~We're All Mad Here~

Woot, I'm posting again in just over a month.! Hehe.

What might I be posting about.?  A spring dance is what.!

I am super excited for Saturday.!  We (my parents and I - along with my siblings too) have taken on the spring dance for some of our homeschoolers. (:  We're having so much fun with the theme: 'The Mad Hatter's Tea Party'.

We pieced together what we want the photo prop backdrop table thingy to look like. :)

Most of the decorations and props for the dance are in the process of being made and put together. 

We've created mushrooms out of cones and an upside down plastic flower pot. 

We then spray painted them and topped them off with some ornamental moss stuff and cute little birds and butterflies. ;P

They came out pretty spiffily if I say so myself.

We got everything we needed for the decorations from Flower Factory.  That place is pretty fantastic.  If you can't find it there, I've come to the conclusion you won't be able to find it anywhere else. 

We put my dad in charge of the decorative floral arrangements, and he does a terrifyingly good job at putting colors, flowers, marbles, and ribbons together. :P

I'm really looking forward to Saturday, and I hope it is a fantastic time.!

We have an amazing DJ booked, a great facility, wonderful 'chaperones' and 77 teens on the guest list.

I'm sure there will be a post after the dance.

Until then, be kind to your neighbor and love each other. <3 p="">

~The Story of PJ~

As of January 20th, my family acquired a new four-legged friend.  This four legged friend is an adorable 2 year old pug. (:

 

Meet Miss PJ.

 

'PJ' stands for Princess Jean.  This adorable little girl came into the family kind of spontaneously.

 

You see, my family already had a lovable gentle giant named Chloe Bear.

 

This is Chloe.  

I must say that we have some pretty adorable dogs.  I know, I know, everyone thinks they have the cutest dogs ever, but it's true.  We do.  I do.  My dogs are precious. ^_^

 

Anywho, back to PJ. (:

 

My family had always talked about getting another doggie.  Of course, all three of us kids wanted to get a puppy.  I mean, c'mon, puppies are soooo - well, they're puppies. ;)  But, my mom didn't want to have to potty train a puppy.  Okay, understandable I suppose. :P 

Because a puppy was kind of pretty much out of the picture, we had talked about adopting a pound puppy.  We had even gone to the shelter a few times to look at doggies.  Nothing ever worked out tho. /:

 

Well, one day we went to pick my sister - Kenzie-  up from her Girl Scout meeting.  Kenzie's Girl Scout leader has three pugs of her own, all from the same breeder.  Kenzie's leader - Mrs. M - and her family had just added their third pug to their pack, and the breeder was trying to talk them into taking a fourth one because they couldn't care for her like they had been able to.  Mrs. M was in love with PJ, and she really wanted to take her in as well, but with the new puppy she and her family decided it best not to.  But hey, guess who got to get the little cutie instead?  This girl :D (and my family, too, of course.)

 

Look at that face! Is she not the cutest?!

 

With PJ around it's so much more lively.  Not that my life is dull as it is, but the house is always high energy with her around.  Chloe, of course, being a lazy bear loves to just lie around and sleep.  Not PJ, she constantly wants to play, and there's pretty much never a dull moment.  She finds everything to eat, from socks to bags.  She's precious.

 

 

Her absolute favorite thing is her Kong.  I'm pretty sure her favorite words are: "PJ, do you want your Kong?"  Next thing you know she's bouncing off the walls (literally) in the anxiety of getting her peanut butter and small treats out of that pink rubbery thing.

 

 

Popcorn is another thing she enjoys.

 

As far as people food, we don't give our dogs it.  They don't get the scraps after dinner, they don't get a ton of junk food as we sit and snack on chips, they get what dogs should get - with a couple exceptions of course. ;)  Peanut butter, cheez-its, pretzels and popcorn.  That's it.  And they enjoy it while they can. (:

 

Hair ^^^ she also likes to eat my hair.  But that's beside the point.

 

 

She is so precious and I'm so glad she became apart of this family. <3 class="separator" p="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">From her adorable alien/pig noises, to her annoying tantrums, I hope she's with us for years and years to come.

 

<3>

 

 

 

~Whadup Sharkbait~

SO. It has been precisely 1 year, 2 months and 1 day since my last post.  But here I am now, sitting and typing, sharing what I did today.

