7 hour Cupcakes!!!!!

Only with ME is it possible to take 7 hours to make cupcakes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not that bad at baking, I just got a bunch of new decorating things for Christmas, and I wanted to try them out... I have no idea why it took my so long, but they didn't even turn out very cute!!! I know it was such a satisfying ordeal... ugh. Anywho... they better taste good... Don't ask me what any of them are supposed to be... they just kind of are... except the turtles, they are turtles, (if you can tell ;) )although they didn't start out that way... anywho you'll see great improvment next time I post food... which I hope will be soon.

My cute family!

Sorry family... it's about time I expose our knitting-ness to the world! I taught my brothers and such how to knit/loom things... here's us at a great gathering... I love my brothers!

Gracias mi familia, y mis amigas!

So it's my birthday today! And I just wanted to thank my lucky stars for my fantastic friends and family! Who have treated me like a princess today! I couldn't ask for better! THEY'RE SO FANTASTIC!!!! I don't deserve as much, you guys are the best!!! And Kassie if you ever get to read this, as I got home I pleasantly discovered the birdseed, and the chapstick in the bottom and about had a cow. Your gift was so freakin' clever!!! And all of you are so thoughtful and wonderful!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS TO ALL!

Fall and Thanksgiving!

So... HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!! We had such a great Thanksgiving... I'm STUFFED!!! I was just going to show ya'll some pie that I made, it's gluten free, and I made it for my Aunt. It was pretty hard to make, but I kind of like how it turned out... Mmm... Apple... it was actually pretty good though :)


Also I was gonna tell you about our fall this year. So we have like 6 HUGE COTTONWOOD trees so every year we get a TON of leaves. I think the total this year was... 82 bags of leaves! That's right eighty-two! A TON of leaves. Here's a picture of just one of the loads of leaves.

Those young folks these days...

Okay... when was well... I can't really say a youngster, but younger than 13 I could NEVER believe it when people said that teenagers were stupid... that all changed when I became one, and then realized the truth. Hopefully you all now that I attend gangstaville... I mean Midvale. :) Don't get me wrong I like the school... but I'm so amazed by the DUMB things that teenagers do. For example... the people who ride my bus. (by the way it's super hard to block out these conversations, when they yell them across the bus...) Today I came to a realization about these people and their conversations. Their conversations have NO substance. They just are, and they ARE the same thing... over and over...
"Bleep da bleep dirty content* bleep bleep you white kid! bleep da bleep dirty content" and so on and so forth. Over and over every day. I think if someone told them those things were ABSOLUTELY banned they couldn't talk at all! It's a lovely learning environment you see...
Another thing that drives me nuts about teenagers, is that they THINK they are SO OLD... me I know how old I am I'm almost 15... I'm a KID! And here at gangstaville I walk down the hall and here: "Wait you broke up with so and so," and "Oh dude, there's your ex"! I just wish they could step back and look at themselves and realize that guess what they are 12-15 and they ARE CHILDREN! Who do not need to date... who do not need to swear... who do not need to do any of this!! Dating and "falling in love" are often subjects of school! I say why!?!? Anywho... that was my shpeal about those "foolish young'uns..."

The day of the YEAR!

GO COUGARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheesy Post

WARNING: DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING POST IF YOU HAVE ANY FORM OF DAIRY ALLERGIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I'm just gonna do a really quick post before I go slave over my homework :), and since I can't really think of anything fantastic or amazing to blog about, I decided to do a CHEESY POST, and I mean really cheesy but really true! Well a while back like, a few weeks ago, my super amazing friend and I made Christmas cards (WHICH I LOVE!) and notebooks for eachother... it was so much fun. And so of course I couldn't use the notebook for something lame, and so I decided it would be a heartbook notebook (thank you to Brother Staples my Seminary Teacher) and a my favorite things about people notebook. Well, basically what this means, is like anytime I have like a really cool spiritual experience, or have like a really good lesson in church (which my seminary teacher kind of described as a spiritual pulse) I'll write about it. Also, I'm going to keep track of all the fantastic qualities of the people around me. NOW HERE COMES THE TRULY CHEESY PART. So as I have been analyzing people, and their good traits, I have been so amazed by the BEAUTY of everyone around me. I love to see all of the fantastic things that other people are doing, and the great people that they are being. I see so many sweet spirited people, and I LOVE it ! It's just a lovely way to look at life. Anywho, it was just a random new amazing discovery for me, and I am just so excited by it! Hopefully no serious allergic reactions occured!

