My new favorite picture :)

I have a new aboslute favoirte picture. This is of a little boy I babysit. Every time I look at those huge blue eyes, my heart just melts. He is so adorable. I love this boy. Just thought I would share this with you guys :)

Touring DC

So this week I had my Aunt and Uncle from OR and my Grammy from AZ here. I spent almost every day downtown touring DC. On monday we saw the holocaust museum. And the family went home and my Aunt, Uncle and I went on a bus tour. The bus tour was really cool. It was a double decker bus, and we went all over. The Lincon Memorial was amazing, it is WAY bigger then it looks. It was just beautful! On Tuesday, we went back down in the morning, and toured more, we took the bus again down to the Washington monument, (which again, is just WAY taller then you could ever imagine.) Wednesday was relaxing. Thursday Grammy was added to our trio, and we toured the Arilington Cemetery. Even though it was beautiful an amazing, it was defintily not my favorite part of DC. I like touring places and learning about all the history, but after a while, I just get tired of looking at graves. (And I am a very optomistic person, so I really don't like focusing on death for to long.... 4 hours pushed my limit.) :) Thursday afternoon we went to the White house visiters center, because we had a White House tour the next morning. Friday our White House tour was at 8:30 so we had to leave at 7. The metro really was not too busy even though we were thinking it would be beaause of rush hour. The White House was just beautiful. But, they have EXTREMLY strict rules. No purses even. Only our pockets and one wallet. No cameras at all, and cell phones and ipods turned off. No lipstick. You get the point. So unfortanly I have no pictures of Friday. They were getting set up for the president to fly out on Marine One. (his Heilo) and had to prepare the south lawn. We got to see some very beautiful rooms, and were actually in the same building as President Obama at the same time :)

Here are pictures from our travels

The Changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery.

Looking back toward the Lichon Memorial from the World War 2 memeorial.

The amazingly Beautiful World War 2 memorial.

In front of the Lichon memorial looking over the reflecting pool ( Forest Gump.) and the Washington Monument.

The Capitol.

Arlington Cemetery

The Three with a beautiful view of DC in the background (at Arlington Cemetery.)

Pink Week

This week on i heart faces is pink week in honor of Breast Cancer. So in honor of all these women Past, present and future, I present this picture, have a few notes to add first.

The strawberries represent the "fresh" start the women have once they have conquered the cancer. The bow represents the beauty the women have even if they don't feel that way all the time. The white lace is in honor of all of those women who have lost their lives to this horrible disease.

Check out other Awesome pink week pictures at iheartfaces.com!!

And may God bless and keep all of you women (and their families) who are dealing with breast cancer!

Rebekah

Goals and Strawberries.

Ok so I know the two don't seem to go together, but in my crazy life they do! Alot had been going on and I am sorry I have not been blogging much. My Aunt and Uncle arrived from OR this wednesday, and life has been crazy since! It is not slowing down anytime soon becasue my Grammy is arriving this Tue. We are trying to visit a ton of places here in DC while they are with us for two short weeks. On friday we did our first trip into DC (w/ them.) It was frezzing and raining (had not stopped yet either!) We went to the air and space museum and to the National gallery of Art. Both were intresting. My favorite thing at the air and space museum was the area on commercial planes. They had so many cool displays. Did you know that flight attendeds used to have to fit in these requirements???:

Female

5"2 to 5"6

less then 135

between 22-27

single, not widowed or divorced.

Wow!!! Anyways, flight attendents have certinly changed over the years! There were so many amazing pictures at the Gallery of Art, but we were not allowed to take any pics, so I can't share any of that with you guys (I get to keep it all to myself!) he he.

So, I am taking an amazing life skills class at my co-op here. What we have been talking about lately is managing our emotions, and it is just amazing what I have learned, so I wanted to share it all with you!

