Captain America cupcakes

After I got a cake decorating kit, my sister requested Captain America cupcakes. So, here ya go Moll!

Dreaming of Summer…

My Bible study leader left for Mexico this week, so last night I made a special beach-themed cupcake for our Bible study in honor of her trip. They were super fun & easy to do–graham cracker crumbs for the sand & dyed frosting for waves. Add in an umbrella and it’s the perfect beach!

Long Time No See!

Yeah, I know. It’s been forever since I’ve blogged….but exciting stuff has been going on!! So let’s get caught up.

On Nov. 18th, I went to Billings with my youth group for the Acquire the Fire conference. What happened there was life-changing. We listened to an amazing speaker, Joel Johnson, worshiped with a few thousand other teens, and developed a close bond with each other. The first night was an awesome kick-off. The best part of that first night was near the end. Joel had been talking about living with masks on. You pretend you’re okay during the day, but then at night you crumble and when it’s just you and God, you realize you are not living how you want to live. Um, hello! That was a slap in the face. How had I let myself live like that for so long? He then proceeded to say that if you wanted to throw away your masks and gain a new life, now was the time to do so. People started filing down the stairs and going to the floor for the altar call. No one in my group moved. There was some nervous fidgeting, and then me and one of my friends looked at each other. “Do you want…?” she started. I nodded, and then asked one of my other friends if she wanted to come. She nodded and the three of us stood up. We walked on shaky legs to the floor where we kneeled next to each other. After a few minutes, Joel began praying over the group gathered on the floor. We repeated the words he was saying, and boy did I pour everything I had into those words! Then the amazing worship band, School of Worship, started singing. We rose to our feet, lifted our hands in the air, and began to cry out to God. Soon I was sobbing, as were my friends, as we realized what had just happened. Our lives are never going to be the same. After singing, crying, and sharing some good hugs, we turned to go back to our seats. And when we looked behind us, there was half of our youth group, tears streaming from their eyes as they realized their lives had changed too. Needless to say, it was a good night. A few of us then went to go meet Joel and thank him. I was still shaking, but I was happier than ever. That night, all of the girls stayed up late talking about what had happened that day.

The next morning we woke up and went back to the conference. It was another amazing day filled with worship, laughter, more tears, and more bonding. But again, the end of the day was the most powerful.  We went down to the floor for worship, and at the end of worship we broke into groups to pray for each other. Me & two of my friends were in a group but then realized there was another girl that didn’t have a group. We invited her to join us, and she did so reluctantly. Me & one of the other girls took turns praying, and as our prayers went on, we learned that the girl who had joined our group was struggling with suicidal thoughts. One of the youth pastors from another town came over and prayed with us, and then we took some time to talk to the girl. It was amazing seeing the change and the relief that came across her once she opened up. We then gave each other hugs and said our good-byes as we joined our different youth groups for more prayers. Our youth leaders prayed over us and prayed for our schools as we all stood in a tight circle, hugging and crying some more. At the end of the night, we went back to the church where we were staying and talked with one of the other groups at the church. The next morning when we woke up, none of us were ready to leave.

I never imagined what that weekend would hold. I thought it would be something fun, but not life-changing. (I had been to a Dare 2 Share conference a few years ago, but it was nothing like this.) Although we’ve only been back for about a week, I have noticed that it’s been hard to hold on to that feeling that we captured that weekend. But I refuse to slip back into my old ways. I left all my masks on that floor Friday night, and they were trampled underfoot as I worshiped God with my whole heart, soul, mind, and body.

Much more has been going on since then, but this post is already very long! I will post another update later in the week. 

Love and blessings to you all!

Cookie Bowls

So I saw these on Tumblr and thought it was a genius idea! So last night, me and my mom made some cookie dough and started trying to make these. They seem pretty easy at first. All you do is turn over a muffin tin, grease it, and then put cookie dough over the tin and bake it. Sounds simple, right? Yeah it’s not so easy. We learned pretty quickly that you need to put a cookie sheet underneath the muffin tin just in case the cookies grow too much and spill over the tin. (Luckily we caught ours before they started to spill). And the cookies grew a lot. Now we made chocolate chip cookie bowls, but we want to try using a different kind of cookie that maybe doesn’t grow as much. Anyway, we struggled quite a bit with several batches, but we finally figured it out! Here’s how we did our cookie bowls: (we used a log of cookie dough because it was firmer than our home-made recipe.)

