Saturday, December 17, 2011

Thank You!

I am so proud of getting second place in the Edublog competition.  I wouldn't have done it without all of my supporters, family, and friends.  Thank you to all of you who voted for me.  I want to thank my former teacher Mrs. Yollis.  If I didn't have her as a teacher I wouldn't have had a blog.  Mrs. Yollis and her class won first place in Best class blog and in many other categories.  I would also like to congratulate Jaden, one of my former classmates, for getting first place in the competition.Thank you Edublogs for supporting student bloggers like me!

During my one and a half years of blogging, I made many new friends who are now my blogging buddies.  The first one is BB who has an incredible blog.  Her mom, AA and Bianca leave many quality comments on my blog.  I also receive really nice comments from teachers such as Mr. Chamberlain, Mrs. Jacobs from Hawaii, and Mr. Manell from Australia.  Other classes that I correspond with are 2km and 2kj  from Australia, Mrs. McKenzie from B4 in New Zealand, and Mr. Salsich from Connecticut.  

Thank you all for supporting me!

Monday, December 12, 2011

My Thanksgiving Dinner

In goes the apple juice
 A few weeks ago, it was Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, my mom, dad, sister, grandma, and I cooked all day.  We had a delicious time cooking.  First, we made the cranberry sauce.  I put a bag of cranberry's into a saucepan together with water, apple juice and sugar.  Then we watched the cranberry's pop like popcorn. We tried the cranberries and I added more and more sugar and stirred it until it was delicious.  Since I like it sweet, I kept telling my mom it needs more sugar.






Cranberry's popping
Adding the sugar to the popping cranberry's
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Cutting the vegetables for the stuffing
Next, we made the stuffing. My mom let my sister and I cut the vegetables, celery, and carrots.  Next, my mom fried the vegetables in a pan with the onions.  When the vegetables were in a bowl,  I sneaked and got a carrot.  Then my mom put the bread crumbs into the vegetables while I poured a little broth on it.  While my mom went to wash her hands,  I sneaked and got a breadcrumb. We put one secret ingredient which my other grandma uses (Grandma Mila), green apples cut into cubes.  It added a sweet surprise, and at dinner everyone kept asking, "what did you put in your stuffing?"  
Doesn't the stuffing look appetizing?




♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Adding the flour
Then we baked the pumpkin bread.    First, my sister put oil, salt, 4 eggs, 1 cup of canned pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. (the wet ingredients)  Next, I added in the flour and sugar into the wet ingredients.  While my sister and mom weren't looking,  I quickly took a little sugar.  Then I mixed the wet ingredients with the flour and sugar.  Next, my sister added in the warm water, baking soda, and baking powder. Then I stirred and stirred until it looking like there were no lumps.  I even got to taste a tiny bit of the mixture.  Next, I put the mixture into a big loaf pan which my mom and we put it in the oven for 40 minutes.  When it was ready, we were all so anxious to try the pumpkin bread, but my mom said not until the guests come.

Mixing the ingredients for the pumpkin bread
Delicious pumpkin bread



♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Dad is washing the turkey
Now was the right time to make the turkey.   My dad first washed the turkey and took the insides out.  I thought that was kind of gross.  Then he told us the the neck of the turkey would make a good "chicken" noodle soup.  He was right! We had turkey noodle soup for lunch. At just the right time, Grandma arrived and was put to work right away helping with the turkey. She helped butter up a paper bag so when it was ready to cook we would put the turkey in it.  Then my dad mixed different spices and sauces into a bowl.  With a brush,  my grandma put the spices over the turkey.  Grandma then pinned toothpicks in different places, but left a few opened.  The spaces where my grandma left opened were filled with stuffing.  Once it was all stuffed, she finished closing the turkey up and put it in the paper bag that was soaked with oil.  Then she put the turkey in the oven for a few hours to bake.


Grandma putting sauce on turkey
Pinning the turkey

Grandma with the finished turkey






♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Adult Table
We had a lot of guests that night.  We had cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends  My aunt brought her famous pumpkin pie.  It was delicious.  Our Thanksgiving dinner was a lot of fun and everyone said this was the best Thanksgiving dinner.






Desert
Kids Table









What did you do on Thanksgiving?

Did you help with the cooking too?

Friday, December 9, 2011

Please Vote for Me for Best Student Blog! :-)



I am so proud because I have been nominated for Best Student Blog!



Voting is open until 11:59 PM US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, December the 13th

RULES:

  • You can vote in as many categories as you want per day!
  • Please note only one vote per category per day will be counted per IP address.

There are many great nominations and I encourage everyone to look through all the categories before casting your daily vote. 


If you'd like to support me, 


I was in Mrs. Yollis' class last year. Her blog is also nominated for Best Class Blog. 


Click here if you'd like to vote for 


We wish everyone luck!