First of all, we have been learning about what causes emotions, have you ever thought about that? I mean really thought? Well luckily my teacher already thought it out for all of us :)

The main thing that causes an emotion is something happening to a goal. Any goal, at all, just a goal. Think about it, Anger is a goal being blocked,

Depression is a goal seeming out of reach. I was thinking about this, when I get mad at my brother for bugging me non-stop, what is the goal being blocked? Well peace and quiet, or a perfect little brother ;) This makes sense to me. So as now I have been praying that God will help me apply what I have learned in this class to my daily life. One way God has really helped me is to give me all sorts of wonderful thinking ideas. For example now when my mother reminds me to do something (nicley or not.) And I want to just shout at her, most of the time, I try to think "what if this was my future husband?" And if my brother comes up and asks me to show him something (that and it is a VERY convient time.) I try to think "what if this was my future child?" These are just some of the ways God has helped me control my horrible temper. Now I am sure not all of you reading this want to think about your future husband/children (and alot of you probally already have those) but I think that kind of thinking is a very good tool.

Another amazing thing I learned in my class. YOU ARE SPECIAL! Now I know we have all heard all of this, and we have probally all told it to other people. But my teacher explained it from the view of a teenager and I had never though if it like that before. She read the book "You are special" by Maz Lucado. Now most of you have probally read this, but even if you have please re-read it again after reading my blog :) My favorite part, and the the part that hit me the most: The Maker is talking to the little unwanted, unpopular doll. The doll asks him why "the sticker" (standing for men lifting and putting down of other men.) don't stick on his other friend anymore. Here is the makers reply:"Becasue she has decided that what I think of her is more important then what they think. The stickers only stick if you let them." WOW I mean WOW! If only every teenager in America could reliaze that :) So since then I have really been thinking, (especially when my mind tries to get me to get the approval of man) not to give in to this "game" the world plays with us, be different (ha ha were have we heard that before:) and stand out of Christ. His thoughts are truly, really the only ones that matter at all!

Now onto the strawberry part:) I made Strawberry bars today, I have found these in the June issue of Better Homes and Gardens (my favorite magozine.) I have made them a couple of times before but I decided to make them again. They were a huge hit, the only problem being how incredibly rich they are, and that is even with me cutting half the sugar this time! So if you try them, you might want to try tweaking with them a little, and please share w/ me your results!!! Here is a picture and the recipie, enjoy!

Fresh Strawberry Bars

Prep 25 mins, Bake: 25 mins

¾ cup butter

¾ cup peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 ¼ cup All purpose flour

½ cup strawberry jam

4 cups small whole strawberries

1.Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 13 x 9 x 2 pan with foil extending beyond edges, set aside. Cut strawberries into quarters.

2. In large mixing bowl beat butter and peanut butter on medium to high for 30 seconds. Veat in sugars, baking powder, and salt untill combined.. Ass eggs and vanilla, beat until combined. Beat in as much flour as your can with mixer, Stir in remaining flour.

3.Spread dough in prepared pan. Bake 25 minutes or until top is lightly browned and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

4. Cool completely on rack. Remove from pan by lifting foil. Spread jam and top with berries. Cut into bars. Sear at once or refrigerate up to 6 hours.

Makes 24 bars.

Make Ahead: wrap the peanut butter base in foil.. Store at room temperature up to 24 hours. Before serving top with jam and berries, or freeze the peanut butt base in a freezer container up to 3 months.

enjoy!

First Photo shoot of fall

I photographed this darling family on Monday. They were so sweet! The little boy reminded me of my little brother, he was a total ham :) So please enjoy!!

Excited

This is my entry for the i heart faces contest "excited" this week.

This darling bubbly boy just had so much fun running all around the park we were at! He was a pleasure to photograph!

You can check out other awesome excited photo's at www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com!

J.J's birthday

My precious little brother is now 9 years old. He's crazy, fun, a absolute total monkey, has more energy then you could imagine, but at times can be the sweetest little boy. On another blog I read, the woman who writes, takes pictures of each of her kids for their birthday each year. I thought that would be a fun tradition to do with my siblings atleast untill I move out. So I started with J.J. Below are a few picture from his birthday, and then the ones I took of him. Ok so I just discovered the nice photoshoped pictures i took of my brother won't up load, so you will just have to do with the orginals :)

So cute, hanging from the monkey bars. And on top of the whole playground. :)

In the top of a tree. :)

Baking and sleeping.

