Christmas by Makennah!

Emily and Aurora tagged me to play this game - I'm very excited to tell you about my Christmas!

1) What is your favorite part of the holiday season?
Oh this is too hard... cookies? Presents? Cousins? Christmas Lights? I just love it all!

2) Who do you celebrate Christmas with?
I go to my grandparents house for two whole weeks! It means I have to sleep on the floor, but I get to play with Addie Jo!

3) What is your favorite gift you have ever received?
My Julie doll

4) What are your favorite Christmas Carols?
Oh Come All Ye Faithful - It's so pretty!  It's also the first song I sang in church - when I was just 4 years old!

5) What is your favorite Christmas food?
Frosted, Sprinkled Sugar Cookies - yum yum yum

6) Can you sleep on Christmas Eve?
No! And I will tell you why - Addie Jo and I have to sleep together, in the same bedroom. It's so hard to quit talking! And sometimes, my other cousins sneak in and jump on us in our sleeping bags, which starts a scare war. It's lots of fun, but we usually get in trouble for being WAY too loud!

7) When do you wake up on Christmas morning?
Ohhhhh. I am NOT an early riser. Even though I get excited about Christmas, I do NOT like getting up early. We open all our presents on Christmas eve, so only Santa and stockings are on Christmas morning. I'd sleep in, but Addie likes to get up WAY too early!

8) What is your most memorable memory?
Two years ago it snowed a LOT on Christmas. The drifts were really high, so on the way home from my grandmother's house, we stopped in the country and got to play in a field of snow drifts. It was so fun - even though we kept falling down.

9) What are you Christmas traditions?
We open our presents on Christmas eve, after we go shopping! :) It's an adrenaline rush to shop on Christmas eve.

10) Do you have a real tree or an artificial tree?
Well, I've got a few. My tree in my room is old, so it's a fake green tree with colored lights. We have another tree that is silver, so it's obviously fake. My grandparents ALWAYS have a real tree, so I guess I have a little of both!

Tagged - Ok, I think pretty much everyone else has already done this, but if you're reading this and you haven't been tagged, YOU'RE IT! :) Merry Christmas!

Lots of updates

Soooo.  I was gone for a bit.  I was super busy!  I have so much to tell y'all.  So one night, Josefina was acting awfully strange, so I asked her what was going on. She had a trip to the outside world coming up and she was nervous.  She also needed to bake cookies, so I thought I'd offer my assistance.  (And in my head, I was thinking, won't this be a great blog post?)  So here are the results - the night took an unexpected turn!

 While I was busy rolling cookies, Josefina disappeared.  I went back to my studio, where there was a strange light burning...

Final shot of me with all my birthday loot!  :)  It was a pretty good 10th birthday!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, today is my 10th Birthday!  I'm very excited, but Monday birthdays are really not much fun, because you can't do much after school.  I'll post pictures of my party later this week - when it happens.  I am pretty excited because I have presents coming in the mail all week long.  Yay for birthday WEEKS!  :)  Well, I'm off to eat my favorite food, chicken alfredo pasta, and have some cake and ice cream.  Talk to y'all soon!

Christmas Ornaments - Day 1

Hi!  Today I started on my Christmas projects.  I'm going to try to give everyone homemade gifts this year.  My first project was painted ornaments.  I made 2 kinds of ornaments today - I'll show you how!


(Notice my snazzy new outfit?  Thanks AGPT members - I totally claimed the Halloween prize.  Kit, Josefina, and Felicity still claim they have no idea what I'm talking about!)  You'll need to make sure you tie your hair back and have an old shirt on, as well as a handy human to help out!  You'll also need some old Christmas balls, acrylic paints, Qtips, and some bleach water in a bowl.





Pull the hangers off some old glass Christmas balls.  Drop them in some bleach water to sit.  You might have to scrub them a little bit with the Qtip.  Make sure you have some help!

 After they've soaked for awhile, they should start to look all grey and grody.  Then you can rinse them with warm water.  Make sure you rinse them a REALLY long time to get all the bleach off.  The grey paint should flake off too.  Lay them out to dry on paper towels.





At this point, you should probably take a break.  Maybe your mom has tasty peanut butter and chocolate chip muffins that you can steal.  Just don't get caught. Mmmm....





