2009...

I am forgoing the "year in review," month-by-month reminder of blog posts, post for this blog because this blog hasn't even been around for a year, and really, I just don't think I'm that interesting. I did one over here at my livejournal, but it's nothing super spectacular. I'll mention some highlights of my year instead.

... Took the SAT. 1370. Heck yes.

... Worship night with Ingredients. I will never forget how it feels to have my feet washed. Beautiful. Perfect. Love.

... NYC with Mom, best friend from pre-school, her mom, her cousin, her mom's cousin. Almost as good as London. Almost.

... Camp Klema. Church camp is love.

... North Carolina. Have I ever been anywhere else quite this beautiful? No. I think even London doesn't really match up with the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And the family and friends that live there are priceless. This vacation with Mom was one of my favorites.

... SEN10R year began. We're halfway through. Yes. :)

... Eighteenth birthday. That's a highlight.

... And this holiday season, from Thanksgiving to now, has been really nice, spent with lots of family from both Mom and Dad's sides. <3

So Happy New Year's Eve! Be safe tonight and have a ball. Love, love, love. Hello, 2010.

The Sweeterie

I can't remember where I read about The Sweeterie, but it's high time I shared it. It's my homepage, and I love it.

Hope everyone had a happy Christmas weekend and continues to have a relaxing week leading up to the New Year on Friday. I am looking forward to welcoming 2010. It will be the year of my graduation, moving away from home, starting college, and becoming more free, becoming more me. I can't wait. :)

Merry/Happy Boxing Day!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. Our day was quite enjoyable. We woke up early to open presents and then drove out to my aunt and uncle's house in Louisiana for the day. Delicious noodles and turkey (my favorite dish, which I missed greatly due to being with Mom's family for Thanksgiving instead of Dad's), ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, pea salad, and fabulous wheat rolls graced the table, along with some of the best sweet tea I have ever tasted (I think I drank five or six glasses throughout the day). After lunch we lazed about, watching a marathon of Mythbusters on the Discovery channel, reading, playing Nintendo DS, and talking with family. We all trekked outside to take a few photos of the group before dinner: the best sticky rice ever and Louisiana gumbo with potato salad and more of that sweet, sweet tea. :)

Today I'm sharing a few shots of our Christmas decorations here at home. First, our miniature snow globes of the 12 Days of Christmas.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtledoves,
and a partridge in a pear tree.


Ketcher and I have beautiful stockings that jingle super loudly when you pick them up, and Mom always stuffs them with practical gifts. This year I got a new electric toothbrush, glasses cleaner, paper clips shaped like treble clefs, and a new charm for my charm necklace.


And the tree. :) Mom and I put it up at the beginning of December. There's a collection of homemade and store bought ornaments; the homemade ones are slowly being worked off because the tree is smaller than our old one. I generally sort out all the ornaments before the two of us decorate the tree. I cut the angel off the top, but he's there. :)

So I hope you all enjoyed your day. Continue to enjoy the Christmas break before you return to school or work or whatever real life you have to go back to. Remember God's blessings; His gift of His Son to die on the cross for our sins, to give us the opportunity to live forever in Heaven if we trust in Jesus. That's the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

Senior Pictures: Sneak Peak

This is my senior year. SEN10R year. It's half over now. And along with the picnic, the cap and gown, the this and the that, one tradition of senior year is senior pictures, am I right? However, senior pictures can be extremely expensive, and I am not a fan of extremely expensive things. So, this creates a bit of a problem, right? Wrong! Wrong, when you have amazingly talented friends such as the beautiful Judy who took and edited my photos for me. We spent the afternoon at a pretty park, I changed clothes in my car, and she spent quite a chunk of time making about sixty-five pictures look their very best. For this, I will be eternally grateful, and I'll probably bake her an extra batch of Christmas cookies or something.

We intend to do this again, probably in the spring, with different weather, different locations, and different styles. I'll have all the pictures in the next few days or so, and I expect I'll put them up on facebook, but I wanted to give y'all a sneak preview first. So, may I introduce, my winter collection of senior portraits by Judy.

And no worries; most of the pictures include my face. ;) I'll add some more favorites in the coming days. I hope y'all had a beautiful Wednesday and have festive plans for Christmas Eve tomorrow. <3

Cousins

For my 100th post (oooo exciting) I'm talking about cousins.

Today I spent the morning making a gingerbread house with two of my little cousins that I babysit pretty often. It was quite successful. I was very proud of them. <3


I remember when both of these girls were born, and I've been babysitting them for years. They are precious, sweet children of God, and I love them so much. Their dad is my first cousin; he's nineteen years older than me, and his wife thinks that is so weird that we're so far apart in age, but we're cousins. But that's the way my family is. My dad is the fifth of six siblings, and he was the last to have kids, so Ketcher and I are the youngest of the first cousins. Almost all of our cousins are married and have children--one of those kids is actually older than I am. My mom's side is a little more normal; she only has a brother and a sister. However, her brother has five kids, the youngest of which is a year older than Ketcher. Mom's younger sister just had her first baby a couple of weeks ago, so I'm not the youngest on that side of the family anymore! Plus, my mom has a couple of cousins she is close to, and their kids are around mine and Ketcher's ages, so that's about the closest we get to "best friend" type relationships between cousins.

