Just Some Pretty Flowers......

I've got so many photos of the gorgeous flowers in our garden that I can't fit them all on one post! I'll have to do a few separate ones! This first post about flowers is just some of the not-so-close-up photos! There are a couple of my favourite close-ups aswell!

This one is one of my favourite photos! The colours are so pretty!

This photo is similar to the one above, just taken a different way.

Some hot pink pigface and green tansy (the ferny green plant).

Pretty Purple Lavender

Reddish/pinkish pigface and some daisies.

This is a low level photo of a section of our garden (like the photo above) . You can see the hill in the background...

And this is just some seaside daisies and other plants to finish off with!

Random 8 Question Quiz!

Amber from Honeysuckle Cottage tagged me to do this 8 question quiz.

Six names you go by:

• Possum
• Possum Princess

Three things your wearing right now:

• Green 'Slazenger' T-shirt
• Purple and dark gray shorts
• Colourful leopard print thongs
  

Three things you want very badly:

• This purple/violet and black 'slide' phone
• The DVD 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' + a lot of other movies!
  
• A kitten
• Also a proper netball (oops! That's 4!)
  

Three things you did last night/yesterday/today:

• Last Night- I started making Christmas decorations for my school friends
• Yesterday- Played dodgeball in PE class yesterday (girls against boys) and we lost within the first 5 minutes of the game!
• Today- I helped my science teacher (along with E, K and 2 boys from my class) set up and clean up experiments from the 'Year 7 2010 Orientation Day'. We also helped the year 6 kids do their experiments (I spent a lot of time helping Dragon!)
  

Two things you ate today:

• A bread roll with chicken, lettuce and cheese on it (for lunch, and Mum made it too so it was extra yummy!)
• An apple
  

Two people you last talked to on the phone:

• My friend K (I rang her on Tuesday)
• I can't remember any others
  

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:

• Spend the whole day practicing for presentation day assembly items.
• Probably watch a movie tomorrow night, or make some more decorations.
  

Your three favorite beverages:

• Lemonade
• Apple juice/tropical juice
• Coke zero + many more!

Summer is Here!

It's officially our first day of summer, and it's only 20*C (60*F)! During November, we had temperatures up to 38*C (100.4*F)! I can't wait till we can go to the beach these coming holidays! I think we are going camping too. This is going to be a FUN Summer!

Combined Churches Bush Dancing (10-10-09)

This is the second part of our Port Stephens holiday! (I wrote it while ago and forgot to publish it! oops!)
Grandpap, Dragon Aunty T, Ducky and I went to the combined churches bush dance. It was on Saturday (10-10-09) evening and was held in the local school hall (the school I used to go to before we moved!) When we first got there, Grandpap bought us all a sausage sandwich and a drink. When the music started playing, Ducky started dancing! She did ballet dances, cartwheels, crazy dancing, split jumps and she also danced with these two ladies from Grandpap's church. It was quite funny actually! :) Dragon decided he didn't want to dance, so Grandpap took him home, while Ducky and I stayed with Aunty T. When Grandpap came back, the bush dancing started. We did the 'heel and toe' dance, 'strip the willow', and many others that I can't remember their names! Quite a few ladies came up to me asking me if I was Mum-me's daughter. They must have remembered me from when we used to live there! Another lady came and asked me if I remembered her. I didn't, but she turned out to be the mother of my old friend N. I hadn't seen N for about 8 years! She looked really different! Back to the dancing, we did so much dancing that I was actually puffed! We had started dancing at about 7:00, and we ended up getting home at about 9:30! It was a really fun night! All the photos below are ones that I took of Ducky while dancing. There is some pretty funny ones, and a few really good action shots!

Ducky is about to do a cartwheel! Here she is about half way through the cartwheel! Ummm......just a strange, but cool move! ;) Ducky up in her split jump! After trying to get a photo of her like that for ages, it finally happened! I clicked the camera at the right time! Oh, that was when she was landing her split jump! I love the look on her face and the crazy position! I think this was one of her ballet moves. She's jumping up in the air! Another nice ballet move!
Just another weird position! ;)
Landing another split jump! And my favourite of her ballet moves from the night!
Hope you liked the picture. I have heaps more to post later (just not of bush dancing)!

You Capture: Food!

My Mum often participates in these 'You Capture' photo challenges. I was taking photos of the butterfly cakes I made yesterday and she suggested that I should try this photography challenge.. This weeks topic was food, so the butterfly cakes fit perfectly into the category! Mum's photo challenge photo's HERE!