Green Day!

So I haven't really showed the rest of my spirit week, but whatever.
Green day however I did get pictures of...

Decades Day

So this is mostly a picture post! Most everyone was from the 60's as hippies, or from the 80's. I was goin' for a 60's mama look! The sweet glasses are from my friend lolly! By the way my hair is really messed up... so ha ha! That's why it's so beautiful, he he I took the pictures of because they were frightening...

MY ALMOST FAVORITE WEEK OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!

Oh man!!! I am SOO excited for this next week at school!!! It's almost my favorite week of the year... you know besides the week of Christmas (which I am also excited for). But anywho this week at school it's SPIRIT WEEK!!!! Basically... I am like an all out spirit week kind of gal! Tomorrow is Decades day and I'm going for the 60's so that I can poof up my hair!! I'll be sure to post pictures of all of the days!!! Because they are so fun!!! Also coming up... well I can't remember them all but, there is sports day, um... crazy day... and grade color day!!! Oh I'm so EXCITED FOR grade color day. Each grade has a color and a name. The 7th Graders are the blue smurfs. The 8th graders are the red devils. And the ninth graders are the green gods! I LOVE green and so it's going to be sweet!!! Also I'm going to be a part of the cheering squad for our grade! So I have to go all green!!! This week is sure to be SWEET!!!

A crazy week... caused by a crazy person!

Alrighty... I have had a CRAZY week... Well kind of crazy... but unfortunately those problems were caused by dear old... ME!!!! I had A TON of homework, and had a few all nighters this week... I know what you're thinking... "did she NOT just have a 5 day weekend". Oh Rachel did (okay 3rd person doesn't suite me)... I did... but I'm a slacker! Oh and I better not see any comments that say anything like "Rachel you're a great kid"... because YES this was self inflicted! And I payed for it... so there you go lesson learned. Hopefully. I mean this has happened before though. Oh well not again. This weekend I want to... DO MY HOMEWORK, SLEEP, and watch Disney Movies! Which I will always love!

Number 30 and my lovely quotes

Okay so this is my thirtieth post!! Wow that's insane! Anywho if any of you saw my sisters post about their quote wall and stuff. I keep some lovely quotes too... I keep some from my math teacher and some from my family and friends... so here are some of the sweet quotes!


"I just thought of something, the fattest man in the world probably isn't cold much"
- BUBBA

"Let me feel it baby!"
Daddy (he was photographing Derek! :) )

"At first I thought it was mustard."
- J-Boy

"... maple syrup. Okay Bye Mario!!"
- A random person in an Art Store

"Hi is this Steve's wig boutique? Oh sorry I must have the wrong number."



Anywho those are just some of my favorites. I love them!!!
They bring me great joy and happiness. (Yes I am redundant)

My newest love

I've fallen in love. In love with... an extremely handsome, and devilishly charming website. Called bakerella. I love cooking! If you love anything about food you'll agree with me! Check it out! I'm off to Jamba Juice... another one of my loves.

Cast List (Exciting)

Okay so today we got the cast list!! Super exciting... and only 1 person cried :) that's pretty low numbers... Okay so my part is a STORYTELLER!! Which... would be a lot more exciting if there were only 4 like there is suppossed to be but now I think that there is eight... but that's okay. It's going to be fun!

Conference

One of my favorite things that we get to watch every year is General Conference! It's so amazing... and so wonderful, if you're not watching it you should check it out, you can even read the talks or listen to them online at http://www.lds.org/broadcast/gc/0,5161,8176,00.html . It always brings me such peace and happiness to get to listen to General Conference! You could also watch it on TV it starts at 10:00 and then there is another one at 2:00!

