Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I love Halloween.

In fact, I have a great Halloween joke to share.
How do you fix a jack-o-lantern?
I'll tell you at the bottom of this post!

This morning we found the most sincere pumpkin patch we could to pick out a pumpkin to carve. There were so many pumpkins there, all shapes and sizes! Some were so big I couldn't carry them!



I found the most perfect pumpkin to carve up. Nice and round!



I tried to carry it myself but it was a little bit too big. I had to just sit by and guard it until my dad came to carry it back to the car.

Then we went home and turned on It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to watch while I carved it up. First I took off the top and pulled out all the mushy insides. Then I drew on the face I wanted to carve.



Next I cut out the pieces really carefully with a sharp knife.



It looks pretty good, don't you think? But I have even bigger plans for it...

I took it outside and then I made it into...



A puking pumpkin!!!

My mom said "Ew" and said I was crazy. But my dad thought it was really funny, and so do I! It's sure different from any other pumpkins on our street!



Then it was time to go get dressed up and ready to go trick-or-treating!!



My Belle costume is so pretty. I took a picture inside, because I had to wear a coat over it when I went out - it was too cold! I'm pretty sure Belle wouldn't ever wear a coat over her pretty dress.

She probably wouldn't wear sneakers underneath either...



Once it got dark we lit the puking jack-o-lantern!



Then I set off to meet up with friends and collect as much candy as we could.



It was fun to see all of their neat costumes, and to compare our treats.



We had so much fun. Tricks or treats only comes once a year, and I can't wait until next October!



Ready for the answer to the joke?
How do you fix a jack-o-lantern?
With a pumpkin patch!!

Happy Halloween!

Ghost Suckers!

Only 1 day left to vote on my Halloween costume! Vote on the right side of my blog!

Today I made ghost suckers!! They are made from white chocolate and are super delicious. I'll show you all how I made them, so you can make them too!

Ghost suckers are easy, and you don't need a lot of supplies.

First, put some wax paper down on your cookie sheets. This will make your clean up a lot easier.



Then lay out your sucker sticks. I used black sucker sticks because it's almost Halloween! But if you don't have sucker sticks, you could even use Popsicle sticks.



Set those aside for now.

The only other ingredients you need are chocolate chips! You need lots of white chocolate chips, and a few milk chocolate chips.



Put your white chocolate chips in a bowl. Make sure it's a microwave safe bowl!



Put them in your microwave for 30 seconds, take them out, and stir. If they aren't melted yet, microwave them for 20 seconds more, and stir. Keep doing this until they are just melted - they probably won't look melted until you stir them up!



Now that your chocolate is melted, start shaping your ghosties. Spoon out the chocolate around each sucker stick in the shape of a ghost. The best part is they don't need to be perfect - every ghost is different! After you've shaped them, push two milk chocolate chips in for eyes.



I gave some ghosts arms.



And I gave other ghosts mouths with a third milk chocolate chip.



Aren't they funny looking? They make me laugh. They also make me start singing the Disney song about grim grinning ghosts who come out to socialize!



Now it's time to wait for them to harden. In the meantime, I should probably clean my dirty dishes...



Washing dishes isn't my favorite thing to do, but it sure is nice to help the time pass! Time to check if they are hard enough! You'll know they're ready when they pop right up off that wax paper and look just like a sucker.



Mmmmm! So delicious!



Happy Halloween!!! I'm going out into the crisp fall air with my grim grinning ghost to socialize! If you make ghost suckers too, let me know!



Don't forget to vote on my Halloween costume!

My Herbarium!

It's October! Can you believe it? I love October, fall, and Halloween! I have so many fun things I'm planning to do this month, and I will share them all with you.

But first, I have to decide what to be for Halloween. Will you help me? I have it narrowed down to two choices. I'm either going to be Hermione Granger, from Harry Potter; or Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Vote and let me know which one you think I should dress up as over on the right side of my blog. I'll leave the poll open until Wednesday, October 13th, when I'll tally up the votes and see which costume I should start making!

This week I've been working hard putting together my herbarium! Remember all of those beautiful flowers I gathered and pressed over the summer? They are all finished being pressed now, and ready to be displayed.

Making my herbarium was easy. I'll show you what I did, so you can make one too!