This is a close up of one of the butterfly cakes that turned out best (I made 12 altogether).

And then the next 2 photos are close-ups of most of the butterfly cakes, but from different angles.

(We made the butterfly cakes in food tech at school today aswell! I'll post the simple recipe later...)

Mousie's Post - Jesus Loves Me

A couple weeks ago, I let Ducky do a blog post. This time I let Mousie do a blog post.

She typed it up all by herself (except for a word or two). She asked me to help her spell words like 'love', 'people', the 'ing' part of 'looking', 'after', 'all' and I think that's it. She did pretty well considering that she's only 5!

god is sehy and hey love all people and hey is good at looking after people and hey can be hap at looking after people i love him and hey love me god and jeses orwas looking after me heys cevr at looking after me he is gat at after looking me.

Translation:
"God is special and He loves all people and He is good at looking after people and He can be happy at looking after people. I love Him and He loves me. God and Jesus always looking after me. He's clever at looking after me. He is great at looking after me."

Mousie wrote this on Tuesday 24th November. She chose the 3 pictures herself.

Yearly Exam Week 2009

Last week was the 'Junior Exam Week' (years 7 to 9).
The year 8 exams started on Wednesday (18th November) and went until Friday (20th November). All of the exams went for 1 hour. The main subject exams (English, maths, science, history/geography and PH/H/PE) were held in the school hall. The other subject exams (music/art and LOTE) tests were held in class. We didn't have a technology exam.

On Wednesday, period 1, we had the science exam. It was very long, and a bit challenging, and I only just finished it in time. On Wednesday period 4, we had the maths exam. It wasn't that hard, but there were about 2 questions that I wasn't sure of. I finished the maths exam about 20 - 25 minutes early!

On Thursday period 3, we had the PH/H/PE exam. It wasn't too bad, although there were a couple questions I was unsure of.

And then on Friday period 2, we had the history exam. It was pretty good, but again there were a couple questions I didn't quite get/unsure of. Friday period 3, we had the English exam. Instead of having heaps of questions, we had 3 big/long answer questions. Two were on 'The Merchant of Venice' and one was on 'Bend it Like Beckham'. I didn't do quite aswell on that exam. :(

The day after the maths exam, we got our results back (my maths teacher marks the exams REALLY quickly!). WE got our English exam results back today and we are getting our history and science exam results back tomorrow, and hopefully PD/H/PE exam results aswell. On Monday, I got my LOTE test results back.

When I get all my exam/test results back, I'll do another post about them........

Quotes...

Me and my friends at school have a quote book, where we write down all the funny things we say or do, but also funny things that others in the class say or do.

My friends being featured in this post are P, K, M, E and A + a few other people from my class!

My all time favourite is:
M - "Can Good Friday be on any other day?"


Some of the other funny quotes are:

• A drew on her leg with blue pen............

A - "Is it really noticeable?"
C (an acquaintance)- "No A, it blends right in!"

• About 30 seconds after we started a science test...........

J (a boy in my class) - "Hey, did you know that my grandfather is a paperboy?"
Someone else in my class - "How old is he?"
J - "70!"
Teacher - "Then he must be a paperpop!"

• In History class........

Mr S (teacher) - "ROME rhymes with HOME!"
P - "Oh whoopee!!!"

• In Geography class..........

Mr C (teacher) talking about global issues- "And what should we do with the money instead?"
M- "Import cows!"

• In maths class..........

Mr B (teacher) talking to 2 boys "You two have the combined intellectual of a 5 year old!"

• E - "Onions can be purple because they are turnips!"

• A - "I think I have a fly up my right nostril!"

• K - "P, white me out! Please!

• M- "OMG, I think I have a tumor on my leg!"
  

K- "M, it's just a bruise!"

Faces #2

Here's a few more face photos!

This one is my favourite! A nice close up of Kitcat during our October holiday to Port Stephens.

This is a cute one of Mousie during our Easter holiday to Melbourne and Port Campbell (I still have HEAPS of posts to do on that holiday, just haven't gotten around to it yet).


And this is cutie pie Teddy sitting on the playgym one winter afternoon/evening.

Ducky's Post - 'Duckies!'

I haven't really had much to write about lately, so I decided to let my 7 year old sister, Ducky write a post. She decided to write it about 'Duckies!"

