First Timing Acrylics

A few months ago Christa Millard gave me a box of paints that her friend had given her that she thought I might enjoy. Christa is very talented in art and this summer she was so nice to start a painting with me. It is going to be a beach with little beach hut things on them, a copy of a piture from IKEA. Anyways, the canvase was started with the basics but life has come and taken all the free time that used to be. She gave me the paints to just doodle and practice with and finally I had some free time today to try them out. They are all legit acrylics and they are SO cool! I've never used anything besides water colors and they never turned out good at all. So here is my doodle from today. It is a lion and I really worked on layering and rough shadowing... I think it actually turned out kinda cool.

Secret Santa HoHoHo

Annelise and I are a part of a club called Hands Up and it is a sign language group. So beautiful and fun, talking with your hands is, hands down, one of the coolest ways to communicate. This week for the meeting we did a Secret Santa. Now, I have always been wary of gift exchanges, especially with people I don't know very well, beacause sometimes one person may put alot of work into the gift they give but not receive much effort in return. Loving scrapbooking and cutsy stuff as much as I do, I decided to make my Secret Santa buddy some cards.

Alas, receiving candy in exchange was a little disheartening at first, but then I realized that it really doesn't matter. This is why I spend money on this paper and inks and stamps and buttons and such. So that I can make and share things. Anyways, it's no fun to be a scrooge.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope that we are all filled with the giving christmas spirit!

Christmas Party Creativity

On Wednesday December 16th the YW are going to be having a christas party and since I am in the Presidency and get to help plan this kind of stuff I volunteered to make the invitations. I absolutly love to do these creative kinds of things. So last night my mother took me to the scrapbook nook after her cub scout meeting and she (along with the super nice lady Emi) helped me pick out the stamps, colors, ribbons and chalk pad color.

Real quick, here is the story about Emi: I went to the scrapbook nook back in september and I had been wearing my Personal Progress Medalion and she recognized it and commented about it. Turns out she is LDS too and I thought that that was SO cool! When I went back last night she was there again and so I asked her for help with some of the color scheming and such.

Last but not least, I found out about the coolest thing ever! So there are little acrylic stamps but they have no back or wood on them. Turns out that you purchase acrylic blocks and the stamps work like window clings and they stick to the acrylic block when you want to stamp. Then when you are done you just peel it off. It re-sticks and is fine and the best part is that the acrylic block you mount it on is clear so you can see exactally where you are going to stamp! No more guessing and messing up! It is genius and I am so greatful for wonderfully smart people who invent brilliant things like that that I get to pour my money into :))

Anyways, here is what I spent my night till 11 pm doing:

So here are the pictures from quilting attempt day 1. Annelise came over to work on her's and Jenni Warner came to give us the low down. As you can tell, we didn't get super far, but it is super hard so it's okay. You have to make sure that there are no patterns and that the different fabrics arn't close to eachother. There was a drama showcase that night as well so our time was limited. Anyways, here they are!

Here is my sewing station. My mother kindly let me borrow her machine!

This beautiful piece of beautifulness was created by Jenni Warner who is the person helping us make this style of quilt for ourselves. Thank you much :)

Annelise laying out her quilt. She picked 10 different fabrics which was a really good idea. It's a ton easier to spread them out and make it look random.

One of my rows. It's coming along SLOWLY


Hopefully we'll have more time soon to get this thing laid out and sewn. Until then, wish us luck!

The Maloy Family Christmas Photo Fiasco '09

Today we took our yearly Christmas family photos and they were actually fun! There were no tears (except for a few seconds of Josh's faked crocodile doobies) and we actually got some pretty cool ones. Here are some of our favorites. Just a side note, my Father said that that the real one are not allowed to be posted till after christmas :( So hopefully I'll get those posted soon!

This one is my personal favorite! I love the lighting and everyone's faces :) The one we're sending is a very close second though.
It's Alex, what else is there to say?

All of us peeking out from behind the Christmas tree that we finally finished decorating today. It's my Mothers, so it looks extra beautiful and has all the pretty ornaments.

