"Hey, can we shower in your house?"

 Today, I'm giving you all the pictures I've taken for you, and failed to upload. So, you're welcome.

I don't really have much to report about my life. I'm doing school. Elections are today. I can't vote. I made extra money last night. That's basically it.

Day 7- A song you wish was never made and want to DESTROY!!

It will rain ~ Bruno Mars

This song just bugs the crap out of me. I hate it. So so so so SO much. The end.

Also. Julia is one of the greatest people ever. We skyped today, and we planned  many wonderful things we will do together eventually. After Elevation. It will be beautiful. And awkward for other people. Woot woot!

On to the pictures.

Georgi and I. In her car. After ONE of our adventures. ;)

This picture is not very good at depicting it. BUT. My hands are red. It's from dyeing a pair of pants red. So, my hands are red. A lot of people wondered why. 

This was on Halloween. Aves is adorable.

Georgi and I. Don't we look hot? *cough*

This is just me...in a new shirt that I love, so I had to take a picture in it.

This picture makes me laugh so so much. Yes, he's wearing my shirt. Yes, I'm wearing his. It's just...yup. A long story. 

I will now pay attention to class.

And it stank of vinegar and applesauce

 Happy Wednesday night. Don't you love my enthusiasm?

Today was long, to say the least. My mom dragged me away from my homework(how dare her) to go apple picking. Although I protested initially, I'm glad I went. Even though it smelled real bad, and I got squashed apples(applesauce?) on my shoes. I love washing shoes...not.

And yes. The second I got home, I went to work for 2 1/2 hours, until my mom begged me to come home, and then spent 2 hours on homework until, you guessed it, my mom begged me to go to bed. That was 5 minutes ago. Which means I need to get this booty to bed. Pronto.

Anywho. These are two pictures from the orchard today. I was gonna combine them into one, but Photoshop was being real slow this morning and I'm supposed to be in bed, so you get two. Lucky you!

A lot of awkward/awesome things happened today, but I won't tell you about them because tomorrow is Thursday. Woot.

This picture was highly exposed. I'm sorry. I couldn't fix it. Sue me.

And with that, I'll go throw myself onto my bed and pass out.

Don't ever grow up.

As I was sitting in church today, my attention was briefly drawn to two boys sitting in the row in front of me. Their dad was called as Bishop last week, and I could see him with an almost strained smile when he would look at them. It was sortof adorable in a disruptive way, if you know what I mean. During prayer, they were whispering and giggling, and at one point, the younger of the two boys shoved his socked foot into his brothers face, laughing obnoxiously. At this point, their mother sat in between them.
This sorta got me thinking. These boys are both under 10. They have little to no worries in their lives. And for about an hour, I was envious of their innocence and young age. My life ain't a cake-walk. It's not super easy. It's sure as heck confusing. And the stress of school sometimes makes me want to weep and then die.
But I digress.
This isn't the first time I've wished I hadn't grown up. Come on. Who hasn't wished that? It was easy. You didn't worry about your acne, your waistline, your hair color. You didn't worry about having a boyfriend. You didn't have drama with other girls. It was just...easy.
After thinking about this for a minute, I realized that, maybe I'm glad I grew up. All of the stress and drama aside, being "grown up" is pretty great. Boys are getting to be mature. Lemme tell ya, that's fabulous. ;) I have a job. I'm going to college. I have freedoms. I can govern myself. I can BE myself. I mean, even though life is kinda hard, it's pretty dang fabulous. Sure, there are things that I sorta wish I could change. But there are somethings I wouldn't give up for anything, not even a stress free life.

Anyone who's anyone(just kidding), will know the Taylor Swift song "Never Grow Up". Whenever I hear this song, I think of my 3 year old sister. She is so young, so innocent, so flippin adorable, that it kills me to think of her going through the stress and heartbreak of being older. But, since growing up is inevitable, I want to be an example. The epitome of success. I want to show her that you can make it through. Ya know? I want to show her that, although I don't want her to grow up, that it isn't so bad. That you can make it through. Because getting to that end goal? Yeah, that's gonna be awesome. I mean, we're all gonna meet that special someone, and begin your life with them. And then you'll retire with that someone. And you'll die with that someone.
AND-- every struggle and trial makes you a stronger and better person.

Avery is the friggin bomb

I may or may not have mentioned in the past that I am one of nine kids in my family.

*waits for you to finish being in awe*

As I was saying, there are a lot of us. There is something always going on. And since i'm homeschooled, you'd assume that means I always know what's going on with my family. Always.

Lies.

I *wish* I could keep up with all of them. But hey. I'm busy. I go to an intense online highschool(can anyone say "college level classes"?), and I work a part-time job. On top of that, I have music and dance lessons. So even though I *am* home most of the time, I don't get to spend this time staring at my siblings give each other wedgies.