I like ducks . They are my favrit anmils in the world . They have very strong webde feet .Ducks eat Bred, Caris and grass and a foow uthing Thins. some of the duck have a green hed that mens they are a mall. If they dot have a green hed they are a feymall. Ducks are cute.

This is a translation:
I like ducks. They are my favourite animals in the world. They have very strong webbed feet. Ducks eat bread, carrots and grass and a few other things. Some of the ducks have a green head. That means they are a male. If they don't have a green head, they are a female. Ducks are cute.

(Ducky wrote this on the 30th October and chose the 3 pictures aswell).

Oztag Gala Day

On Monday (2nd November), two teams from my school went to the ACT Oztag Gala Day. I was in the year 7 & 8 team. At school, we didn't have any time to practice/train, since our teacher only got told about it about a week (or less) before the day. She was sort of like "Who ever wants to play Oztag, come get a note and be there on Monday!"

So, anyway, we didn't go very well against the other school teams. But seeing as the teams we versed were professionals actual proper school teams that go on to state and maybe even national championships, we didn't do that bad! We played 5 games. As we went through the games, we got better at the game.

• Game 1: We lost 5-0.
• Game 2: We lost 2-1 (but if the referee was fair, we probably would have won about 5-2).
  
• Game 3: We tied 2-2.
• Game 4: We lost 3-1 (I think).
• Game 5: We were all tired and lazy and lost 8-0 (I think).

With Game 2, the referee was being unfair. I accidentally did a slightly forward pass and I got a penalty for it. The other team did quite a few forward passes and only got a warning. My friend K accidentally jumped when she was running through the players on the opposite team and got a penalty for it. The other team did the same thing a couple times and only got warnings. And our team got about 3-4 other "try's", but the weren't counted for silly reasons like "The ball wasn't placed far enough over the line", even though it was well and truly over the line. Oh well, I guess it was just 'favouritism'. But anyway, I shouldn't complain because we were only there to have fun!

Our teacher, Miss W said that she might let us start a proper team next year, so hopefully we'll do better!

* If you don't know what 'Oztag' is, it is a non contact version of rugby league/NRL. Instead of tackling the person with the ball, you have to pull one of their tags off. The aim is to get to the opposite team's end of the field and score a try before the other team 'tags' you 5 times. On the fifth tag, you can either kick the ball, or continue on, but risk being tagged a 6th time.

Changing Bedrooms Around

On the first weekend of the October school holidays (3/9/09 - 4/9/09), we changed some bedrooms around. Mum and Dad had planned on letting Ducky have her own room, but when we found out that we were supposed to be moving at the end of this year, they decided to not bother. But then we found out that we are staying, so the room changing began. Ducky, Mousie and Teddy shared a room with 2 sets of bunk beds. Kitcat had her own room with 1 set of bunk beds. Dragon had a normal bed. Kitcat moved in with Mousie and Teddy, while Ducky got Kitcat's old room for herself.
Here's what happened:

• Dragon got Kitcat's bunks.
  
• Ducky got Dragon's old bed for her new room.
• Mousie moved to the top bunk in the girls' room (where Ducky used to sleep).
• Teddy moved to Mousie's old bottom bunk.
• Kitcat moved into Teddy's old bottom bunk.
• My room stayed the same!

The photoshop drawing I did below, is a plan of part of our house. See where it says 'Kitcat's Room'? That's Ducky's new room. And where it says 'Girl's Room', that is where Ducky moved from and Kitcat moved to!

Now to all the photos!

This is Ducky sitting on her top bunk before the bedrooms got changed. (Teddy's bed is underneath)

This is Mousie laying on her old bottom bunk.

This is Teddy sitting on her old bottom bunk (just pretend the mess isn't there!)

This is Kitcat's room before it got changed into Ducky's room.

Kitcat's old room again.....

And Kitcat sitting on her old bed.
Kitcat is sitting in the pile of toys, blankets and pillows that came off of everyone's bed! There's ducks, mice and teddy bears + a lot of other toys! :)

This is Mousie pointing to her new bunk (where Ducky used to sleep. Kitcat's new bed is underneath where Teddy used to sleep).
Ducky is standing in her new room, just after Kitcat's bunks were taken out and put.

And this is Ducky sitting on her new bed (Dragon's old bed)

This is a lot of Ducky's clothes before they got put away in their new wardrobe.

Ducky in her new room! Almost all finished!