The practice for our fight scene, which is the one we're sending around. Alex was such a good victim :)

lol... me.

Our first practice picture. The only layout with rebel. We've had some not so good pictures with that dog... lets just say that he wasn't being held right and he was "exposed."

Josh and his failed attempt at fake crocodile tears. As soon as we pointed out that Father should take a picture his sadness dissolved and giggles took it's place. Good times :)

Tommorrow Annelise and I will be starting our quilts with Jenni Warner. Wish us luck and I will do my best to get some pictures up and get them posted quick like. Until then, aidue!

Sunday Dinner

Aunt Debbie came for thanksgiving this year and brought her son Holden. They met up with Holden's dad, Clint, and they came over for Sunday dinner this week. Clint is a hunter so we got to eat some delicous deer, (venison) apple cake for desert and a very fun game of Gimme That!

All of us except me because I was taking the picture :)
Clint and Debbie checking out their hands

Mi Padre checking his out.

The cards with which we played. Three decks, courtesy of the Perkins! Thank you! Short story: they came over for dinner and we spent half an hour, spent in vain, looking for a full deck.

Mi Madre, the points keeper and the meanie pants sister.

The sticky note from my mothers college days that has the instructions. Sorry it's sideways, couldn't fix it.

We had a wonderful time. This is what memories are made of.

Also, our lights are finally up along with our tree! A few days behind, but we finally made it :)

Attempts at quilting

Last Wednesday we had YW in excelence and it was AMAZING! so pretty and well thought and carried out. There were tables laid out and people put their projects on them. Along with projects were ideas and one of them was by Jenni Warner and it was a super adorable quilt. Well Annelise and I, being the one person in two bodies that we are, we both went over to sister warner and Annelise asked her 'question' first and she took the words right out of my mouth. "Can you show us how to make that quilt?" She kindly agreed and so annelise and I went to JoAnns for fabric on saturday. Here are some pictures of my fabric.

This is with color accent so it, sadly, doesn't look exactally like this. there are more colors. but it's still cool. I was originally thinking about using this as the border, but now I'm not so sure.

I really like this one, and it too has more colors than just the blue.

This is my second favorite. The simplicity and imperfectness of the squares is beautimus :)

This one is the favorite. It's just white and yellow and it looks so fresh and clean. Even lemons remind one of clean.

Here they all are in their natural color, no accent. Sorry, the picture is sort of upside down. Simply tilt your head extremely to the right and it will be the right orientation.

Can't wait till it starts coming together! I'll post more pictures as it gets farther along! Wish me luck!

The Princess Teaparty!

I had been wanting to do one of these for mutual for SO long and finally, in the summer, Tami told me "Jessica, here's a date, plan it... all" and I was SO excited! Tonight it came at last! Here is the evidence of the wonderful time we had!



Stephanie Bush was such a good DJ! Thank you much for letting us use you ipod and always being the one to run over and change the song if it wasn't up to the princess standard :)
Hallie (?) Baumgartener. She and her sister Hannah were Nicole's buddies. she made some bomb cookies!

Some of the princesses cookies. One of the things we did was decorate sugar cookies to eat with our "tea" (more commonly referred to as Hot Chocolate)

We had some extra paper and some time to kill so we spruced up the front white boards with a last minute welcoming poster, which we let the princesses paint while we waited for every one to show up. they are truly artists!

Marci! our outstanding leader who helped me tons! thanks for the "tea cups" (really espresso cups... which i don't actually know why she has them) and glitter! I'm sure the relief society will love the extra sparkle in the room on Sunday :)

Sha-naynay (bailey) and arenia. Arenia didn't invite a girl and didn't really help. but she did decorate the 5 best cookies we had...

Cute Little Jersey Huerta! I loved her slippers. she looked so comfy. she reminds me of the Olsen twins. she is super adorable!

