Nine Years of Evelyn!

I can't believe how quickly the years are flying! Evelyn is tall, creative, with a quick wit, and a generous nature. She loves to work hard, make new friends and challenge herself. She feels most happy when she is being crafty with friends. She makes me laugh when she talks with people: she sounds like a little adult. She adores swimming and sledding. She loves sacrament meeting because that's the best time to snuggle and think about Jesus. She is still nervous around fire. She is starting to get too tall to dragon run everywhere, but she still thinks of herself as a dragon. She is getting very good on the piano, but if you don't watch her, she will just play her favorite song, "Tarentella" over and over as fast as she can. She has decided she wants to learn Spanish and how to knit. One of the things she has been most proud of herself this year is that she has been braver about bearing her testimony at church, though she still writes out what she wants to say so she won't forget when she gets those tummy butterflies. When she grows up she wants to be a scientist engineer and make wings for people to fly like birds.

Happy Birthday, Gorgeous! 

This year Evelyn decided she wanted to have a few friends for her party, and have a Lalaloopsy theme. She has really been into Lalaloopsy dolls. She brings her dolls, Silencia and Publicity, with her everywhere. One of her favorite things to do with friends is make her dolls clothes with felt. So bright and early on her birthday, we gave her her first present: another doll! She named her Violette, and promptly stripped of her outfit and put on a homemade one. 

 Here she is playing with her new doll.

When her friends arrived, we ate breadsticks and pizza sauce: perfect finger food!

 For Evelyn's cake, we made cupcakes (egg-yolk only!), and frosted them so the girls could decorate lalaloopsy faces on them. They kind of all look like they have 20's bobs.

 Evelyn and her friends had a fun time decorating them, but the frosting bows dyed your mouth, so they didn't like eating that part. I was pretty surprised how well the cupcakes turned out.

 After decorating the cupcakes, we made lalaloopsy dresses. We had everyone bring their lalaloopsy dolls, and I taught the girls how to make cute 50's skirts for them.

 My little clown!

Here are the dolls dressed in their new dresses!

 After the dresses, the girls played a game that we made up: Magnarbles. Then they ate cake and that was the party!

 Then later, we had Evelyn's birthday dinner: fried rice (I totally forgot to cook the pork, so we had it with chicken!) with the rest of the cupcakes, and cookies and cream ice cream. Evelyn opened her remaining gifts. She was able to bring her new Littlest Petshop toys with her in the car to New Mexico to make the drive more fun for her.

New Mexico written by Evelyn

                              I went to New Mexico. It was so fun. I had a great time.

 At first I thought it was boring but then we had a great time going over bumps on the road. I think it
was at least 12 hours on the road.

I liked to play with My Littlest Pet Shops and  yo-yo. We also had snacks in the car: Grasshoppers and Doritos. They were so good!

When we got there I was so hyper that I got to swim in the pool for 20 seconds!!!The reason  why is cause it was windy and it was  night. So then we went to bed.

The next morning we went to the mall with mom and dad. When we got to the mall, Mom got so tired (she was sick) that she rested on a bench and wanted to fall asleep. Dad went to look for food while I stayed with mom. We ate at Santa Fe Bar and Grill. It was so good! I had a burger and mom and dad had something spicy. I liked the hamburger and fries. They were good! When Mom had a break for a little while, and some food in her, she felt a little better, but still tired. Then we walked around the mall for a while. We saw a bug museum. They had black widows and tarantula and a humongous gecko thingy. Then Dad tried on some top hats at a hat store. He looked very handsome, but I thought it was funny because there was one hat that was so big it sat over his eyes. He looked very funny.
  We went home to the hotel, but first we went through  the governors palace. That is where a bunch of Native Americans lay out blankets and put jewelry or dream catchers or other things they make and try to sell it. I really wanted to buy a turtle necklace, but with the chain it was $25, but with just the turtle it was $20! I also saw some clay made things and they were too expensive because they were $30 and I only had $20. We got almost all the way to the hotel and there was a dragon on a building that was blueish greenish. It looked like it was following you around with its eyes. I loved that dragon and I told my parents a dragon secret, but I am not going to tell you, because then dragons would be killed all over the land.

When we got to the hotel, I did some schoolwork. I did my spelling with my littlest petshops. I made a zip line with the yo-yo, and every time they got a question right, they got to swing across, but if I got it wrong, I would take off a piece of tape that was holding the zip line--when they got three wrong, they would fall.

I went swimming for 45 minutes. I couldn't stay there longer because we had a shorter stay in the hotel because dad's work got cancelled. The building had a gas leak, so we would have to go home the next day.
 After that we went out a bit and explored. It was nighttime by then. We found the oldest house in the USA!

 We looked over in it and looked at the things we could buy. I saw a frog and a lizard we could buy. The lizard I thought was $0.51 but it was $51! And the frog was $75! Then we looked at the museum part and we saw a coffin and inside was a fake, real looking skeleton. There was a little sign that told us the story about what this man did. He didn't have a head! This is the story: Once there was a man who asked 2 witches for a love potion, and it didn't work. So he came back to the witches to complain about it and they beheaded him!!! Here are some pictures.

We also saw the oldest church but we couldn't go in. They were almost 400 years old each!

Then we ate dinner at the Blue Corn Cafe. Then we went over and ate some yummy gelato! We went home and watched Jungle Book.

The next day we ate breakfast (MARSHMELLOW MATEY'S!!!) And then we explored a little bit longer. We went to another church. Some nuns worked in that church and they wanted to have someone build them a staircase so they wouldn't have to use a ladder, but they kept getting ignored. Then one day an old man came into town and made a circular staircase that wasn't held up by anything, and he didn't even use nails! The only thing they have added on since it was made was a rail. I thought it was beautiful because it was polished nicely and it was just fun to see.

 The church was also beautiful. It had a bunch of statues on the wall, it also had a big fake temple in the front and candles lit in some places in the temple so it was sort of lit up. There was two angels on the sides, and Jesus on the cross in the middle. Here are some pictures:

We had to leave, and we drove until 7:55 at night we got to Moab. We stayed there for the night. I loved it because we had a lot more room in that room than he had in the other hotel room. We bought another Lalaloopsy doll that night. Her name is Allegra Leaps and Bounds. She is adorable and cute! Now I will have four! They are as cute as buttons! Literally.

Then we came home the last day, but first we went shopping for souvenirs. Mom and Dad bought me a frame with my name on it and a dream-catcher!