 

Here is the opening image.::.

 

That, my darlings, is a shark.  A shriveled up, velvet slash sandpaper to-the-touch, formaldehyde and fishy smelling shark. 

What did I do with this descriptive shark, you might ask.? Or maybe not, it might be obvious. Either way, I'm going to tell you that I dissected it.

 

NOW.  When I started my marine biology course at the beginning of this - my senior year of highschool, I was overly excited about the dissection kit.  But then the kit arrived in the mail.  I've had it for a little while now, but have been coming up with excuse after excuse to not open the specimens and experience what they - mainly - would smell like.  But hey, it has to be done sooner than later.. after all, I'd like to graduate.

 

Here is how the morning dissection progressed.. (and I had the assistance of my lovely mother, and loving brother as well as my sissy who took the photos.)

 

As you can see, the morning started off well.  Great wake up call, I might add. "Hey, while everyone else gets a snow day, let's cut up a shark."  {Life of a homeschooler}

 

Daw, its little teeth.

And here is when I got sad/disgusted.

 

 

The joys of exposing the insides of any had-been-living-creature.

(But hey on the bright side, the yellow compliments my nails quite nicely.....)

^^^I made my mom touch the stomach and other lovely organs.

Mhmm.  That looks about right.

(that's my personal favorite picture from the 'session', by the way)

Chicken?...

And then we got to end the dissection with looking at the brains.

 

I hope you all quite enjoyed my random post of my shark excursion this morning. 

 

I just didn't want to clog up your Facebook feeds with this.

 

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your evening/day/whatever you have left after reading this. (:

 

Maybe I'll blog some more.........I know, I know, I say that every time.

 

((:



~Happy Sweet 16/New Year~

One of my friends was born on New Year's Eve, so what better way to celebrate a Sweet 16 than with friends on New Years Eve?

The black lights were pretty cool :D

Hope you had a great Sweet 16, girly!!

Love ya!

<3

~NeW but FaMiliAr~

I think I have failed to mention that we moved – at least since my last major post. Lol Soo, we have a new home, and new church, but we are back where we started(:  (If you recall, my dad’s a pastor as of the last 2ish 3 years; so we have a new church family he is serving at).
Even though we’re back with old friends, and old activities, we have a new church.  And with a new church comes a new YOUTH GROUP! Shabam! Lol
The kids here are pretty awesome, if I say so myself.  There’s a good mix of ages, from little little ones to high-schoolers (:  It’s awesome!  We got to do a lot of cool things with them, too, over the summer. 
For instance, the day after we moved in, we got to go to Kings Island with them.  That was nice for me cause I got to interact with the youth outside of the church setting & just ‘chill’.  I mean, what else is better that being able to meet new people & have a good time?  In that one day I got to talk with a good mix of all the kids & they were all so open to involving me (and my sibs, of course, too. Lol).  Not only did we get to go to Kings Island, but that following weekend we went camping at Deer Creek.  More time to get to know the youth.  And that probably benefited the most, as we did group games & get-to-know you activities.  Even if we weren’t doing the activities the adults had set up & were just off on our own either playing soccer in the field, or cramming into a tent to play card games it was pretty fun(: 
Now that we have been at the church here for, ehh 6 months, I believe, we had a lock-in finally this past week.  And might I say it was legit!



We had food, entertainment, anddddddd……..

Oh yea – we had brooms! Remember what I said about the lock-in being legit??  Yea, we played ‘broomball’! :P



But, it’s a sad day for the brooms…

I guess that’s what you get when you pay 1$ for cheap plastic crap! :P  You know what though?  It really didn’t matter because we got to beat up a little basketball (as well as each other’s legs – when it came to the guys).

^^ What lock-in is complete without a game of ultimate keep away?? Uhmmm, I don’t think any lock-in is ;)


I think everyone had a good time………….. until we had to go to bed at 3! Erggh, oh well – we’ll do an all-nighter at the next one; trust me, I love getting no sleep! ;D Lol

<3

~Still Alive~

Sooooooooo I’ve been a total complete fail when it comes to blogging :P  My New Years Resolution may seem pretty simple, but we’ll see how it goes.. I plan to start blogging more ;)  (I am going to do a ‘photo-a-day’ on my photography blog : photography-cass.blogspot.com; then I have to do my best to post every day!)  We’ll see.  Anywhoo I’m still alive & lovin’ every bit of it!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! I know I did. (:  I got a camera from ‘Santa’ & some other cool stuff.  We had our family Christmas celebration on the 26th.  