The most important person there! (well, her and Annelise tie for first because without my super duper bestie buddy, this wouldn't have been possible) Natty Perkins was my buddy and we had a blast! this little sweetheart was so laid back and willing to do what ever even leading the music like a pro conductor and showing all the girls how to dance for real. I'm so glad she came. and I way loved her bombsauce shoes! a tad too small, but way cute! brings back good memories...

Nicole's other buddy, Hannah Baumgartner! Her dress was legit. Nicole:"Hannah, how was your day?" Hannah: holds up two fingers and goes back to work she was a silent cutie. she also made very nice cookies and stuck to Nicole like glue. she also has one of the cutest smiles I've ever seen.

Shanaynay and her cousin Jersey. Jersey was pretty quiet, but very cute with her slippers. my favorite part was how bailey made her own crown and left the kids to Marci... :)

Annelise and her sweetheart buddy Leah Broadbent. Leah was so sweet, she even volunteered to give the opening prayer for us. Annelise helped her with it and it was absolutely precious! She and Annelise totally match each other super well. both quiet on the outside, but sugary sweet and a ball to be around on the inside.

Nicole and her buddies, with Leah checking out the balloons with the cookie stealer, stealing some cookies in the background. good times :)

Natty and I working on her crown. she put so many jewels on it, it really was a princess crown. color coordinated and everything (red (her fave color) and white) she was such a sweetie!!!

And the grand finale. it was a success and they all had fun (from what i could tell... you judge for yourself from this picture) a real princess here.

thank you SUPER much Annelise for running around shopping last minute and coming early with all the things i forgot to help me set up.

thank you Jenni Warner for helping me blow up balloons while you were waiting for the meeting to be over. I owe you guys some sugar cookies or something... be ready :)

thank you Marci for bringing the "tea set" and for the fun decorations only a cool aunt like you would have.

Finally, thank you to mi padre for all the gnarly photography. I very much appreciate it! and thanks to all the girls that dressed themselves up and came and all the big girls that helped!

(A little bit late) Birthday post!

It took me a while to get the pictures for this post, but now that I finally have them here it is! Annelise and I had talked last year about filling our seminary room with balloons for Sister Tice because she is just awesome like that. Well things didn't work out for us to be able to do that, so I forgot about it. Annelise, being the super wonderful friend didn't forget and so after I came home from taking the PSAT and getting lunch with my mom, there she was with some of my other friends (Kaile, Arenia and Katelan) and my room was filled to my knees with balloons and she even painted a poster! Annelise also got me a mini scrapbook, a teal stamp pad and pictures from our trips together. I'm so glad we're friends! she is just so amazing.

After that, my mom and I went shopping and then saw Where the Wild things are. At GAP, I got a black and white wrap dress that I wore to the dance that was that night. The dance was super fun, I danced with the person I wanted to so it was all wonderful. All together, I had a super fun 15th birthday! Thanks guys!

Thanks for CTRing

In English, all of the sophomores had to make a nonverbal power point presentation. It is a show all about you and it is set to a song of your choice that you feel best represents you. My honors classes arn't pure, they're blended so there are core kids in them. You can tell the differemce between a Core kid's Presentation and an honors kid by not only the look (matching fonts, coordinating colors, lots of family pictures ect.) but also by content.

The Core presentations are really sad. Some things I saw were that they had no family. they lived in foster homes, were homeless for a while because the foster homes were so bad. moving all over the country, from one relative to the next. Broken families. No father, no Mother, or neither and all siblings. Some said that kentwood was their home, their family.

Polar opposite of that were the Honors presentations. Talking about all their family members, the places they've been, the instruments they play, the things their interested in, religion. It really is an eye opener to see theses kids and the kind of lives they've had and the circumstances they come from. homeless!?!

Now, Some things that have been going on in my extended family lately, have made me more aware of what an awesome life I have! There were some not so great choices made that involved a child and now it is causing lots of arguments and things.

That made me think that it is so wonderful that I was born to two people that love eachother and are commited to making things work and doing the darn best they can. Not saying that we don't have problems, that is so not true. But the problems are not as bad as they could be because of the choices that my parents have made. So thanks Mom and Dad for Choosing The Right and doing the best you know how. I am so lucky and grateful that you have done what you have done.