This is Dragon in his room before the bedrooms got changed. He had also moved his furniture around earlier, so all his stuff is dumped on the floor, but it's all put away now!

Dragon and Ducky in Dragon's room before the rooms got changed.

Kitcat's old bunks in Dragon's room.

Now the bunks have mattresses!

And Dragon's new bunks again. (and again, the mess is from swapping everything around!)

I ♥ Faces - Pink

The theme this week is pink (for breast cancer awareness month). This is a picture of my little cousin Y, as seen on my previous post. She's wearing a cute pink hat and dress!

Click on the button to see more 'Pink' face photos.

Faces #1

I've been interested in face photography lately, taking close up photos of people's faces. I'm going to start posting pictures of faces once a week. They'll be of my family and sometimes friends.
These photos have been taken between 8th October and 13th October (during our holiday).

Cousin Y

Kitcat 1
Kitcat 2
Kitcat 3
Kitcat 4
Kitcat 5
Kitcat 6

Ducky 1

Ducky 2

Dragon

Mousie

Teddy

Mousie and Teddy

Easy Snack Recipes

At school this semester, I've been doing food technology. We've been learning how to cook simple recipes and serve them neatly. Here's a few that we've done if you want to try them:

EGG AND BACON BREAD CASES (serves 2)

Ingredients
2 slices bread
2 teaspoons of butter/margarine or vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 rasher bacon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180*C (356*F)
2. Cut off crusts from each slice of bread.
3. If you're using margarine/butter, melt it in microwave for 10-20 seconds.
4. Brush each side of the bread with the vegetable oil/melted butter.
5. Press each slice of bread into a muffin tin.
6. Chop bacon finely.
7. Break an egg into each bread case.
8. Top the egg with chopped bacon.
9. Bake for 20 minutes or until set.

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POTATO WITH NACHO SAUCE (serves 2)

Ingredients
2 medium potatoes
1/2 tomato
piece of onion
piece of bacon (you could use ham)
2 teaspoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons grated cheese
finely chopped parsley

Method:

1. Pierce skin of potatoes and microwave until soft (approx. 2-3 mins)
2. Finely chop tomato, onion and bacon/ham.
3. Place tomato, onion and bacon in microwave jug and mix in tomato paste.
4. Remove potatoes from microwave.
5. Microwave tomato mixture until onion is tender (approx. 1 min)
6. Cut top of potatoes in shape of a cross. ''Push" to open centre.
7. Place each potato on a plate.
8. Top with tomato mixture and grated cheese ( you could use leftover spaghetti bolognaise instead)
   
9. Sprinkle parsley on top.

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APRICOT DANISHES (serves 2)

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry
4 apricot halves (canned)
1/2 cup of thick custard ( to make thick custard: 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons custard powder, one tablespoon sugar. Mix together in microwave container and pout in microwave. Stir after every minute)
1 tablespoon juice from can
2 teaspoons sugar


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180*C (356*F)
2. Spray baking tray with spray oil.
3. Divide pastry into 4 equal squares.
4. Place equal portion of custard in centre of each pastry square
5. Top each portion of custard with 1 apricot half.
6. Fold 2 opposite corners of pastry together to for shape of a Danish ( I made a 'pinwheel' shape and a 'parcel' shape)
7. Glaze each Danish with fruit juice.
8. Sprinkle each Danish with sugar.
9. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
   

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These are 3 out of the 8 things we have made so far.
The other things we made are:

Coconut Ice (see recipe HERE)
Fruit Smoothie
Savoury/Vegemite Scrolls
Fruit Muffins
Cheesy Scrambled Eggs

Just a Few More Quizzes..........

Random Questions Tag

What kind of car would you like when you're older?
A shiny purple car..........maybe a convertible! ;)

Where would you want to live when you're older
Somewhere near the beach & my family.

Do you want to go to college?
Yeah, I guess so.

How many siblings do you have?
5

How many children would you like to have when you're married?
2-4
Boys or girls?
at least one boy and one girl

This or That?
That

City or Country girl?
umm.............sort of 50,50

Gourmet meals or steak with a big salad?
Steak with salad

Flying or driving?
Probably driving. we have a dvd player in our car aswell, so that always makes the trip (if it's long) better!

Bike riding or swimming?
Swimming! But I like riding too, only where I live it's a bit hard to ride because there are heaps of hills!

Sports or no sports?
I love sports!