Today was very intresting. I stayed up till almost one last night. I turned off my alarm so I could sleep in. Well, 12 hours later (12:19) I woke up! That is the longest I have ever slept! Before that my record was 9 am. God obviously thought I needed my sleep. Well the rest of the day, I baked and cooked. First I made too much chocolate cake which is the very top dessert recipie on allrecipies.com. I am brining it tomorrow to church, I hope people like it! Here is a picture and the recipie. It was extremly easy, please leave a comment if you try it!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Too-Much-Chocolate-Cake/Detail.aspx

The next the I made was chocolate oatmealcookies, but I haven't finished them yet, because they needed to be refigerated, but I am

going the finish them in the moring. I really like the cookies dough though :)

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Oatmeal-Cookies/Detail.aspx

And continuing with the Rachel Ray dinners I made Pork chops with apple cider gravy, apples, onions, and sweet potatoes. It was soooo yummy and

family said it was deffinitly a keeper. My dad and Erin and Riley did not like the sweet potates, so next time I am goigng to make half the

sweet potates, and half potates so that we all like it. But the best part was the porkchops and gravy. It was sooooooooo good! We all

loved it!! I hope you try it, and again, please leave a comment if you do.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/mashed-sweet-potatoes-pork-chop-with-cider-gravy-sauteed-apples-and-onions-recipe/index.html

good night, I should not be up this late... (midnight!)

My favorite things.

Thanks to resolved2worship.xanga.com, I have now started doing ihearfaces. (iheartfaces.blogspot.com) I LOVE it! It is just fun photography contests, no prizes just for fun. And then people give you feed back. This week there is no real judges, it's just my favorite things. So here are my favoirte things:

The realtionship I am able to have with the Lord Jesus Christ, (unfortanly I do not have a photo for this)

My amazing parents:

My amazing siblings

:

Erin

Riley

and J.J

Next comes,

My amazing extend family (this is just some of them.:)

Crazy times with friends :)

Holding a sleeping baby,

Kisses,

Babysitting,

Blue Eyes,

And much, much more.

Rebekah.....

Different, in almost every way.

Different, what does it mean to you? Werid, crazy abnormal? God put this on my mind recently and I have been thinking alot about it. o stand and fight

So I was reading an article in readers digest. It was about names, and naming your children, so naturally I was drawn to it. I actually found it extremely interesting. It was mainly talking about different names, why parents name their children those names, and what it says about those children to the world. One of the mom said something along these lines "I wanted to name my child ____ because I wanted his name to say to the world, "yes I am different, but I am not ashamed." I really got thinking about this. Isn't this what us christians are supposed to be doing? We are not sopossed to be blending in and going along with this world, we are supposed to stand out, and say, "I am a Christan, a son of the Lord Almighty and I AM NOT ASHAMED." Now I am not saying that I am going to name my child some wired different name to get him/her to stand out. And I am also not saying that I stand and say that all the time, because, well, I don't. But, is this what I am supossed to be striving for? God put me on this world, in this life for a reason. I have no idea what the reason is other then to serve Him. But when am I going to start serving Him? When I "grow up"? When I am "fully mature"? After contemplating this question for quite a while, my answer is..no. I am not going to wait. When God presents me with the chance, I am going to say "I am different, I am not like most of this world, I am a daughter of God." Now, I will fail, I will fail miserably, I know I am not perfect, and I will not do this every time God presents me with the chance, but at least I am striving towards it now, I am striving towards be different, but different in a good way, different for God.