First I gathered together enough white paper all cut to the same size to be the pages of my book. I punched holes in the same place on the top of every page. I got a piece of green cardstock to be the cover of my book, and folded it in half so it could be both the front and back covers. I punched holes in that, too.



Then I gathered together some things to decorate my cover with.





After I attached my paper flowers to the cover, I wrote my name on it so everyone would know it was mine.



Then I got out my flowers. Be careful with them - you don't want them to break! I used clear tape to put them on the paper. Try to arrange them so you can see the different parts of the flower.



Write about the flower on the paper. It's important to include the common name of the flower as well as the Latin name. You can get books from the library to help you identify your flowers, or look them up on the internet. I put down where I found the flower, as well as when it was. You can also include anything interesting that you learn about the flower. For example, when I was looking up the lavender, I found that it does well even without a lot of rain. I thought this was interesting because I collected that lavender in the middle of the summer when it was so hot here!



Then put all of your pages together and use yarn to tie the book together. This way I can add more pages later!



If you make a herbarium too, let me know! I'd love to see it. Don't forget to vote in my poll for what I should be for Halloween!

Rollerblading!

Even though summer is over and school has started, it's still pretty warm here. Today after I finished cleaning my room and doing my other chores, I pulled out my roller blades. They were in the back of the closet and sort of dusty because I haven't used them in a long time.
My mom told me to wear a helmet, but I didn't really want to because I think it makes me look a little bit silly. But safety comes before fashion, I guess.



I was a little wobbly when I started. It took a few tries to really get my balance.



At first that funny Sunny would run behind and chase after me.



But after a little while he got worn out, and sat on the lawn instead. He barked whenever I came by.



I started going faster and faster. The wind felt cold on my face, and still I went faster!



I was going so fast I didn't even see the rock.



I fell down pretty hard, and both of my knees got scraped up a little bit. My left elbow did, too. It stung, and I could feel tears starting in my eyes.

But then Sunny came and comforted me. He knew just where it hurt, and gave me doggy kisses to make it feel better.



I'm glad I wore a helmet after all! Sunny helped me feel better and I got back up and skated back to the house to get my knees washed off.

Sunny!

I have the most exciting news!
Today when I was walking home from school, I passed by a house that had a sign out that said "Free puppies" and I got so excited! At dinner, I mentioned it to my parents, and that got my dad really excited! I was not expecting that. We didn't even finish dinner, he had us all jump up and run over there.
Most of the puppies were already claimed, but there was this adorable one just waiting for us. I named him Sunny, because he's so bright just like the sunshine.

Isn't he adorable?


He was a little nervous at first, so I tried to be quiet and not scare him.


He warmed up to me pretty fast though, and decided I make a great playmate. I can hold his front paws and we pretend to dance together! When I do this, he usually starts licking my hands over and over. My dad says that is because he doesn't really like dancing with me, but I think he is wrong.


My mom says having a new puppy around is going to mean a lot more responsibility for everyone. So now I have new chores - feeding him every evening, and taking him for a walk every afternoon.


I can already tell Sunny and I will be best of friends.

Do you have any good advice for me? I've never had a puppy before!

Chasing Waterfalls

Are you ready to hear about my great hike?

We went out to the coast here in Washington, on the Quinault Reservation. We went to have a picnic and hike around Lake Quinault.

My grandpa took us up on a hike, and guess what we found? A gorgeous waterfall!



I climbed up all the way to the top. It was a little scary, because the rocks were wet and slippery. I used a big walking stick to help me out. Waterfalls are really loud, too. I never knew that until I was so close to one!



The view from the top was definitely worth it!



After so much hiking, we were hungry and ready to have our picnic. We went to a place called July Creek. It was so beautiful, the water and sky were both so blue.





It was a lot warmer down by the lake, I didn't even need my jacket.

After eating lunch, we had lots of time to just play. We tried skipping rocks on the water - I wasn't very good at that. I pretended I was a gymnast walking a balance beam on the fallen logs, and I was much better at doing that! I only fell off once.



There were so many beautiful wildflowers around. The area is a rain forest, but it's a temperate rain forest, so it's different from the tropical rain forests that I usually think of. It seemed like everything was covered in green!



I gathered up a lot of flowers to press for my herbarium!



I really love hiking. There is so much to see in nature. Do you like to hike?