Inadaquacy

Do you ever have days when you just feel inadequate, but you really arn't? Today has been one of those days for me. Sorry to be a downer and all, but this is life, right? last night Annelise spent the night and so in the morning I finished all my jobs quick, took a shower and then went on over to Guy's Eagle Scout project. It was in the middle of nowhere Maple Valley, and we were planting native bushes, where previously they had ripped out blackberry bushes. So we did awsome for almost the entire time until the last 10 mintues, when we started "murmuring." In retrospect I am so disappointed in myself for complaining. It's not like we were flagrant about it or anything, just a few disguised comments here and there, But it feels, now, like it was. When we were done and everything was put away we were standing under a canopy they had set up near the road to put the food under, I all of the sudden remembered a show that my mom had shown me about the first presidency's families. Sister Monson was on it and her daughter said that that she "could not remember Mother complain, ever." Yeah, my toes had never been so cold in my life, and I had never been so drenched, but i still felt like i had failed. we had made it so far... It was really fun, up until then, and we had done good. I just wish that when I do good, I would feel at least a little good about it.

All of this reminded me of some scriptures:
D&C 50:3 "Satan hath sought to decieve you."
D&C 132:57 "Satan seeketh to destroy."
1 Thes. 2:18 "Satan hath hindered us."

So isn't it Satan who makes us feel like this? He does a darn good job at it. So I hope that I have a better day tommorrow and don't let anyone make me feel less than I am.

Dear Daddy,

I DID IT!! I didn't want to wait for you to call. I just realized that I forgot to ask mom to record it... :( but I did really great and so did my partner! Anisha didn't laugh or giggle or even hint of smiling when she wasn't supposed to!! Sorry for all the exclamations and smiles but I am just so excited that everything went well. People laughed at our Asian joke and clapped well when we walked off. I made all the noises I was supposed to and it went very smooth!! I decided that I want to try out for the spring play. I know that it would be a TON of work and SUPER stressful, but I think that it would be all worth it. I was nervous but when I got on stage it completely went away and being up there was great. I think that if I know what I need to do or say that it's a lot less scary. Like the scripture "if ye are prepared ye shall not fear" works for more stuff than just church and the second coming. Anyways, I had a really good time and I’m glad that I stuck to this class, even though it pushes me continually outside of my comfort zone.
I really wish you could've been there, but don't worry, there are 3 more this year and each time they will get better and better!

Can’t wait till you come home!!!! :))) xoxoxoxo

love,
Jess

Losing weight

So the other day I was reading Jenni Warners blog and there was this thing that she did that seemed pretty cool. once a week she would weigh in and record how many time she had exercied that week and how much she had lost and then she put a funny comic about women and weight loss with it too. I decided that I want to get my zune sooner rather than later so I'm going to try her idea. Now every saturday morning I will weigh and record.
Wish me luck! :)

Busy as a bee

You know how life has really slow, relaxing times and then all the sudden out of the blue it picks up the pace? Well this is really one of those speedy times.

This year, I decided to pick drama 1 as one of my electives. At first I was so scared and thought that there was no way that I could handle this class and I thought about switching out of it. But as time went on it got better and better and now it is the class I look forward to the most. Anyways, recently we started working on stage combat and it has been super fun. Today Ms.Lloyd told us that in exactly one week we were going to have a non-optional performance after school at 7 pm at which we will perform a little fight scene skit that showcases what we have learned in stage combat. I'm really excited for it, but at the same time totally scared silly! I've never had to do anything like this in front of anybody, let alone a theater full of strangers and fellow classmates. So for the next week, the days will be full of writing and practicing.Hopefully all goes well. :)

Next fun thing is the movie we are making in Mutual, which I am WAY totally psyched about!!! So the boys were in charge of the combined activity for November and they chose to do a movie night. But it's not going to be just any movie night, it will be one with videos that we make about standards from the Strength for Youth pamphlet. The Mia Maids chose Language and that's about all I can tell you right now :) We all are going to be filming that next Wednesday around Covington.

