New Years Resolution Contest!

Hey everyone,
So I was wondering if any of you are making some crazy or just for fun resolutions for New Years. Tell me about them and I will post the best one!
Now to have the best, it has to be something that you've never tried before so tell me what you got and you might just win! I will post the winner January 3 so you have 4 days to comment on this post! In the comment, write your name and New Years resolution. Good luck!

Yours truly,
Butterfly

P.S. My resolution is to post what your all interested in so you can comment on any post what you would like to see on my blog! Thanks!

My CHRISTmas

First, today is my dad's birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Second, here is all the details of what took place Christmas day at my house. I woke up at 9am but everyone else was already awake. We had bagels and toast for breakfast because my younger sister insisted that a big breakfast takes too much time before opening gifts! LOL

So everyone piled into the family room and started the unwrapping of many gifts. My favorite part is probably seeing each reaction to each gift. Its always a face of joy and gratitude (no one gets unwanted gifts at our house)! We turned on the Walt Disney Christmas Parade hosted by Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa and I took a picture of that and David Archuleta (the runner up to this years American "idol" winner) was showing some of the newer attractions in Disney World:

Well I know some of you are wondering what I received for Christmas so I will not make you wait any longer. I got............

• A pair of LA gear casual flats (loooove it)



• a box of Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate covered Shortbread cookies (can someone say Mmmm...)



• A 2009 Horse Calendar from my sister



• A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates from my brother



• 2 magnetic games for car rides or whenever



• The Martyr's Song trilogy by Ted Deker (really good from the first 50 pages i've read)


• An AWESOME pair of creme colored cloves that are totally my style (my mom has good taste)


• An Easy Acrylics art book


• $25 dollars in cash from my Great Aunt Cheryl


• A generous $25 Kohls gift card and homemade English Toffee from the nice lady I babysit for


• A $10 Kohls gift card from my BFFWILLAS, Kaitlyn


• A pair of TOTALLY cute ballet flat American Eagle shoes (they were an early gift so I wore them to all Christmasy places)


• super cute winter pj's from my mom and dad


• a cute horse necklace from my aunt, uncle and cousins


• and more gifts are coming when I see my grandparents (from my dad and mom's side) on Saturday!!! I am sooo richly blessed to have a white and wonderful Christmas this year!

A picture of my gifts (top) and my baby brother AJ checking out the Little Einsteins rocket car that my dad, brother and I got for him. He likes it a TON!

After opening gifts, we all got ready to go to my Aunt Tina's for a Chirstmas lunch/dinner. We had tons of food from Brownies to Turkey. My cousins tree was huge! They have a cathedral ceiling in their living room so the tree was probably 10 -12 feet tall. We had a really nice time together. We played a grab gift game and I received a huge coconut chocolate mousse candle. My mom got a beautiful bracelet and my dad a $10 gift card to a restaurant. It was real fun! Since my cousins are an hour drive away, we didn't get home until 7pm or so. I was sooo tired from playing with cousins and eating sooo much food! : ) It was a Christmas I will never forget!

Well don't forget to count your blessings and if you didn't get your wishlist item, something better is coming from God!

Blessings and Merry Christmas, Butterfly

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!
I pray you all have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!


Joy to all,
Butterfly

Christmas Party at my Great Aunt's

Hi Everyone,
If you read my last post, you would know that yesterday (Sunday) I went to my Great Aunt Lynn's house for her annual Christmas party. It was lots of fun. I got to see my cousins that I see only once or twice a year, my other great aunt who gernerously gave all the kids $25 each for Christmas, and my mom's cousins (by the way, everyone there is on my mom's side of the family). Due to not so great roads, my grandma and grandpa didn't come (it would have been an hour drive from there house and my grandma has many back problems).
There was TONS of food to eat! Ham, Roast Beef, green bean cassorole, potatoe cassorole, minostronie, homemade rolls (my mom and I made those) and sooo much more.
For dessert, there was brownies, apple pie, blueberry pie, cranberry pie, fudge, assorted chocolates, peanut butter cookies, chocolate cookies, and strawberry vanilla cake! Mmmmmm...
I was so happy to see all the family together and talk with everyone. It was a great time!!