Okay - back to ornaments.

 To make marbled ornaments, you squirt diluted acrylic paints into the globe.  Choose your favorite colors.  It helps if you do light colors first, then add less amounts of dark colors.  When you are finished adding your colors, turn them over on the top of a bowl and let the paint drip out.  It takes a couple of days for these ornaments to completely dry.  In the meantime, you can work on polka dotted ones!



To make polka-dotted ornaments, take paint pens in whatever colors you like.  Make large polka dots in a light color (I'm using white).  Wait for them to dry - it only takes a few minutes.  Now would be a good time to eat another muffin.

 When they are dry, add smaller dots in a darker color.  I'm using red.  Then, choose one last color and add specks all around.  Make sure you leave a little blank spot, so we can put the initial on.

Add some ribbon for a hanger and voila!  I made this one for my cousin, Addie Jo.  I'm going to see her in her new house in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, so I had to get this one done quickly!



 I didn't forget about the marble ornaments.  Here are my two.  They were still a little wet, so I'll have to flip them over to keep drying out.  :)  Thanks for following along today!  Do you have any plans for Christmas projects??

I'm baaaack!

Hello friends - old and new!  Well, as you probably noticed, I went missing for awhile.  My human switched the internet company and my old blog vanished!  Very sad, but I'm ready to start again.   Here's my school picture from this year - I look a little like a deer in the headlights, but don't everyone's school pictures look like that?  Anyway, I'm working on a Christmas Ornament tutorial that I hope to get put up today or tomorrow (my human is home sick and she's pretty necessary for this sort of stuff, so I've got to get on the ball!).  See you all soon - and I'm so glad to be back!
-Makennah

Day is done...

Well, we had our closing ceremonies for Camp PDC on July 4.  I was sad to leave, but I was ready to sleep in my nice cool house for awhile.  I'm sure I'll post some more pictures when they come in.  I had a great time and it was fun meeting all those girls!  I know that I'll keep in touch with them, especially Amy.  July 4th was a sad holiday this year.  We didn't get to pop firecrackers or anything because it was so dry, but the town near Camp PDC had a laser show, so we stayed and watched that.  It wasn't really the same, but it was still cool.  The temperature hasn't been over 100 this week - so that's been really nice!  It hasn't been under 95 though.  Well, I'm off to pack again.  Our summer vacation starts this week.  I'll see y'all in August - unless I get a chance to update on the road!  :)
-Makennah

It's HOT!

Crafts

Hi.  So I meant to post a little more this week, but it was SO hot!  We had to change our plans a bit.  Instead of riding horses during the afternoon, we waited until later in the evening.  That meant we had all afternoon to swim and do crafts - anything to keep cool.  It was well over 105 degrees every day!  The grass is crunchy and dry and even the cacti are drying up in the Canyon!  That also means no more campfires - well, actual campfires.  We still have campfire, just no fire.  No s'mores either.  Or fireworks.  I want us to be safe, but it will be a sad 4th of July without fireworks!  I've been helping Elena with her swimming a lot and I really think she's getting better.  She can definitely dog paddle!  I'm really starting to like Amy.  I was afraid she might be kind of mean, but she really is nice and brave.  Bugs, hiking, worms, nothing bothers her!  We are all getting along better, but sometimes I think Anna feels left out.  She doesn't like it here very much.  I'm not sure what to do about that.

Gathering supplies for our Sit Upons

First you need two pieces of felt big enough that you can sit on them.

Well, Amy and Meghan and I are going to teach you how to make Sit Upons today.  The girls like that I have a blog and Amy thought it would be fun to share how to make a craft.  Meghan took most of the pictures for us. So here we go!  (If you don't know about Sit Upons, they are little things you put on the ground to "Sit Upon."  It keeps you from getting dirty or wet!)

You'll also need some paper bags.

Sandwich the bags between the felt.  It helps if you punch some holes in
the felt now.  

You'll need a long piece of yarn.

Then you sew the yarn around the felt using
a whipstitch - which means the thread
always goes through the same side.  You can
sew back the other way, going through the
opposite side of the fabric.  It will look
criss-cross if you get it right.

