Christmas Present Pictures!

I've been meaning to post all week and just haven't gotten to it. This week I have gotten a taste of regular teenage life, with homework and busy schedule and stuff. The first WISH class back after Christmas I had a new teacher for one of my classes and she has given a lot of homework for the week. We have to read four short stories and find definitions for the vocabulary words and write a sentence for each vocabulary word for each story, write the first draft of a persuasive essay and do a vocabulary quiz by next Tuesday. Is that a lot? It feels like a lot. I'm just not used to homework and have felt so overwhelmed, so I just planned so I wouldn't have to do any today so my day would be free. I also have a few classes during the week. I have WISH on Tuesday. Sewing on Monday, and mutual. And Friday we have P.E. and then voice lessons (which I will be quitting soon. It just didn't work out). I don't have a terribly busy schedule and I'm able to finish my homework at a reasonable time at night. I'm just going from the nothing-to-do-don't-need-a-schedule-at-all stage to have-things-to-do-need-to-plan-them.

So, anyway, the main reason I wanted to blog was to post pictures of some Christmas presents! These are my cute boots that I got! I love them! They were too small so we went and took them back and bought some bigger ones for cheaper! Plus they were on display so they had a few scuffs so that also took money off for that, too! So I got some jeans with the extra money.


This is Anna with her purse I made her! I meant to take a close up of the purse but I didn't. And I should have taken a picture before it got dirty, but oh well. I crocheted the bag and flower and put the button on to keep it closed. We wanted her to have a purse so she wouldn't loose her wallet. Sadly, now she looses her purse, but she had it half of the time. :)


And I made a matching purse for Savannah! Isn't it so cute? I love it.


I just love anything miniature.


Well, I guess that's it. Mom posted about P.E. and Anna about Sisters so love you!

What I couldn't live without....

Books. I just love them. All kinds of books, I love fantasy, realistic fiction, romance. Anything from Anne of Green Gables to Harry Potter. I love curling up with my fuzzy socks on my feet and a good book in my hands to read for as long as my eyes will last. My most recent obsession has been Matched, by Ally Condie. I first heard of it when Lizzie pulled it off her shelf and told me she thought I should read it. I'm not sure how she explained what it was about, but she said something like "It's about a girl who lives in a place where the government controls everything. They choose who you marry and this one girl falls in love with someone else." It sounded si-fi-ish so I didn't read it. Weeell, my dad got it for Christmas because Diane thought I would like it, so I had to read it. I'm so glad I got it because I don't know if I would have read it otherwise! I loved it so much! It is such a wonderful love story. I loved the characters and story and romance. I read the first fourth of it over the course of a few days then reached a certain point and read most of it in one day. Then I stopped and told myself to wait to finish it because I always regret finishing books really fast because then it's over and I can't read it anymore. Any of you ever feel that way? Anyway, I finished it and made Mom bring me to Barnes and Noble to buy the second book Crossed that day. It was really awful buying it, too because it was a Saturday night and everyone was out so there was no parking. In the end Mom dropped me off to buy it and she drove around until I was done, then came and picked me up. I loved Crossed, too. I can't wait until the last one comes out. Does anyone know when that will be?

I am now in that stage after reading a great book or series and thinking, "What do I read now?" It happened after Harry Potter both times and is now happening after the Matched books. Mom told me I should read The Homeless Bird so we went to the library and got it. It's about a girl in India. I'll tell you more about it when I finish it. While we were there I saw another book called Sister to the Wolf that looked cool so I got it, too.

Huuuuuh. Sigh. Well, I just thought I'd share that with all of you. Any of you have any ideas for books I should read? We put Graceling on hold at the library, by the way. I heard some of you liked it and some of you didn't. Anyway, that's it. Love you all!

Christmas

I feel like this is late to blog about Christmas, but I have to get it out of the way so I can blog about things that are happening now.

During December we were having a hard time feeling the Christmas spirit. Was it because there was no snow? I don't know. But we just weren't feelin' it so we decided to make the feeling. We made paper chains for the main room and mini ones for the American girl dolls rooms. Aren't they so cute? I love making things for the dolls. Anna took the picture of me. I couldn't tell it was me at first. I don't know if I have ever seen my profile. Only the front of me in the mirror. Anyway, just thought I'd share.