Okay okay, I know

I know you are all dieing of suspense! You want to know what part I got in the play. And even though I KNOW I said that I wouldn't bug you about the auditions any more I got to do my dance to day and I talked to the teacher so this time I promise that I'll not talk anymore about the play until we get the cast list.
Okay during the class we did some "stretching" so we would be ready for our dances, and also the theater teacher had us do a relaxing exercise. So I was pretty relaxed, at least for awhile. All of the girls with last names A-L had to sit on the stage near the wings, and then volunteer to go up and dance. I got nervous again then, but I figured that no I didn't want to be last and so I eventually gathered my courage and went up stage.
My "dance" *cough * starts with me facing the back wall of the stage kind of with wait on one foot and my hand on my hip. My legs suddenly became uncontrollably wobbly as a stood there waiting for the person to cue the music. (I must've gotten way to relaxed from the warm ups :) ) So I was almost falling over with my wiggly legs, and then I started to "dance" but it was more like I was kind of tripping while I tried to twirl on stage. And I guess I'm okay with it. It could've been A LOT better, but I can't really go back and fix it so... I'll just try to smile and move on.
So even the dance was less than perfect, I'm still really excited for the cast list, and for the play. I was talking to the teacher before school, and I'm kind of liking some of the ideas she has for the play... it kind of sounds like we will be having 3 directors, which will be a good thing. I dunno it'll be fun. And this time I really won't post anything else about auditions.

My Fair Lady

So my class that I've been auditioning for went to see "My Fair Lady" at Pioneer Theater. It was awesome though! Really good singing and acting. It is very very similar to the movie, which sounds SUPER obvious, but... it is. Anywho it was really good, and it was a pleasure to go to for a little bit of time off of school and only two dollars :) Look down for the other thing I posted just a minute ago

Even though you are tired of hearing...

about AUDITIONS!!! I'm going to tell you how they're going... don't worry and then I won't tell you anything about them until we figure out what parts we got. :) okay so out of the 4 things we have to do we have performed 2 of them. I was really nervous for the song, but I got over it and I guess it went all right. People told me it sounded good but what were they supposed to say? Plus my teacher got to asking me about what happened to give me so much more volume in my solo :) that's a plus. Let's see, also In our monologues, people told me I did a really good job (but again is this not expected) and again Ms. Porter asked me what happened over the summer to have given me that much confidence :) that's plus two. Anyways auditions are going fine, but I'm so excited for my audition part with the scene because I love the scene we are doing. As for the dance, I'm still working that out. I don't know if I should try to finish learning a dance solo or if I should do ballroom, because she said for our "solo" we could do a partner dance, so... if I can only find a guy to dance with maybe I can do that instead... which one... which one... any ideas?

Auditions mañana

Oh NO!!! auditions are tomorrow! I'm so nervous, and I can't decide if I want to go first or if I want to go later. I know that waiting is so much worse than it actually is. I'm nervous though, tomorrow will probably be solos and maybe monologues? I'm so scared!!! But I shouldn't be. I hope that things go well... AHHH why does reality have to come?!?! Why couldn't I just stay in that dazed state that told me auditions were far away, and that I did not have stage fright. Oh well I'll just keep telling myself that the few voice lessons I took cured me of stage fright. It's PERFECT!!! Here we go!

More Audition Stuff!

Okay, I've been driving myself nuts trying to figure out all of this audition stuff. Our teacher changed the audition date to Monday. So now I'm rushing to learn my solo, my scene, my monologue, and hopefully we do enough dancing in our scene that I won't have to do a dance solo... that would not be pretty. My poor friend Jessie spent an hour or so trying to teach me a dance solo. It was hard for me to dance. So my head is spinning as I try to learn how to sing, dance, and act in a few days :) I just got back from practicing my scene though, and that's probably going to be the best of the audition pieces. I make a fantastic Storyteller 1. :)

Family Home Evening Fun

Lazarus

Moses (Baby Moses)

Goliath

Jonah and the whale

Noah and the ark
For FHE tonight my little brother Bubba planned the activity. He wanted us to play charades with bible stories. A little bear that I got at girls camp ended up being the star of the show. He ended up being all of these Bible characters!

Escuela and audition madness

Hola! School has started, and it is madness. In my lovely musical class we have to audition for parts in the musical "Once on This Island" It's going to be really fun but first we have to go through a grueling audition process. We have to prepare an interpretive/modern dance, a solo, a scene, and a monologue. It's going to be really... interesting. We'll see how the singing and dancing go :)

QUE??

I forgot!!! I forgot to mention my other favorite show Pushing Daisies, Pushing Daisies is about a guy who can bring people back to life, and he owns a pie shop and it's really awesome it's coming back... in 38 days and I'm SO excited it's SOOOO awesome!! Anywho that's another fantastic show!

My Favoritist Shows EVER!!!!

Okay Monk and Psych are my favorite shows in the WHOLE world!!! Monk is about an OCD detective who solves crimes... (that's where I got my nickname :) ) and my other favorite show is Psych, Psych is about a detective who was trained to have photographic memory, and now he pretends to be a pshycic detective. They are both hilarious I LOVE THEM !!!