( ^^ What little one isn’t curious to know what’s under the tree for them? )

We all got some really cool things from everyone, but do you know my absolute fave….?? ………

Yep, my Aunt, Uncle, & Cuz got me a ukulele. Pretty cool right? I thought so too ;)

One of my friends is starting a ukulele club (beginning this week, actually) and I so wanted to join – but you can’t join a ukulele club without a ukulele.  Thanks guys!! :D

I’d say it was a good Christmas overall (:

<3

~Dare to Share~

Everyone has their problems when it comes to sharing..unless of course the sharing involves illness.  Blech!  How I hate it when people share their cruddy illness with me (or anyone else for that matter!)!  I’m sitting here in our basement, lying on the loveseat with a HORRIBLE sore throat & a stiff neck due to the sore throat.  My throat has been bothering me since around Tuesday.  You see, I have vocal lessons every Tuesday evening, & I told my vocal coach that my voice is a little ‘iffy’ right now because I’ve had a cold off & on.  Mrs. E even told me at the end of my lesson that my voice sounded a little tight.  Through the whole lesson I was drinking my water bottle in between songs & exercises.  Well, finally on Wednesday my throat started to get sore.  I thought it was just a fluke thingy & that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about.  After all, it was just a sore throat around bedtime & I figured my voice was just worn-out from busy week schedules.  Thursdays we have one of our co-ops.  Well, when I woke up Thursday morning my throat wasn’t any better – BUT it wasn’t any worse.  I told my mom that my throat still hurt & it hasn’t gotten any better, however it wasn’t any worse.  I took my temperature & didn’t have one., so we went to co-op.  I did NOT want to go to co-op if we thought I had strep, because I am the second oldest there & there are TONS of little ones that I didn’t want to get sick; but since I didn’t have a fever we went to co-op.  All day I was careful about who I was around & how long I was around them.  I warned my friends Jenna, Alyssa, & Meredith that I had a sore throat and not to get too close. 

You have to understand, my aunt & uncle came to our house this past weekend & they suspected that he had strep.  However, he never ended up going to the doctor to get checked out.  My aunt had it –I don’t know a month or two ago, & hadn’t finished all her antibiotics so he finished the last couple doses of that.  One slight problem..the dosages for my aunt would be way lower for her then they would be for my uncle.  When he felt better on Saturday, they came on Sunday (Gma & Gpa had been watching their kids – our cousins – for a few days & they stayed at the house.  Also, everyone needed hair cuts so my aunt came to give us those too). 

Ok, back to my sore throat…………..   So I told my friends to be careful.  Well, yesterday my throat hurt so bad & it hurt to move my neck.  My mom wanted to check the back of my throat & apparently it looked pretty bad.  When my mom then looked up strep & what the signs were I fit into those signs.  JOY! – I thought.  “Can’t wait!”  (Ok – so COMPLETE sarcasm involved!)  I was supposed to babysit today so my mom called Mrs. W about my throat & talked with her about it.  She’s a nurse so she said I needed to get checked out right away.  (Incase you haven’t guessed – I wasn’t able to go babysit):  Sad day!)  Mrs. W told my mom that CVS/pharmacy has a clinic & to go there because of how late in the day it was.  Unfortunately there were 6 people waiting ahead of us & ONE doctor, so we made an appointment for today. 

OKAY – the news you’ve been waiting for..  Yes, I have strep!!!!!  UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH!  It’s so irritating & I hate it!  I can’t swallow & my neck hurts too.  UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH!  And I am SO hoping I feel a little better by the 14th since it’s my birthday! (Excitement!)  Let’s just hope (:

At least in 24 hours I won’t be contagious any more & will be able to go to co-op on Tuesday!!  YAY!  But I think I’m going on vocal rest…………….again.  Ugh how I hate that!

Well, no other exciting news (if you can consider this exciting..ha I think not!)  I just want to get better!!

=)