Thursday, December 1, 2011

Gorgeous Trees

Tree 1
In my neighborhood, there are many very beautiful trees that have turned different colors.  My mom was driving me to my swimming class when I noticed how beautiful they were.  We had a camera in the car, so I got some very gorgeous photos.  The trees I saw were red, orange, yellow, brown, and purple. 
Tree 2
Tree 3
 Here are some facts about the colors of the leaves:
  • Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their basic green color.  The sunlight helps trees manufacture sugars for their food.
  • Carotenoids  produce the colors yellow, orange, and brown colors in such things as corn, carrots, and daffodils, as well as rutabagas, buttercups, and bananas.
  • Anthocyanins give color to such familiar things as cranberries, red apples, concord grapes, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, and plums. 
Tree 4
My favorite kind of trees are tall, big, wide, red, orange, yellow, brown, purple.  There is a busy street near our home that is lined with huge, colorful trees. It is one of my favorite streets to drive on in the fall.

At the end of the day, we had so many photos that it was really hard to choose which ones to add to this post.

Tree 5
Tree 6
Tree 7

Tree 9
Tree 8














Which photo is your favorite?

Do you know the name of any of the trees shown?

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Baking Chocolate Owl Cupcakes

A few days ago, we had no school so my aunt came to our house and we baked chocolate owl cupcakes.  She brought a lot of delicious ingredients like oreo cookies and m&m chocolates.  Here are the ingredients to make chocolate owl cupcakes:

To make the cake:
  1. 2 cups of all purpose flour
  2. 2 cups of sugar
  3. 1/4 teaspoon of salt
  4. 1/2 cup of buttermilk
  5. 2 large eggs
  6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  7. 1 teaspoon baking soda
  8. 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
  9. 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder
To make the icing:
  1. 1 3/4 sticks of butter
  2. 4 heaping spoons of cocoa powder
  3. 6 tablespoons milk
  4. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  5. 1 pound powdered sugar
To decorate the cupcake:
  1. Oreo cookies
  2. chocolate covered macadamia nuts
  3. m&ms

First, we preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Next, we took a large bowl and combined 2 cups of flour, and 1/4 of salt that my brother and I measured.  Next, my sister put the cupcake liners into the cupcake mold while I separated the Oreo cookies.  When my aunt wasn't looking I ate one of the Oreo cookies.

Later, we took another bowl and mixed the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and baking soda.  Then we melted the butter and poured it into a saucepan.  We added 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder into the saucepan to make chocolate.  When I put the cocoa into the butter I accidentally knocked down the cocoa container and all of the cocoa powder spilled onto the kitchen counter and floor.  Then I added water to the saucepan while I stirred it.

Next, we poured in the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture.  I liked the mixture so much I got to lick the bowl after.  Finally, my brother added the egg mixture while I continued to stir until  it was smooth. When itwas stirred my aunt poured it into the cupcake molds and  put it in the oven to bake.

While it was baking, we made the chocolate icing.  We melted some more butter and put in the cocoa powder. To make it sweet, we also added powdered sugar.  When my aunt added the sugar she spilled it all over the counter.  We had a delicious mess in our kitchen!

Next my aunt took the cupcakes out of the oven while my siblings and I put the frosting on the cupcakes.    We decorated the cupcakes with Oreo cookies as the  and  nuts as the owl's eyes and m&ms as the nose.  While the cupcakes were cooling, we helped clean up the kitchen.  There was a lot of cleaning up to do, but it was all worth it at the end. The cupcakes tasted delicious and were fun to make.

 







What do you think of our Owl cupcakes?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

2011 Edublog Nominations

I am very excited to be part of the Edublog nomination process.  I have been blogging for a year and a half, and I have come across many interesting blogs that deserve an award.  

Here is my list of blogs that I nominated:

 

Best Class Blog

Mrs Yollis’ Classroom Blog

I have seen many class blogs but my favorite is Mrs Yollis'.  She has a new interesting post up every week and supports her student bloggers by leaving comments on their blogs.  She also comments back to many of her readers on her blog.

 

 Best Student Blog

BB Awesome Blog

One of my favorite student bloggers is Bianca, or BB for short.  Bianca and I have become blogging buddies ever since I started blogging.    BB publishes a new post every week and comments back to everyone. She even did a post about blogging etiquette that every blogger should read.  She also takes the time to comment on other blogs as well.

 

Best Twitter Hashtag


#comments4kids

I love the #comments4kids hashtag! When I publish a new post Mrs. Yollis tweets it out using this hashtag.  I always get some really lovely comments from everyone that received her tweet. It is wonderful!

 

Most Influential Blog Post

Family Blogging Month By: Mrs Yollis’ Class

Mrs. Yollis came up with the idea of having family blogging month a few years ago.  She does Family Blogging Month in the Spring and in the Winter. This is a great way for family to find out what we learn in class.  Last year a lot of my relatives participated in her blog. She also likes to compliment the family's comment by giving each child a point on a chart for every comment they received.  At the end, the student with the most points gets a prize and a chance to do a guest post on her blog.

Check out these great blogs and let me know what you think.