Look at me now!

Oh here I go, I'm attempting to readjust to school schedule, here I am 6:30 in the dark, all alone... because everyone else is sleeping. But of course I must because although I finished my AP packet, I still need to: study for the countries and capitals test(I've already begun, but I've only got like 3 maps memorized), think of a science project, and finish reading outside lies magic, plus write the essay that goes with it. So that's another reason why I'm awake this "early". It's not even early, but if I slept in I would wake up at 8:00 so here comes my hour and a half extra. Why school?!? WHY!?!?!

Lovely packets, and rejoicing!

Yesterday was a glorious day... because I finished my summer AP packet, lovely no? I know it's a sad thing, but I did a little bit of rejoicing as I decided that I had finished my AP Packet, the 8 maps, and like 3 worksheets took me... a total of 20.95 hours... I know this makes me so... excited, for the final project in the class... oh well. It'll be good for me! Now all I have to do is study hard for the lovely test that's coming.... great.

A week long sleepover, pb&j , and large fans

Ha ha... I have NOTHING to blog about... these days of summer are short and sweet... this week however I am having a lovely long sleepover... my brothers are gone away to scout camp, and so is my uncle... so now I head over to my aunt's house to stay with her and one of my best bud cousins. Her daughter is so cute... she constantly is asking to play with "domiyos" and she has way to much fun! But alas I'm forced to return to my home because this enslaving summer homework!!! But that's my fault... CURSE YOU PROCRASTINATION!!! And I looked like such a hobo walking there because according to everyone... that means YOU DEREK... and also the kids I babysit I look as though I'm about... nine years old. So there I was walking through the neighborhood carrying a pillow stuffed with blankets, an enormous blue and dare I say extremely juvenile bag stuffed with stuff (by the point of view of on lookers probably a few pb & j sandwiches and all sorts of random things)oh and a big fan to plug in so I wouldn't die of the heat... I got several concerned and awestruck looks as I walked down the street... for the poor 9 year old girl running away from home...what a sight to see.

Broadway Rocks!

In the dull days of summer life I find myself not a thing to blog about... on... hmmm it was Saturday night... I think we went to this little play thingy... called Broadway Rocks! It was a collection of different songs from famous musicals! It was pretty awesome... especially since Susan Egan was there!!!! Who is Susan Egan you may ask? Well she played the original Belle in Beauty and the Beast! She's awesome amoung other people there, there was the person who played Jekyll in Jekyll and Hyde and the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera. It was fantastic... poor Bubba had a headache and slept through the entire thing. The only non-fantastic part of it was when we were driving home... I don't know what time it ended but we were stuck in this HUGE traffic jam at 11:00 and still at 11:40... it was terrible. We got home at around 12:10.

My lovely art!

Ha ha... as many of you know I like art... so I decided to post some of my art because I finally got around to taking pictures of it because I'm entering it in a tiny art contest... so here they are... I know they aren't as good as some peoples... or a lot of peoples but I like um... the painting of the little boy is my youngest brother otherwise known as "Bubba" (yea it's not his real name just his nickname) but it was when he was like 3 or something and he was so cute and he was camping... the other one is a picture of the Nauvoo temple... if you can't tell that one's watercolor the other one is oil! Ha ha... well I hope you like them!! Oh and the picture of Bubba was my first painting.

Ward Campout

So I went to the campout... lovely... no?!? I have nothing to blog about so here goes... I guess it wasn't to bad we went there on Thursday the 24th and we kind of hung around, we played card games we did cool stuff... I dunno! There was a dutch oven cook off and a skit thingy... but I missed that part so... yep! It was nice to be in nature though and it really wasn't that bad! Oh and my cookies were nummy!

Well I'm off!

I'm off to the ward camp out... it's going to be... fun... I guess. This morning I had to make cinnamon rolls and cookies for us to take on the ward camp out. THAT was fun! Mmm... I love food and cooking! I'll try to have fun while I'm gone!

