Steve was like, "I don't know how we are going to finish these.  Why did Gracie ask for two?"  "We're Arnold's," I said, "We may all be really skinny and all, but when it comes to chocolate there are no limits with us."  Both pies were gone within 24 hours.

Yesterday it was raining and Mom thought it would be fitting to make brownies.  So, I made one cake pan (the 8x8 pan was being used) of brownies.  They were really good brownies.  They weren't too rich for me, who likes cakey brownies and they were chocolatey enough for Mom who prefers the rich ones.  We didn't have Steve, but we had Cami, a homeschool friend, over.  So we ate the brownies.  We all got a decent piece.  I wanted more, but tried to go onto something else.  It didn't take long before I couldn't take it anymore.  So, I made another batch of brownies.  I could have made a double batch and used all the same utensils. But instead I decided to take twice as long and dirty up a bowl and measuring cups, put them in the sink, then dirty up more the second time because I didn't want to wash the first ones.  Oh boy.  What I will do for more chocolate.

Now, this one isn't about chocolate.  Last night I walked up to Steve and Mom, who were sitting on the couch, to say goodnight.  I picked up a Snow White Polly and Steve asked, "What is that?"  

"It's a Polly," Mom answered.

"But it's a princess. How can it be a Polly Pocket?"

"It's not the Polly Pocket brand.  Disney made it, but it's still a Polly.  It's just like with Barbies.  They have princess Barbies, but they don't call them Barbies."

"I don't know how they can get away with that."

"Steve, they aren't Barbies.  They don't call them Barbies, but they're still the same doll so we call them Barbies."

"So, they're not Barbies?"

"Yes, they are.  They are the same doll.  You play with them the same."

"If it's a princess doll it's not a Barbie.  You don't call Snow White Barbie."

"They don't call them Barbie.  They call them different names.  Barbie was the name of a doll like 60 years ago!  Now it's just the kind of doll."

This went on for a while and Mom eventually got up to get a princess Barbie and a normal Barbie.  She's really worked up now.  Maybe even yelling.

"Do you see?"  Mom asks holding up the two Barbies.  "They're the same!"

"No, this is Barbie.  This is Snow White."

"But they're the same, Steve!"

"When you went looking for this you asked the girls where Snow White was.  You didn't ask for Barbie."

"They don't call them Barbie, but they're still both Barbies!"

This doesn't do the conversation justice.  It was the most ridiculous conversation ever.  And it went on much longer than this.  But can anyone picture this?  I have some things mixed up, like what they are saying, but you get the idea.  The conversation just went around in a circle.  Steve was calm and really didn't care how things ended.  Mom was worked up and upset about it.  Steve does this all the time.  I've had conversations with him like this.  I honestly feel like I'm in court or something and I am trying to convince him of something, but he always has something smart to say.  He'll even change his story half way through, but he never gets upset.  It's so annoying.  Mom got so mad.

What a family.

Life

When did I post last?  I don't remember.  I don't think it was that long ago, but I don't know what to blog that has happened since my last post.  Anna's latest obsession has been Jane Austin.  We already watched Sense and Sensibility and she is now watching Pride and Prejudice.  I just did something to make everything on the screen so small that I can hardly read what I am typing.  Mom isn't back yet so I'll ask her to fix it when she is back.  I've thought about so many things to blog about, but now that the time has come I can't think of any of those things.  I'll do my best.  

There are so many things that I want to finish.  I have been telling myself everyday that I need to work on decorating my bedroom.  It really would not be that hard.  All I have to do is buy paint and magnet board, paint frames and eventually Steve will hang them up.  Buying the paint is probably part of my problem.  I also need to decide if I really do want to do vinyl lettering in this one spot or do something else.  I just need to figure it out.  It's always hanging out in the back of my head. Then, I try to embroider and crochet, which is surprisingly hard to do.  I have one project for WISH that has to be done by next week so then I'll be finished with that.  I have sewing classes on Wednesdays.  I have WISH on Tuesdays which give me English homework.  Right now I'm working on a paper for Great Expectations.  Finished it, by the way!  I really liked it.  Don't think I'm going to read it again anytime soon, though. :)  Then, I try to do Personal Progress and scripture study for while everyday.  Plus, I like to read and try to write a bit too.  It doesn't seem like a lot and it's probably not, but all of that and dishes, school, just extra things we need to do during the day make it harder.  I am doing good though.  I finished The Princess Bride the other day.  I loved it (minus the one chapter of Buttercup's Baby that some books have) but it was one of the more frustrating books I've read.  For those of you who have read it know what I mean when I talk about him abridging it and everything.  The author pretends that he is abridging and old and long classic.  He has the story and then stuff in italics where he is talking.  He'll say he cut out a 60 page part about Florinese trees or something and then talk about it for a page and all I want to do is get back to the story!  At the very beginning of the book there is a large section of just him talking about how he ended up abridging the book.  Anyway, loved it and want to own it, but it gets a bit frustrating at times.  Soon WISH will be over so that will take out the homework and embroidery.  I'm looking forward to that.  Next year, being in high school (yikes!) I will have more school work so I'm not going to take any academic classes at WISH.  