This post wouldn't even exist if it weren't for my sweet younger sister Avery.

And I think I will start two days ago, on February 27th.

That was my birthday. Now, I was NOT excited for this birthday. For many reasons. But the biggest was just that I felt sorry for myself. I know, pathetic. But most of my close friends live hundreds or thousands of miles away. And those were the friends that wanted to celebrate my birthday. And Helen was kinda adamant on me having a good birthday. When I woke up I had over 40 text messages, and 4 voice mails. The majority of the texts were from Helen. She started counting down from 20 minutes until midnight. I got texts at midnight from mulitple people saying that I was now old. I guarantee that Helen reminded the other three people I got calls from. ;)
Despite Helen's best efforts, my day started off not so great. And yeah, it was an attitude thing. And I allowed myself to become in a better mood as time went on. After lunch with my mamacita, I was feeling pretty good. And THEN Nainoa came over for dinner. Which was, ya know, the best.
But I'm getting away from my point. My point was my family. And how I've ignored them growing and progressing.
So after dinner, I'm sitting on the couch with Nainoa, and Avery comes over and climbs on my lap. Now, I think she's pretty advanced for a 3-year old. So she sits on my lap, and starts having a conversation with him. Like, a freakin conversation. Starts going on about herself. It amazed me. And then she got silly and started laughing out of control and kept trying to lick his hand...hey, she's 3. It's ok, she doesn't know that that's disgusting. ;)
So, needless to say, I was kinda amazed at how much she'd grown up without me knowing.

Ha. I didn't know the half of it.

Yesterday, I'm sitting at the computer, writing my Algebra II Study Guide. And Avery comes over and sits on my lap, and takes one of my headphones so she can listen.  And after a few songs, it starts playing "Only Hope" from A Walk To Remember(If you haven't seen this movie, I shun you). I have the sheet music for it, and I've played it a few times, singing along. Well, it gets to the chorus, and Avery starts singing along. Perfectly. Perfect pitch. Everything. It was freakin spectacular. Now, she has an impeccable memory. She really does. She can memorize primary songs like nobodys business, and she has a few nursery rhymes memorized. But this amazed me. And so I experimented. I played a song, and then repeated it. On the repeat, I started singing along. And I made sure it was one with a repeating chorus. As I'm singing the chorus to "The Only Exception" on the second time listening to it, Avery joins in.
Gosh, this girl amazes me.
She gets up to use the bathroom, and when she comes back, she looks up at me with those irresistible eyes and says, "Aurora, can I spell my name?" and of course I told her she could try. Now keep in mind, she has never had ANY sort of lesson on the alphabet or anything. I mean, yeah, she can sing the alphabet song. But everyone can.
So I give her the keyboard and watch her. And she's humming, and looking at the keyboard, and outta the blue says, "A." and hits A. And then v. Then E. Then R. And then Y. And looks at me for approval. And I wanted to cry. Because this girl is freakin amazing. Not many kids can read or SPELL THEIR NAME when they're THREE.

About an hour later, still working on that study guide, my brother is behind me, spinning around. Now, he's four. And he likes to mess around. I was kinda ignoring him. And then I heard him. It went sorta like this:

Aaron: *spinning around and around* "wheee!" *hits the ground* "OH MY GOSH AURORA THE HOUSE IS MOVING!"

This repeated about five times.

If any of you have ever spun around in a circle, you'll know that when you stop, everything feels like it's spinning. But I don't remember registering this until I was 7 or 8. But he's four. And realizing this. And so he ran around, demonstrating for anyone who would listen.
I was amazed.

So I started thinking about my siblings.
Stephen has become so much less picky. He's eating more foods with less fuss than a few months ago. He's getting big and half his pants are high waters.
Alisa is memorizing things left and right. She knows at least a dozen poems. And she can recite them all in English accents. Which makes it THAT much more adorable. And the cool part? Her english accent is kinda amazing. Like...amazing.
Madeline is becoming a young woman. I'd never really stopped to see. But she's making these decisions and going through that teenage girl crap that everyone goes through.
Autumn is 15, and so when I stopped to watch her, I can see her interaction with the lovely male specimen. I've also decided that maybe I should give her a flirting lesson one of these days... ;)
Rachel, well, I almost never see her. She works a 9-5 job. So...ya know. Yeah.
And Brianna's belly keeps getting bigger. Every time I see her, it seems like she's become 3 more months pregnant. It's kinda really crazy....


I have been blessed with this amazing family. I need to stop and appreciate them...

I have a friend whose father died recently. And it makes me stop and think, am I appreciating my family? If someone in my family died would I know half of the things that I should know?