Ace of Cakes

Ha ha I'm such a nerd! I LOVE to watch food network channel! One of my FAVORITE shows is Ace of Cakes! Isn't that sad! It's a show about a bakery that makes really weird cakes... I absolutely love it! But I also love all of the other shows... Iron Chef is hilarious! HA HA!!!! They have instant replay! And yet I love them all... Go food network! Those pictures are some of the awesome cakes made by the ace of cakes people! Their bakery place is called charm city cakes, you can look at more cakes at their website: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/noflash/index.cfm?rd=cakes

Low-fat orange vanilla sugar cookies

Mmm... I LOVE these cookies, they are delicious... I thought since this is the crazy bakery that I should post some of my favorite recipes! These are so good... I found the recipe on cooks.com when searching for low fat sugar cookies... I have one thing to say, you should reduce the temperature when cooking them or they will never ever cook! Thats the recipie copied in... Sometimes I substitute applesauce for the oil so they are super low fat... butter extract isn't neccesary oh and sometimes I make a frosting to go with it just some orange extract, orange rind, and maybe some milk and powdered sugar... they're so good! And you can eat more and feel less guilty nummy! If you want the actual address it is
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1710,158163-237206,00.html

LOW FAT ORANGE-VANILLA SUGAR COOKIES

3 tbsp. oil 3/4 c. sugar 1 egg 2 tbsp. milk 1/4 tsp. butter extract 2 tsp. vanilla extract 2 tsp. orange extract 1/4 tsp. salt 1 tsp. baking powder 1 c. all purpose flour 1/2 c. whole wheat flour Preheat oven to 350 to 375 degrees. Spray baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray. Mix all dry ingredients. Mix all liquid ingredients. Combine. Mix thoroughly. Drop from teaspoon 1" apart on the baking sheet. Bake about 8 minutes until delicately browned. Watch closely or they will burn! Remove from oven, sprinkle with sugar if desired.

Youth Conference: Adventures in Flaming Gorge

Okay today, I got back from youth conference, it was super fun! Our smallish youth group over the age of 14 went to flaming gorge, we had a total of... 10 whole people, that number is including the leaders. There were 3 boys, and 2 girls, myself and my buddy Cassidy. It was awesome!!!! The full day that we were there we went rafting down the green river, the first time we went down the green river it was super early in the morning and it was freezing, that water is freezing, and it was cloudy, so after the many waterfights, rain, and occasional dunking we were freezing cold, it was raining while we went down part of the river, and we were all frozen. We decided that we would eat lunch after we made it to little hole, and so we rafted ourselves down until we got out of the river. After lunch we decided to go a second time. We were still frozen at first, but then it got hot and we all dried. Because it was a "race" the other raft, left is in the dust (or the bubbles hee hee ) we were paddling as HARD as we could but we couldn't catch up and we were not happy because they wouldn't have a waterfight with us. So we started a waterfight in our own boat we were soaked by the end, and we decided we would just have fun so we started spinning the raft and splashing eachother. Fortunately we caught up when we stopped trying and started a huge water fight! It was so much fun! Me and my buddy Cassidy also mooned our camp site! I know what your thinking!!! AARRRGGHHH!!!! RACHEL HOW COULD YOU??!? No in reality we cut up little moons, (like a moon in the sky) and put them on peoples tents in the night with little signs that said "you've been mooned" it was awesome! We did it at 5:30 in the morning. It was fun! Well that was my trip to Flaming Gorge in a nutshell... and for more adventures with Rachel tune in to her blog!

I'm So Excited

Woohoo! We're leaving for Youth Conference this morning. With the leaders, there are a total of 9 people going... it's kind of sad I know but it'll be fun. We're going to go river rafting on Green River, and we have two rafts so we're going to be having water fights across the rafts... and since Derek probably wont read my blog before he leaves... I'll tell you all that I got a secret weapon for the raft fights. We'll see who wins!

The CRAZY BAKERY??

So why the crazy bakery?!? Ha ha after one of my loves cooking! Plus when we were in Taiwan I decided that if I were to pursue a career I would want to own my own bakery! I love to cook... EVERYTHING!!! I especially love to make pie's and I love to make, lemon bread, banana bread, normal bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls... anything you can think of! I love it SOO much that my mom has to limit my baking to 2 times a week! How sad is that? Now what will I do all summer?? It's for the best though, so that I don't deplete our supply of flour, sugar, and other such things! mmm... mmm... mmm... maybe I'll post some of my favorite recipes for everyone! That picture is a picture of a really ugly pie that I made for my parents anniversary, it's not very pretty because I was trying to fit as many houses on it as years have been married, and it got off centered! EWW!!! Oh well... pie tastes good no matter what it looks like... hehe!

Wow this is weird!

Hmm... I felt as though I wanted to start a blog and so I did! Woohoo... More will follow... I hope.