My Saturday is also going to be really busy too. That's the date for the PSAT, which sounds really scary, a key club road clean-up right after and my birthday! I'll finally be 15 :) yay!

Finally, in AP biology we just got assigned a really big and super fun project. It's on the organ systems of the body and it requires a lot of time consuming easy work and reading. For it we are supposed to an online magazine called Discover and there, there is a regular article called Vital Signs. For all of you who have ever watched Mystery Diagnoses, its pretty much like that and I actually am looking forward to reading them. There are 11 organ systems so we have to read and write about 11 articles, one for each system. That project will be due the Monday after next so the26th ... I think :)

Real quick, last thing: today I used my recorder for the first time in Bio and it WORKED!!! I am so excited about this and can't wait to use it in the future :)

Etsy goodness and F's

So the past few days I've been making some cards with the Scrapbook Nook paper from a few days ago. Well last night after i finished my homework i was looking on Etsy when I found the cutest little bundle of random scraps. I ran up to my parents room and asked them to help me get it (I have yet to master paypal:) anyways, I did and I am so excitied about it! hopefully I'll think of some cool card ideas to use this stuff for :)

On to a more serious matter. We had our first AP Biology test yesterday and it was bad. The class average was in the 50% range! i got 66% which was pretty close to the class high of 74%. So pretty much everybody failed. Thank goodness, though, for test corrections from which you can get 1/2 of the points that you missed back. So for instance, some one who scored 50% on their test could raise their grade up to a 75%. I resolved to do better than that, so yesterday after dinner I was talking to my dad and he told me about this time that he had a class in college that was based solely on the Final and if you failed that then you failed the class. (scary huh?) Anyways, he said that he got a recorder and recorded the teachers lectures. That seemed like a pretty good idea to me and so that's what we got yesterday. I love all the genius advice and ideas my dad comes up with :) thanks! I'm looking forward to using it and seeing how it works. Either way, this is the last F I will get this year.

Last but not least, on monday I decided that I was done with the horrid nail biting habit and I'm proud to say that this is my third day "sober" :) wish me luck!!

Sicky

being sick is no fun. especially when it's the middle of your face. my aunt and uncle came for the weekend of september 5th and they brought all 5 of their kids. my parents and my aunt and uncle went to go see wicked at the paramount and left 9 kids, me being the oldest, home alone for 9 hours. it was way fun, i watched 8 episodes of the office and took a nap. but my little cousin Elise was sick. thats what my mom and i have now. it's the kid where your nose itches inside all the way up to your forhead, you sneeze aton and your nose drips like a faucet. plus your all stuffed up. last night i took a dark sheet, folded it in half and used it to black out my window. i also did a nose rinse, took a cold shower, took 2 niquil nighttimes a vitamin C and D and a melatonin. the cocktail worked beause i slept 11 hours, waking up at 10. it was amazing!

on another subject, this whole strike and extra summer thing is messing with my mind. during summer, and especially when you have nothing to do, the days all blur together and they loose their names in the unstructuredness. so yesterday i was totally convinced that today was going to be sunday. i was going to fast (lol, i forgot to pray:) and i planned out what i was going to wear, the people i had questions for etc. then all of the sudden the thought popped into my mind
"it's saturday."
i felt pretty dumb after that.
i think i need to go back to school.

The quest for waterproof shoes

If it's not one thing it's another.

I live in the rainy part of washington and have since i was 6. but i've never had rainboots. this year i decided that it might be a good investment. so i looked some up and decided on three, incase i needed back up. so we went to try them on and my mom said "nope" she explained to me that my calves are too big and that the boots hit right where they are the largest making them look even bigger. so regular sized boots were crossed off and we began searching for ankle height boots or just plain waterproof shoes. i've actually found some really cute ones, but they either arn't wide enough, cost too much or don't have my size at all...

here are some that didn't quite make the cut

Someday... :)