Books or movies?
depends which book or movie it is

Outside or inside?
I prefer outside in the summer, and inside in the winter

School or chores?
School.

Wednesday or Sunday?
I'm not sure...

Friends or Family?
Family

Fried or scrambled eggs?
I don't like eggs!

Pancakes or cereal?
pancakes

Big meal or something small?
depends what i feel like

Movie or tv show?
Movie


Favorites

What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Take photos, play 44 home, play games with my sisters, run around, jump on the trampoline!

What is your favorite meal?
I like hamburgers, tacos, nachos, pizza, chicken, spaghetti + many more, so I don't have just ONE favourite!

What is your favorite pass-time?
using the computer, taking photos, reading

Where is your favorite place to read a good book?
On my bed or on the sofa

What is your favorite vegetable?
corn, carrots, potatoes, lettuce

Next Quiz......
Where do you want to live when you graduate? Near the beach near my family

What time of the day do you like best? Late morning to early afternoon

What is you favorite flower? if you're a boy you don't have to answer... orchids, lillies, frangipanis and hibiscus

What is your favorite weapon? medieval/fantasy swords and catapults

Do you like sports? If so which is your favorite? Yep. like netball, judo, soccer,athletics and dancing/gymnastics

Do you like writing? depends what you have to write.

What is your favorite month? July - my birthday!

Do you not like adventure? I love adventures!

Do you collect anything? What do you collect? Yep, I collect stuffed toys, rocks, and fairy ornaments/fairy things

Do you live near your grandparents? No, they live about 6 hours drive away

Are you bored of this? Not really

Well it's over how did you like it? alright


P.S we are back from holiday. I'll post more later (i have HEAPS of pictures!)

Visiting Nano and Grandpap!

In about an hour or so, we are leaving to drive to Nano and Grandpap's house. We are staying there until next Thursday. On Sunday, Mum is going to play piano at church, and I am going to play the flute. I can't wait! It is going to be soooooooo fun!

Please visit my other blog (My California Adventure)! I finally did another post, and it has 26 pictures!!!

October Holidays 2009

On Friday (2nd October), it was our last day of school for term 3.

• For period 1, we had LOTE (our teacher was away, and she just had to leave us a heap of work ON OUR LAST DAY!).
• Period 2 was the 'Year 12 Farewell Assembly' (they finish at term 3, so they have term 4 to study for their HSC).
• Period 3 was history. We watched 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. It was funny in a stupid way!
• Period 4 was science. We had a scavenger hunt on the school quadrangle and ovals. We had 30 things to find and had to do it in groups of 2 or 3. (I was with my friends K and M and we ended up finding 28/30!). This is what we had to find:

YOU WILL NEED TO FIND THESE THINGS. Something that is:

• multicellular (we found a flower)
• unicellular (we found a lolly with bacteria)
• fungi (everyone has fungi between their toes!)
• bacteria (we found bacteria on a lolly)
• protista (we didn't find anything)
• has a xylem (we found a flower)
• something red (we found a red feather)
• a solution (we found a little bit of an 'Iced Tea Drink').
• 2 elements (we got an aluminium coke can and lead)
• 2 solid compounds (glass and wood)
• a metal (aluminium coke can)
• a polymer (chip packet)
• a heterogeneous mixture (we got a small handful of dirt!)
• a taproot (root from a small weed)
• something photosynthesizing (grass blade)
• invertabrate (an ant)
• vertebrate (Possum [aka, ME!!!])
• something blue (we found a blue pen)
• open circulatory system (we didn't find anything)
• air through skin (the ant)
• a protein (apple core)
• a carbohydrate (apple core)
• has an adaptation to water loss (we got some soil)
• abiotic factor - something in the environment that isn't living (we found a rock)
• a suspension (we got a pen spring)
• an alloy (tablet packet)
• something with silicon in it (we got a quartz rock)
• something 7.5cm long (we found a7.5cm long stick!)
• something pink (bottle lid)
• something yellow (a lollypop stick)

And there we have it, the 30 things that we had to find. We got back to the classroom with a plastic bag full of mess!

• Period 5 was English. We just played weird English games and a couple games of 'Celebrity Heads)
  

Now we have 2 weeks of holidays before returning to school for term 4. We were going to go to Floriade, but unfortunately it's been raining and we've had cold, miserable weather. Next week we are going to visit Nano and Grandpap. It's going to be fun!