The magnitude of cousins means we don't all get Christmas gifts, but we don't mind. Time spent with family is such a great gift in itself; we love spending holidays at my uncle's ranch or my cousin's house where the guys cook out on the grill and we gather and eat and talk for hours. My grandmother on my dad's side did do something very special for each of the first cousins. There are fourteen of us, and grandma made each of us a quilt. They are gorgeous, and I'll cherish mine forever and hopefully pass it on to my daughter.

What I'm trying to get at is this: family is important. But for some reason it seems that "family" typically refers to mother, father, brother, sister, maybe grandparents. And I believe aunts, uncles, and cousins are just as important. There is love there that I try not to take for granted. I know not everyone has as massive a family as I seem to. We're spread across the country: Washington, Nebraska, Ohio, Vermont, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and all over Texas. I want to appreciate each member of my extended family and remember the time I get to spend with them.

Merry Christmas!

This is my 99th post; perhaps I'll do my 100th on Christmas or just after. :)

Are you in the Christmas spirit yet? It's only SIX days away!

This cute fire hydrant the day it snowed is definitely ready for Old St. Nick.

Last night was the big Madrigal concert--Carols of Christmas. I sang the second verse of "The First Noel" solo, and my sister cried because she sang that her senior year, too. :) Our last events are tonight (two favorites: the doctor's party where they drink and don't listen to us but pay us good money and the hotel is awesome, and the Blue Santa Toy Drive at this huge, gorgeous house) and then we hang the costumes up for the year. It's been a good one. <3

All the Christmas gifts I'm giving this year are wrapped and under the tree. I tried not to spend too much money and I think I did rather well, while still finding gifts my friends and family will appreciate. All that's left to do it write a couple of Christmas notes and that will be that. I love to wrap presents and put together fun gifts. PS: there are loads of Christmas cookies in my house; everyone come eat some.

Today when I checked the mailbox there was a thick envelope addressed to me: my acceptance letter to UNT. :D It's my first letter, so that was very exciting, though not surprising since it's a public school and I'm more than just the top 10% of my graduating class. I'm waiting on scholarship information before I choose where I'll be next August; probably either UNT or UTDallas. The thought of college makes me want to hurry this year up, after Christmas and New Years that is.

Almost an entire month has past

and a lot has happened! I apologize for my absence; life got overwhelming QUICK there around Thanksgiving and I just now feel like I may have caught up.

First of all: Thanksgiving break was beautiful. I toured TCU and UNT; two gorgeous schools, experienced a superb weekend at Dance Revolution, got to visit my brother, and spent the holiday with aunts, uncles, and cousins eating some delicious traditional Thanksgiving food followed by fresh seafood the day after. Plus: some intense Catch Phrase with my family. Of course, missing three days of school right before Thanksgiving left me with quite a load of make-up work to do, but it was definitely worth it.

When the break was over, Madrigal season kicked into overdrive. We performed at a H City Cafe in the pouringpouringpouring rain before what was supposed to be the annual Christmas parade. However, our next event was cancelled because of... SNOW. Again! Snow two years in a row is unheard of here.

The day after the "big snow" was Dickens on the Strand down in Galveston, always one of the favorite events of the year. Our dear friend Shaniqua took the lovely Judy's camera and acted as photographer, and she did a great job, capturing these special moments:

all the seniors after breakfast and before heading out <3

the crew after our performance at "Windsor Castle"

a family of pirates including the cutest "Arrr" I have ever heard

After Dickens a bunch of friends stayed the night at the beach house for Connor's birthday, and we made friends with some barnacles.

do they remind you of Audrey II?

And that brings us to this week. We preformed some Hebrew love songs with the Orchestra on their concert Tuesday night, then sang for the Rotary Club on Wednesday during school, and had our choir Christmas concert last night. Tonight is a day off before we go downtown to the Heritage Society Candlelight Tour tomorrow evening. We have a few more events next week before our big concert, Carols of Christmas, next Friday night. Next week is finals; I'm done with the fall semester of my senior year on Wednesday at 10:30am and I couldn't be more ready. College applications have been submitted, scholarships and honors college applications are in the process, and it's so close to Christmas I can smell it.

I've decided to make most of my Christmas gifts this year for my family and friends. I'm going to attempt to be creative and try not to spend a lot of money, because I don't have a lot of money to spend, and making things is just more fun.

So happy Friday night; happy weekend; happy Christmas. <3