On this same note my favorite song, that I can listen to over and over, here are the lyrics:

I have had the right
To stand and fight
But it would have still been wrong
I've had the chance to prove
A hurtful truth
I had to let it go and just move on

'Cause there's a gift called grace
That's captured my life
Though the way of the world is power and pride

I want to be different, Jesus
Just like You
I want to be tender with mercy
Guiding all I do
So when others talk about me
Let it be because
I am different
Let the difference be love

Let me have the kind
Of heart that shines
The light and shows you're real
And where hope is dim
And fear sets in
Will you use me Lord to help and heal

I don't want wealth or fame
To define the life I live
Oh let me be known
For what I give

I want to be different, Jesus
Just like You
I want to be tender with mercy
Guiding all I do
So when others talk about me
Let it be because
I am different
Let the difference be love

Every day is a chance to serve You
By caring for someone else
I will make the choice to surrender
And not live for myself

I want to be different, Jesus
Just like You
I want to be tender with mercy
Guiding all I do
So when others talk about me
Let it be because
I am different
Let the difference be love

"I want to be differnt Jesus, just like you." I truly do, I want to do everything it says in that song and more. I know I can not even breath without God, let along do all of that. But if God wills it I will strive towards that, what ever He calls me to do. "So when other's talk about me let it be, because I am different, just like You."

here is the link to the youtube video so you can hear the amazing lyrics, and yes the song is available on itunes. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVOJQPU0S3w&feature=related

Good night!!

Joys.. and work.

This morning I woke up at 6:30 am as usual, sat up in bed and froze!! It was very cold! I only had capris on so I ran over and changed into my nice warm pants and socks. Needless to say my mind was not quite as focused this morning on God as other mornings. After I did wii fit (which I do every morning for exercise.) I knew I was a bad girl and got on the computer... then I went down the twisting loop and ended up spending over 45 minutes on it. God used it for good though because I discovered all about backdrops for my photography which I really want to get, and are currently on the top of my christmas wish list! After that I had to take a shower and rush to get a little school done before bucket time (or history, which is from 10:45ish to noon.) I ended up starting pumpkin bread towards then end.. and then I had a stressful afternoon of trying to get school done, before we had visiters this afternoon, with little sucsess. We had an amazingly wonderful time with the vistors who have a 6, almost 3, and newborn. They are dear friends of ours we knew in San Antonio, and I babysat for all the time. They live about 2 hours away. They left after spending about an hour here, so I was able to finish science, but I normally do my writing assinment for the week on Mondays, and now I am going to have to figure out where else to squeeze it in at, but the visit was totally worth it.

I had an wonderful night at BSF. We are studying John this year, and God really convicted my that I need to give ALL the glory to Him! It is not me that is doing any of the stuff I do, so I should not take credit for it! They said something I really like, Reflect the praise given to you, up to God. So this week I am going to try very hard to not "swim" in my own pride, but give God the glory for all that He has given me and blessed me with.

Finally I am giving myself a challange. I think God has showed me that I have not been drinking enough water latly, so I am going to try to drink eight of my water bottle a day. My friend gave me a great tip..... for a minimum drink half your weight in ounces a day... this means if you weigh 120 pounds, you drink ATLEAST 60 ouces of water a day. I am striving for alot more and I will see how it goes....

I am up WAY to late, I need my sleep and I was hoping to read a little. But I really enjoy blogging, so I hope people will read... and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!!

Fair pics.. experimenting with photoshop...

Me and Erin....
the kiddie roller cosstar
the awesome ride... (basically sideways feriss wheel)
some experimenting with photoshop.. please tell me which you like better :)

Sunday...

I had a wonderful sunday today... Church was fun.. I got to help with a little toddler and hold him while he was sleeping :) And we watched the notebook which was a very good:) I loved it.. another good romance.

I have really had a busy sceduale latly... but I am enjoying it. Everything but school I really love. I am really getting inspired in photography.. and wanting to take picutres more and more. I found this awesome site (iheartfaces.blogspot.com) which has a photography contest every week!

aww...life :) I am going to post a picture I took at the fair yesterday...