Blessings,
Butterfly

Super Late Update

OK so I am soooo sorry that this update is so late but with Christmas and shopping things have been really busy!
Last week, my sister and I made Christmas Chocolate Creations and sold them to neighbors. We made together $13! I made $8.50 and she made $4.50 from what she made. We both gave half of our earnings to a charity and the rest we kept for more supplies. It was a lot of fun. I spend over two hours because I was making santas on pretzels using red and brown chocolate. First I had to put the red for Santas hat and suit and let it harden and then add the brown and sprinkles.
Monday we did schoolwork (shocker huh... LOL) well anyway, I did my Chemistry, Geometry, English, Bible Study and History. I did a research paper on President Nixon & Watergate. It was very interesting and there is a lot of mystery in that case.
Tuesday was the begining of my dad's vacation. He won't be going back to work until January 5! He has sooo many vacation days left over that he didn't use yet so we will have lots of time to enjoy together. I babysat on Tuesday from 3:15 to about 4pm or so for a neighbor while she went to get her older kids from school because her youngest was napping.
Wednesday we did some house cleaning. I did some of my homework (about half a days work) and helped my mom with baking cookies.
Thursday was the big day of my younger sisters Christmas Choir Concert. She was so excited but a bit nervous too. She did really well. Thursday morning my mom took me out for breakfast and we split a delicious egg and cheese croisant sandwich and two muffins (apple and blueberry). I enjoy speding alone time with my mom because I can talk to her about anything.
Friday, I don't remember what we did! This is so strange but I just can't remember..... I will let you all know if I remember soon.
Saturday I seriously slept in! I didn't get out of bed until 10am! Of course I hadn't fallen asleep until about midnight the other night so that may have been why. We went to the chiropractor and then to a grocery store just down the street. We bought some delicious danishes because they are actually organic! I didn't know that they sold such a thing. : D
Today we are leaving for my Great Aunt Lynn's for her Christmas Party so I have to go. I will tell you all about the party when we get back!

Blessings and Joy,
Butterfly

Joyous news

Hey everyone,
I have something to share with you all that my family and I are very excited about!!!
Drum roll please............... WE GOT CLEARPLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't know what clearplay is, then click here to see the website.
What clearplay does is you get a subscription through their online site and you can watch just about every movie made with no swearing, nudity, crude humor, violence, gore and it will edit it out like it was never there!
My dad purchased it on eBay with a 1 year subscription for only $50 and at Family Christian and other stores its over $140! We are so happy because now we can watch films with no inappropriate scenes or swearing. God bless the people who invented clearplay!

Well besides clearplay, I babysat this morning and my sister came along because she enjoys playing with the girls. I brought the Christmas gifts I made them (I made scarfs for the girls) and it was perfect because they needed kid-sized scarfs. I was so happy that the girls liked their gifts and I hope their brother likes what I got him too. I am also happy that I got to hold the new baby girl in their family. She is so very precious. I can barely remember when AJ was that small and he isn't even 1 year old yet! Well I need to do my history assignment now so I will post more later.

Blessings and joy,
Butterfly

My Busy extended weekend

Hi blogger friends,

Sorry I have been so busy. Last week my dad took Friday off and I babysat that morning. AFter babysitting we went to the chiropractor and then to Whole Foods (a HUGE grocery store). Then we went to the mall down the street, at lunch (a mix of Arby's and Olga's) and then did some window shopping. The only thing we bought was a rubber ducky set for my baby brother for Christmas. He loves playing with his ducks in the bath but his old one started to grow mold inside (ewwwwwww!!!!)! We threw it in the garbage. When we got back home, AJ went down for his nap and my siblings and I ate some dinner while my parents went out and did grocery shopping.