When you're finished, you can decorate it.
Then take it out in the great outdoors and
USE it!  :)

I'll update again sometime this week!
-Makennah


(I apologize for this wonky looking post - I just can't get it all together!  Thanks for reading and commenting - it's been such fun!)

Water Safety

Today was our first full day here at camp.  We had to be at 'flag pole' at 7:30 - before we even got breakfast! We sang our camp song, did the pledges for the Texas and US flags, and said our prayers.  After that, we got to go eat breakfast.  Food here at camp is really great!  For breakfast, you could have scrambled eggs and sausage with toast or cereal.  I'm a picky eater, but even I like that kind of breakfast! 

Cabin 15 girls at Water Safety

Meghan and I show off our swimbands.

After that, we have our morning activities.  Elena, Meghan, and I chose Water       Safety.  Elena helped Meghan and me braid our hair.  I was really glad she knew how to braid, because I was getting it all tangled!  We had to take a swim test this morning.  I earned a purple band - that means I can swim wherever, whenever!  (No, mom, not really.  There still have to be lifeguards around.)  I love to swim, so I knew I could ace that test. Meghan got a yellow band.  I think she got nervous during her test.  Meghan doesn't get to swim a lot in Russia, only when she visits here in the summers.  Meghan has to have a grownup watching if she goes in the deep end, but she is determined that she'll get her purple band by the end of the summer.  But here's the strange part - Elena got a pink band.  That means she can't swim at all!  I think she was embarrassed to tell us that she didn't know how.  She was really upset and scared to take the test, but she was really brave and did it anyway.  Elena will always have to have a grownup in the water with her.  I promised I'd help her out too.  (I'm going to need Elena's help with first aid.  Yikes - all those knots and slings and stuff...)

Cabin 15 flag

After that, we went back to our cabins and got ready for lunch.  In the early afternoon, our whole cabin has Arts and Crafts.  Today we worked really hard on our camp flag.  We decided simple was best.  We also learned some of the SECRET traditions at Camp PDC.  :)  I can't share those here, but it was fun!


In the late afternoon, we get to have free time - which means you can nap, write letters, swim, go horseback riding, play sports, or send emails.  Well, pretty soon it will be time for campfire and lights out.  I really hope Addie doesn't see any scorpions in the showers tonight.  She screamed a LOT last night.  And you know who killed it?  Amy.  I kind of thought that she'd be afraid of bugs.  Ok, I really have to go now, I can hear Anna calling me for campfire.  Talk to y'all soon!

Camp PDC

Hi everyone!  I'm using my free time tonight to catch y'all up to date on what's been going on.  Last week, I was busy packing, packing, packing.  It was tough trying to get all I needed packed into one trunk.  See what I mean?

We left Sunday afternoon and drove part of the way to Camp PDC.  We stayed at this house (my mom called it a B&B) and it was really old fashioned.  I kept thinking that Samantha probably would have really liked it.  I had to say goodbye to Julie that night.  We decided that it would be safer for her to stay at home.  Here we are saying goodbye.  I think she understands.  (Ok, I know she doesn't really understand, she's just a doll!)

We had to get up and drive some more early Monday morning so we could be there to check in that afternoon.  I was starting to get nervous.  Who would help me fix my hair?  What happens if I break my glasses?  What if I get sick?  I wasn't so sure that camp was a good idea.  I thought about telling my mom to TURN AROUND, but I knew we'd already driven a long way.  My mom told me that she cried and cried the first time she went to camp, but then she had a great time.  We finally arrived and I was almost the last one to check into my cabin!  Here's some shots of us moving in.

 Anna and Amy have known each other for a few years.  This is their third year at Camp PDC.  Last year, they met Addie, so they all decided to sleep on the ground floor.

 Meghan asked if I wanted to sleep in the loft with Elena and Emily.  This is Meghan and Emily's first time at camp.  This is Emily's FOURTH year!  She's been coming to camp since she was 5!

The girls of Cabin 15

Amy, Elena, Makennah, Emily

Addie, Meghan, Anna

Well, I need to get to bed.  Tomorrow I have Water Safety classes with Elena and Meghan.  We also have to make our cabin flag and learn some camp traditions.  I miss home, but I'm excited too!