Birthday sleepover and Ocktoberfest :)

So yesterday night I went to a friend's birthday party here. It was so much fun... we just played around, talked and did normal girl things :) The girl turned 15. She has 4 younger siblings.. one who is a 2 yearold girl.. and I had her on my hip like all night:) Her parents kept saying "you know you don't HAVE TO hold her" And I was like awww.... but I really want too :) She was very cute :) The family also had an Honda odyessy. The first time I saw it I was like "You guys have a honda odyessy? Lucky's that is my favorite car!!" And another girl who was at the sleepover was like... You know your a homeschooler when your like "YOUR mini van is cooler then OUR mini van!" :) She also said..."Don't do bad things... do hard things. :) It's a homescholler Joke... only us get it. I thought that the people (who's house we were at) had a cool Idea. They had 4 bedrooms upstairs but they made 1 the parnet's then a dorm room for the kids.. and all the kids slept in there, and then another a school room and another a play room/clothes room. It was cool. And since all the "messy" room were upstairs their downstairs actually looked nice and clean ;) We slept in a tent outside and us girls were so proud...5 girls set up a 5 sleeper tent in 15 mins... with no help!! (Well except from 8 and 9 year old boys :) And we disasebled it in the mornign in like 5 mins with no help! We slept outside in the tent and it actually didin't rain like we thought it would..

Today after getting home and changing our whole family went to the ocktoberfest on Ft. Belivor. It was so fun!! We decided to make it J.J's birthday party and we all got wrist bands and rode rides all day. I was a dare devil and rode every ride. There was one ride I was refuing to go on but Erin pushed me on and sure enough I hated it!! It was one of the scariest things I have ever done.. your stuck in a whole body cage going round and round while your cage is fliping and the another thing is moving... it was SOOO scary.... I swear the only thing that got me through was repeating bible verses the whole time. But other then that it was fine. We went on the ferris wheel to relax after eating lunch before going on more intense rides.. but there were wasps EVERYWHERE!!! And it was not relaxing...We tried all sorts of food... the fresh sceezed lemonade was sooooo good! I was hoping that there would be spatela there but there was none to my sugrine :( We tried deep fried oreos!! (Oreo's dipped in funnel cake batter and fired... soooo good) But almost too sweet. Over all it was a fun and great day with me family that I LOVE so much :)

Bekah's tip of the day: Domino's Are AMAZING THINGS!! I take them on babysitting trips all the time.... they are pretty cheap...are great for all ages because they have colors and numbers for education and young ones.. you can stack and make houses or towers...build long line and know them down (my personal fav) or play real dominos. And they are too big to fit in a babies mouth (but can also be stuck in the dishwasher after being sucked on for hours :) So anyways take them babysitting or get them for your kids!! They are great!

Thought you might like to see an example with of my photography.

Blogging...

So I actually keep I diary every night...and one night I thought....why not blog instead? So I am going to try it and see how it works.

I used to always get frustrated with people.... even though I knew I was not an adult...I got frustrated because people did not treat me like one. Then a few days ago God finally hit me over the head. I was thinking about what makes someone mature.....and God brought to my mind all the exsperiences I have had over the years... especially the ones with children. And I realized EXSPERIENCE, not knowledge is what makes someone truly mature. I mean think about it... someone can read how to spoon feed a baby for their first time... and they can see picture... but someone else who has had the EXPERIENCE of actually spoon feeding a baby is going to know better what to expect. Even though I think knowledge is important... I think knowledge and experience together = wisdom. On this topic, it also brought up thoughts about Homeschooling. Public school kids can sit at a desk all day long reading text books.... while us homeschoolers are out and seeing and EXPERIENCING everything they are just reading about :)

I also thought I should give people who don't know me a brief backround.

I name is Rebekah...(Middle Jean after my grandmother.) I love the Lord with all my heart soul, and mind, and my top desire is to do His will! I am 15, I curently live in Alexandria VA, after my dad (who is in the millatary) got transfered here. I LOVE babies, and children and anything to do with them. I also love Portrait Photogrpahy, and recently opened a new business (www.LeslieJoyPhotography.com) I know almost anything about baby gear you would possibly want to know. I also love interier desgin and decorating. Another one of my weird hobbies is playing with names, making up names etc. I have some amazing friends around the world from all my moves, and my goal for the future (other then serving the Lord) is to one day that God will bless me with a husband and LOTS of children.