Cut the log of cookie dough into pieces that measure about 5/8 of an inch.
Flatten each of the cookie dough pieces.
Grease the upside-down muffin tin and then put cupcake papers on every other spot so none of the cookies will be right next to each other (this is to stop them from really growing into each other. They still might a little bit, but it’s not as bad.)
Put the cookie dough pieces on top of the wrappers and form the dough around the wrapper (you want the dough to go down the wrapper a little bit. That way it will form a taller bowl.)
Put a cookie sheet under the pan just in case the cookies do grow too much.
Put in the oven (we used Albertsons’ cookie dough and we had to bake it for the maximum time–13  minutes).
After bowls are done baking, take out of the oven, but let them bake a little longer on the tin (we let ours sit for about 3 minutes. This hardens them up a little more.)
After the bowls have sat for a few minutes on the tin, flip the bowls onto a plate. Let them cool in the wrappers for about 5 minutes (This helps them hold the shape of the bowl.)
Gently peel the wrappers off and fill with ice cream, pudding, mousse, or whatever else sounds good to you!

Our finished cookie bowls

My cookie bowl filled with pudding and topped with whip cream

I hope this made sense! From what I’ve seen on Tumblr, a lot of people have been struggling with getting the bowls to hold their shape. So I hope this helped with that!

A Few Fall Pictures

I realized I haven’t posted any pictures in a while…so here ya go! They aren’t my best, but whatever! I haven’t had a whole lot of time to take pictures recently, but I’m trying to go take some more often.

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Bleh…

So I was originally going to write this post as a review of a movie, but I don’t have the energy to do an in-depth review of a movie right now. So I’ll just say this about the movie: I went to see Contagion with one of my best friends. It was a really intense thriller, but not quite what I expected it to be. The beginning was kind of disturbing, but then it got much better. Overall, it was really good and I would recommend it. Also, the music was very fitting and made everything so much better.

School is school. The year is not going fast enough though! I’m trying to enjoy everything while it lasts, but it’s hard to not compare everything to what I could be doing in Seattle. It’s been a struggle for me this year. I’m so desperate to go out to Seattle that I find myself having difficulty being content here. Needless to say, I cannot wait to go visit Marcy and Travis in a few weeks! I love going out this time of year. Seattle’s fall is so different from Montana’s fall. Seattle is just so different. The two really can’t be compared in my mind.

Well, I really don’t have much else to update on…so I guess that’s where this blog will end!!! Have a great weekend!!

It’s About Time, Pottermore!

So I FINALLY got my Pottermore e-mail!! I’m not very far into the site yet, but I have learned a few things already. So, here they are. (Sorry for those of you who don’t understand or if I spoil anything for anyone.)

1. The site has no music. It’s a bummer, but some people have been watching the movie while playing, or listening to the soundtracks through iTunes or whatever. I personally just listen to my iTunes library on shuffle because it doesn’t really matter to me. Sure, it would be cool to listen to the soundtrack while exploring the site, but it’s not a big deal for me.

2. Brewing potions is really hard. It took some time for me to figure it out, and I actually ended up getting on skype and asking Molly how to do it. Turns out I was putting the wrong thing into the potion. It was much easier once I learned how to correctly read instructions. 😉

3. The directions for casting spells are not very clear. So if you’re having trouble with spells, this is how you do it. Click on the first letter of the spell, click it again once the circle around the letter is at the biggest and brightest point. That will shoot a line towards the next letter. Click the next letter in the spell once that line is close or on the letter. Repeat this process until the spell is cast! (hope that helped!)

4. The site is meant as a companion to the books, so there isn’t a whole lot to do if you’re looking to play games. Mostly it’s reading and collecting little items for your trunk. This may change as the site develops, so we’ll wait and see.