We spent Thanksgiving with Dad this year so we got the entire Christmas vacation with Mom in California. The night before Christmas Eve we went to Lizzie's. We planned to go and stay Christmas Eve day and evening and leave that night to have Christmas at home, then we thought we would leave the day after Christmas. We ended up leaving on Wednesday. Anyway, we had a great Christmas Eve. One of Shad's realitive's who was super nice came to spend the evening with us. We had our traditional sandwiches on homemade rolls for dinner. I know that doesn't seem fancy, but I honestly look forward to it every year! I'm not sure why, but I do. We then had Sandcake (a bread cake that Steve really likes. It's basically pound cake) for Jesus's birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to him. I've never done that before, but the little kids really liked it. Then we acted out the Christmas story. Lizzie through together these awesome costumes with scraps of fabric. Tanner and Gracie, as Mary and Joseph, wore gray pillowcases with hole for their arms. It was just really creative. Then we watched The Santa Clause and ate treats. I really like that movie. We watched the second one the next day and I really liked that one, too. Oh yeah! After sandcake we opened up cousin presents that we were giving to each other. I don't know how I could have forgotten that. Tanner asked every ten minutes when we would open them. It was very cute and funny. :)

Christmas day we woke up earlier than I would have thought ideal and opened presents as families. We didn't pay attention to Kate and Tanner's presents and they didn't pay attention to ours. I don't want to name everything that I got, but I did get an ipod nano (would it be just a nano?) which I love! I love how it is so small, I love the touch screen and I love how I can just clip it on or slip it into my pocket. I also got boots! I'll take a pic of it along with one of the present I gave Anna. They were a size too small so we took them back and bought the same ones a size bigger for a lot cheaper, so I bought some pants with the extra money.

So, that's what our Christmas was like. It was awesome. We just took down our decorations yesterday and the tree is still sitting out in the driveway. We think it adds a lot to Norma's Taco's. :)

2012 New Year Resolutions

Last year I don't really know if I even had many goals. I think I tried to send cards or presents to everyone in the family on birthdays and it didn't work out so well. I didn't do all the birthdays and Mom got tired of me asking to be taken to the post office to send packages and ask for stamps. It's a lovely thought, but I think I will stick to emails and phone calls this year. So, this year I really want to do better. I read Danielle's blog about how she had the work ATTITUDE for last year and the word HEALTHY for this year. I thought that was really cool and so I'm going to copy her and choose a theme for this year (next year technically). Have you all heard or read the Good, Better, Best talk? I don't know who gave it or if I have even read or heard it, but Mom has talked about it. He talked about how there's the good things like, oh, I don't know really...maybe decorating and painting your nails and there's the better things like schoolwork and practicing talents like writing or drawing and then there's the best things like reading your scriptures, doing Personal Progress and praying. I don't know if I have that right. Maybe schoolwork should be in the best catagory, but the point is to do the best things first, then the better, then good. Maybe you won't get to decorate as much, but doing the best first is the best. Do you get it? So, I think I want to make that my theme for this year. GOOD, BETTER, BEST.

This year I want to:
-Do better with sugar. I'm not watching my weight or anything, but whether you need to loose weight or not, sugar is bad for you and I don't want to put as much of it in my body. I'm not eliminating it, but I think I want to cut out candy. (I mean after I eat the store of it from Christmas. I know that's not the best attitude or the best way to start the year, but I have given the junky candy to Anna and Gracie and only saved the best for myself.) I think for as much sugar as candy has in it, it's not worth it. Now, when I say candy I mean nerds and whoppers. If I get good candy like a Hershey bar or fancy candy from a candy store I'll eat it. Otherwise I want to stick to home made treats that are worth the sugar. I know that's not a really specific goal and it's kind of all over the place, but that's what I want to do.
-Try to cook more. We've been watching Avonlea and watching Felicity cook is inspiring. And Mom could make a pie all by herself at my age, so I want to do better. To start I want to make dinner once a month and maybe help Mom make something every once in a while. Tonight I made biscuits for dinner. :)
-Do more Personal Progress. In almost two years I have finished one value. Which means I did 7 or 8 experiences and 1 project. I think that's pretty pathetic, even if I am proud that I finally finished it. So, I don't know exactly how much I want to finish this year, but I want to always be working on something.

Overall, I want to do Good, Better, and Best. I really want to try my best to meet these goals and not just decide to not do them. I really want to do this. Happy New Years, everybody!

Christmas This Year

I took some pictures of all us while we were making paper chains and planned to post about it and Christmas so far this year. Well.. we are at Lizzie's now, I forgot my camera so I can't post pictures or take any new ones. I just forgot to bring it. I'm sure that Lizzie will provide enough pictures, though. So, I guess I'll just write. It's been so weird to not have snow for Christmas. Last year we were at my dad's so we still had it, but this year in California we have obviously not gotten any snow. I know it sounds weird and you are totally thinking, "Snow shouldn't make a difference." But it seriously does. That's what we have always had (minus the few years in Oregon that I don't remember). So, suddenly to not have it is really strange. All month I've had to remind myself that it's Christmas. It just hasn't felt like it. It has also been kinda stressful for a few weeks because Mom was in charge of the ward Christmas party and when Mom's stressed out we all are (a bit) and that same week I was having a party with my friends from WISH and then the Sunday after the Friday of the ward party the choir was singing a bunch of songs and I was singing in a quartet that turned out to need an extra soprano because my voice isn't loud and strong enough to be heard over the other parts. It was me with four adults. I don't really think that my small voice made much of a difference, but it was fun. So, that was all last week. This week I have been concentrating on presents, writing a Christmas story that Mom assigned us to write for school and not to mention a lot of reading. There are a lot of books on my shelf that I have not read. Most of them are from Dad from Christmas last year and coincidently they are all except one rewritten fairytales. I liked them all but I especially loved two. One was called Palace of Mirrors and the other My Fair Godmother. Both of them were great stories and well written, but what I lioved more than anything was the characters. I need to connect with the characters in order to like a book. That is like the most important thing to me in a book. I've read books that are great, but I don't really like the characters so I don't really like the book. Do any of you feel that way? Am I weird? So, anyway, I've whizzed through five books this month all while waiting for a certain book to come to the library. Well now it came and I am sad to be done reading all of the fairytales. I liked it.