Saturday, we went to my dad's Christmas Work Party. We got there at 11am and ate the breakfast they had (we had eaten some small breakfast before going). I went on the mini train ride with AJ in my lap since he is only 11 months old (my mom claims to be too big even though I am 4 inches taller than her). We got our pictures taken with Santa and AJ hated being next to the kind man. I held him so he wouldn't be as upset but he still tried wiggling out of my arms and was doing a baby version of screaming. After that, we received a toy from santa (toy stuffed penguins and reindeer). Then we left my dad's work after he said hi to some of his fellow employees and went to an outdoor Christmas trick-or-treat. We didn't have to dress up but we did bundle down to stay warm! There were different stops in from of three strip malls where you would play games (ring toss, bucket balls, and tic-tac-toe... kinda easy stuff) and get a candy prize at each different stations. One of the restaurants had hot cider, another had cocoa and meatballs. It was actually quite fun! We went to a historical museum that was open for free that day and saw the Christmas craft show inside. Another Santa was there and AJ kept making sad faces every time he tried to come near to AJ. It was sooo cute! Later that evening, at 5:25, I left my house to go babysitt across the street until 11:45pm! But I did have a good time watch four girls ages 12, 9, 7, and 2. Once they were all in bed, I watched a movie to keep myself awake until their parents came back from their Christmas concert.

Sunday,

after church, we went to a museum thats about a 45 minute drive from our house and we saw a costume exibit there. The following pictures are from the museum:

Batman's costume, Robin's costume, and below is the batmobile!

Darth Vadar

Indiana Jones jacket, whip, and the holy grail.

Ghost Busters Car and one of the costumes.

Monday, my dad had that day off too so my parents went to do grocery shopping while AJ took his nap and my siblings and I did our schoolwork. At 3pm, we went to pick up my friend and go Christmas caroling at a local nursing home. It was fun to make a joyful noise with so many homeschool families and bring such joy to the elderly! Then, after dinner, we went caroling with 8 kids and their mom's from our court in our sub. After caroling, we went to our neighbors house across the street for hot cocoa, brownies (i made them), peppermint cupcakes and games. It was tons of fun!

Today, I have done my homework, helped my mom cut my brothers hair by holding him still because he hates getting his hair cut, went to the dentist at noon which went as follows, "You have very nice colored teeth, you brush really well, you have no cavities, and you won't have any bottom wisdom teeth." I was very excited to hear that I won't have bottom wisdom teeth because normally those HAVE to be removed and the dentist doesn't know if I will get uppper wisdom teeth yet but they should be able to tell by my next appointment in June. Now my schoolwork is done which is why I am posting but I have to go because dinner is almost ready and my assistence is needed.

More later, luv, Butterfly

Give me your eyes

Hey all,

Hope you are having a great week and have sunny skies! Now my title is for a good reason. I am going to talk about eyes and how so many are blessed to see. If you have never heard Brandon Heath's totally awesome song "Give me your eyes" you can scroll to my green playlist on the bottom of my blog and listen to it while you read this post.

Here is the lyrics:
Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breath in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere,
Why have I never cared?

Chorus:
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
Yeah Yeah

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what's underneath
There's a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He's out of work
He's buying time
All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Chorus

I've Been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all along
Chorus (x2)

Brandon Heath is asking God to give him a heavenly viewpoint of this world. Can you imagine what its like from God's eyes? He cares about everyone and everything.
Have you ever thanked God for your eyes? What about your vision. Almost everyone is born with eyes, but not all are born to see. Like Helen Keller, some will never see a sunset, a waterfall, or their mommy and daddy's faces. Don't take your vision for granted. God gave it to you as a gift just as He gave you life!

Praise Him, thank Him, all ye little Children, God is love. God is love! <3

Blessings and love,
Butterfly