So, that's what's happening now, for what happened Easter was great.  The Easter Bunny hid our entire baskets instead of just our eggs so we had to look for them before church.  I had no idea where mine was.  Gracie and Anna had already found there's and I didn't have time so I did not get a single piece of chocolate until after church.  The highlight of Easter for me (the candy part, I do think about the Savior) is Cadbury Mini Eggs.  Some people like their creme eggs of M&Ms.  Our teacher at church says he loves jelly beans, but my favorite is the Cadbury Mini Eggs.  Always has been.  It's my favorite candy of all the candies.  They're amazing.  So, I traded half of my jelly beans with Anna and Gracie for more of those.  Plus I got a solid chocolate bunny.  So, I think I got enough chocolate.

Yesterday I had sewing and I finished my skirt for my trek!  I had already finished my bonnet at a stake thing so Mom and I were all excited about only needing to make bloomers and then be done.  We're just going to buy bloomers at the thrift store.  But we looked at the list again and it said I need two skirts and an apron.  We really thought about it and thought it did make sense to have two aprons.  Do you think brown is too dark?  We already have some brown fabric, but I'm worried it might be too hot.  Anyway, it's only April so we have time.  Thank goodness for Isabel, my sewing teacher, we would really be in trouble without her.  The skirt seemed a bit too long so we just did a little tuck that made it look a bit prettier.  Hopefully it's still not too long.  I'll take a picture of me in the whole outfit when I've finished everything.

Sorry the picture isn't turned.  I'm not in the mood to do that right now.

  These are the hand warmers I made!  I didn't exactly follow the directions so they're a little big, but they work really well.

I'm still doing the Oil Cleansing Method thing with my face.  From reading all of the comments I think I've been expecting too much.  I don't know if it's been two weeks yet, I don't think so, but I don't see any difference.  My face is still oily.  I've actually given up cover up makeup because it doesn't convince much and it probably doesn't help the acne anyway.  I feel bad for my future children.  Both my mom and dad had acne, now I do and they probably will too.  I'm saying sorry in advance.

Piano has been going good.  I'm doing really good on I am a Child of God.  The only problem is I'm really bad at playing in front of audiences.  If people are just in the room I can play, but when they're sitting still and listening it's hard for me.  I've messed up on pieces for family night that I haven't messed up on in days.  Just thinking about playing hymns in YWs makes me mess up on I am a Child of God.  I'm serious.  I don't know what I am going to do.

Anyway, on that note, I think that's it.  Love you all! 

Finally Posting!

Okay, I'm finally posting!  Our computer wasn't working for a while.  We went to Disneyland for Gracie's birthday and after that I don't know what my excuse is after that, but I'm here.  I'll do a bit of an update but then just go on to what's going on now.  So, I'm trying to think of what's happened since I blogged last.  We went to Disneyland for Gracie's birthday.  There was Conference.  We met Lizzie in the middle on Monday (so sad you couldn't make it, Amy!) and spent the day at the park with her.  We all got sunburns.  Just on my nose for me, but Mom got it pretty bad on her neck and arms.  I'm trying the new Oil Cleansing Method, I don't know if Mom has said anything about it.  It's really interesting.  You mix certain amounts of certain kinds of oil together and rub them on your face (with or without makeup).  There's more to the process that I don't want to explain right now.  But I think the address to the blog that we got it off of is crunchybetty.com.  What it does is cleanses your face of the dirty oils and replaces it with clean oils instead of just stripping it of everything with face products.  There were such amazing stories about having clear faces within two weeks and seeing differences after just a few washes.  I haven't seen much difference, but haven't been doing it for long.  I also tried to do the homemade shampoo thing that Mom blogged about, but I stopped.  I had dandruff and my hair was greasy and it took forever to dry and it just didn't work so I went to normal shampoo.  Mom's still doing it and if it works for her I'll try it again and stick it out.

We went to WISH on Tuesday without Gracie.  She was staying at Lizzie's house for a couple of days.  On Wednesday night Mom and I sat down and promised ourselves that we would figure out my ipod.  I still didn't know how to use it and only had a few songs on it.  We sat there very confused for a while.  We ended up making a new apple account.  Mom took the few songs that I had on my ipod off.  I was a mess until we watched some tutorials.  It was so amazing.  I then made new playlists and everything and even bought a Greyson Chance song.  I only had time to buy one song, but I bought the rest of his songs the next day.  Do you guys know who Greyson Chance is?  I didn't until Sunday when Steve showed us some youtube videos of him.  He was just a normal kid in Texas, I think, and he sang and played Paparazzi on the piano at a talent show.  The video was put on youtube and Ellen found him and had him on her show.  Now, two years later he has, I think, two albums, he's been on a tour and he's really famous.  I'm not exactly sure how famous.  Not everybody knows who he is, but isn't that crazy?  He went from as normal as me to famous in two years!  We watched the video of him at the talent show.  He was only twelve and all ready had an amazing voice without any vocal training.  You would not expect it looking at him.  We also saw some videos of him at concerts after he was famous and all the girls were screaming.  Crazy.  Anyway, I bought all of his songs except for one he wrote (I might buy it later) and Paparazzi.  I listened to them all and was disappointed, but listened to them again and bought the ones I liked one by one.  Before I knew I had bought basically all of them.  It's too bad because I bet an album would have been a bit cheaper.  Oh well.  I've been listening to his songs today and I love them!  As far as what kind of music it is.  I don't know.  It reminds me a bit of Taylor Swift, but my ipod says it's Pop.

Well, that's it.  I'll post pictures next.  Love you!