Well, I know it's not much, but I'm gonna go now. If I don't write before Christmas... Merry Christmas!!!!!

I am grateful that I am a Mormon

Okay, I've been waiting to post about this until I can post some pictures with other things, but I don't know if that's ever going to happen. So... the name of my blog is Little Miss LDS, but I have never talked about that much. Well, I invited a friend of mine from WISH to a ward breakfast a bit back so she invited me to a Christmas Tea that her church was having. She goes to the Eagle Rock Baptist church. I didn't hesitate to except and I don't regret going. In fact, it might have been good for me. Anyway, so, I went to this tea. The tables were all decorated goergously, the food was yummy. I even tried some caffine free tea. I've decided I'm not a big fan. Well, after we had eaten a while two women got up and sang 'Mary, did you know?' I love that song, but there was no music to accompany them. I thought that was really sad. Then another woman got up to 'say a few words.' Let me just let that sink in for a minute. I, a 13 year old Mormon who has never gone to any church but the LDS one, sat through a Baptist talk. So, she started with a prayer. It took a minute for me to realize she was praying because she said it so casually. In our church our prayers are reverent and grateful and inspiring for the most part. Her prayer was "I know who you are and you know who I am. When I talk make it so that it is not my words, but yours." Then she closed in the name of Jesus Christ. Then she turned to a perjecter behind her that had an artiicle selling houses. It said that Christmas is a wonderful time of year to buy a big house to entertain 2nd cousins. She just pounced on that. She said that of all the relatives that come over 2nd cousins aren't them. Then she said that she wouldn't want to pack up, move, unpack and then get decorated for Christmas. I don't know what that was about. She never talked about anything like that the rest of the talk. So, then she talked about the theme of the Tea. She said, "Last year it was 'The Recipe for Christmas.' This year it is 'Our family Christmas.' What is that about? Last year it made you think of pies and cookies cooking. And a warm kitchen. This year it's like... 'Our family Christmas.' What is that about?" So, she talked about how she didn't like the theme. After that I don't remember when she said what, but she talked about how we all have this perfect Christmas in our minds and how we're never going to have it. She told stories of awful Christmases her friends have had. She read a scripture in the Bible about how Jesus will take over the world or something like that and she said, "It didn't look like he was taking over the world to me. He was in a manger in this stinky barn with these stinky animals. God didn't even get him a nice place to sleep!" Then she talked about how God will adopt us as his children if we are righteous. She said it so beautifully. She said, "He wants me to be his girl. He wants me, this sinful human, to be his girl. He wants you to be his girl." But she ruined it when she said that he only wants that if we are righteous. She ended her talk by saying there is going to be a great party up in heaven and that she will be there and that she hopes that we all would be there with her. Then she prayed and ended. So, the way I would explain this talk is-you know how when someone tries to make a point and so they point out the negative and then they say "buuuuut"? Well, this entire talk was the negative part of that. The whole thing was getting to the but, but she never got there. It was awful. I was telling Mom all of this when I got home and she just laughed. I was still super shaken by it then and had no idea how she laugh. It was just so awful. I felt like Pollyanna. She was yelling with her arms spread wide and I half expected to look up to see a chandelier shaking. Part of the time I wanted to stand up and yell that all of that wasn't true. I wanted to tell everyone that Heavenly Father loves us no matter what and that there is always a way to return to him. That there is always hope, but most of the time I just wanted to get up and leave. It was just the craziest experience for me.

This was all awful and everything, but it reminded me of how lucky I am that I have the truth. That the whole time that woman was yelling at us, I knew that it wasn't true. I knew that Heavenly Father and Jesus loved me and wanted me to be his girl whether I was righteous or not. I knew that if you did wrong He will help me get back on the right track. And I am so grateful that I knew and know that.

Progress Dinner

I had a Progress dinner for mutual last Tuesday. It was super fun. We drove (Steve thought we should have rode bikes) to three different houses. In each house we sang one Christmas carol and Sister Boman read something from the New Era. At the last house we got to hear Dustin (something) who sings songs for EFY CDs sing a few of his songs. Then we all sang some Christmas carols with him. It was really awesome. When we left we each got a little glass dove with a peace of paper attached that said "Prince of Peace." The food was really good, too. We had lots of appetizers at the first house, rolls and tomato soup at the second house and hot chocolate and brownies at the last house. I always love mutual. I love being with all of my friends from church and just having fun.