Right now, I am really enjoying the site. It’s fun to hear more about the characters, places, and objects, and the site is really beautiful. If you’re on Pottermore, add me! My username is ChestnutPatronus162, and I’m a Hufflepuff. (Wasn’t super excited about Hufflepuff…I always thought of myself as a Ravenclaw but whatever!)

How It Feels

I just wrote this on my tumblr…but I guess I’ll post it here too. And yes, this is my second post today. But it’s been a crappy day and I needed to write something.

How It Feels

You got the news today
but you didn’t tell me right away,
and that’s okay.

But it brought back some memories
that I would rather leave
buried with her.

And now my heart is breaking
and it just keeps aching.

And now my tears are falling
but I can’t keep stalling.

It’s just I never wanted
you to go through what
I went through.

I never wanted you to be
haunted in your dreams
with images that can’t
be unseen or drowned
in lyrics or love or time.

This journey is a long
hard walk
and I don’t want you
to walk it with me.

Even in my loneliest night,
I never wanted you to
know what this felt like.

All the Randomness

The title of this post is also the title of my blog on Tumblr…which you can go to by clicking here. Tumblr is a pretty fun site, especially when you’re bored, like I am most of the time during my Spanish class. That’s what I’m in now. It’s pretty easy so I’m usually ahead and don’t really have much to do.

So three interesting things going on today, two of which have already happened.
The first is that it’s picture day, which I guess isn’t super interesting, but it’s something different and it breaks up the monotony of my days. I’m not really a fan of picture day, because I don’t really like pictures of myself that often. I feel like my smile is kind of awkward, but whatever. As long as my parents like the pictures, I guess that’s what matters since they paid for them!
The second interesting thing is that we had a lockdown today. And not a fake one either! Some kid in my class brought a gun to school. Well, it was in the back of his truck, but still, it’s on school grounds. Ok so that wasn’t that exciting…more just a stupid mistake. And apparently he can get expelled for that (which I hate saying this, but I would be okay if he was expelled for a year. If you knew the kid you would understand. He’s a creeper.) but I don’t know if he will or not. But luckily it happened during first period, so I got to stay in Treble Choir for a while longer which is always nice!
The third (and final) interesting thing that is happening today is that my school is having an assembly…that will last almost all afternoon!! It is 2 hours long and apparently it’s a pow-wow…I guess we had one last year but I must have missed it because I don’t remember it! Anyway, I wish it had been this morning and had gone from 2nd period to 4th period, because then I would have missed Accounting, English, and Spanish. But then I wouldn’t have been able to write this so I guess that wouldn’t have been good. Oh gosh I’m rambling now!! Hehe sorry ’bout that!!

Other exciting events this week….
College fair tomorrow, which I’m really only going to so I can get out of class (bad kid, right? The rest of my cooking group is going to be gone that period so I don’t really want to have to cook by myself…might as well go check out some schools I won’t be applying to!). But again, it’s something to break up the monotony of this school.
Lunch tomorrow at the church! Every week three women (Mandy, Kristen, and Kim) do a lunch for the middle school and high school kids. They’re really nice, and the food is always delicious! Me and a couple of friends go just about every week.

Well I think that’s enough for this post! =)
DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome)

Seattle

As pretty much everybody I meet knows, I love Seattle with all my heart. It’s my home. When I lived there, I fell in love with the city despite all the crap me and my family were going through there. My heart aches when I see pictures of the skyline or my favorite spots in the city (the Starbucks we would stop at on the way to school, University Village, the pier where my dad would take me fishing…) Small town life can not satisfy me since I have had a taste of the city. I miss everything about it–the slight fish smell in the air, the cloudy skies, the green life that stayed in the plants even through the winter. Heck, I don’t even care that a city is dangerous. I’m fine with locking my doors if it means I get to live in that beautiful place.

The reason for this post is that it’s raining here today. I love the rain because that is when I am reminded of Seattle the most, even though our Montana rain is different. The smell is not the same, and the rain is much colder here than in Seattle. But still, it is a small taste of home, and I will cherish every drop.