Hey you all! I hope you’re doing great! Me and my sister are sick with the flu. 😦 But there’s nothing like playing games and eating candy when we are supposed to be doing homework. 😉

Apples to Apples is one of our favorite games. What is your favorite game?

Long time no see! How are you all doing?

We’ve never done a Valentine’s Day Party before but me and my sister have been begging for one every year. Well, as you can tell by the title, my mom finally gave in! As we were spending money to get ready for it, we got even more excited! We had so many ideas that we had gathered through the last few years. After we checked out, my mom took one look at the total on the receipt and promptly said, “Never again!” We groaned, and she said, “Well, you’ll just have to make the best of it.” Just like moms do. Ugh.

Anyway, we invited a bunch of our friends over and we decided on the Saturday after Valentine’s Day for the party. So, I’m sorry if you are all valentined out. 😛 (That’s supposed to be eyes and mouth with a tongue sticking out.)

Mom said we had to do the decorating and she would make the cake. We had a unicorn themed party! We told everyone to wear pink. I told my sister that she wasn’t wearing pink. She says her dress IS pink! I secretly think that she’s colorblind.
Here are my sister and I waiting on our friends to come.

First came Marisol. She always dresses so pretty.

Then the rest of our friends came in a heap. Mia, Grace, and Natasha.

Everyone was starving, so first we ate. We had chocolate covered pretzel sticks covered in rainbow sprinkles, a unicorn cake, and several different kinds of candy. That was a lot of sweets! We also had lemonade. My mom says we need to be sure to brush our teeth tonight after this party.

My mom let me cut the cake for everyone.

Then came the pinata! Yup, it’s a unicorn! We had lots of fun smacking it. I handed the stick to Natasha first.

Marisol was next.

She tried her best, but nothing happened.

Mia is next. She is strong. She loves baseball. We have a lot of hope that she will be the one to do some damage.

And YAY!! She did it!

My sis gave it a HARD smack; and candy went flying everywhere! We greedily snatched it up!

But don’t worry; we made sure everyone got some.

Next we did a craft.

And here’s mine!

It’s a Valentine Monster! I hope you all had an amazing Valentine’s day and a lovely February!

Hey, guys, it’s me here, Penny. Remember me? 🙂

So I wanted to introduce you to my hiding spot last week but our internet shut down and wasn’t restarted till yesterday. In my sister, Alessandra’s words, “Sooo annoying!” (Followed with a dramatic eyeroll) The rest of us are silently cheering inside because now she can’t beg to play games on her phone. Hehe… or maybe it’s just me. I don’t know.

Well, anyway, to the point…

I love our attic. Even if it is freezing right now, and boiling hot in the summer. I love the attic because it’s so quiet up there, and if I’m as quiet as a mouse nobody even knows I am there. And so mom can’t ask me to do the dishes, and my little brother can’t tease me, and my sister can’t roll her eyes and me and mutter, “Whatever” under her breath.

We live in a sort of old log house. Well, I guess it’s old. Dad says it was built in the 1990s. So it’s not older than my parents, and they aren’t that old. But for some reason we have a lot of old things in our attic. Dad says they are kind of family heirlooms. When my Grandma died this past summer, we got a bunch of her things that had been in the family for a few generations. We store most of them in the attic, since my mom and dad like modern furniture. But I love old things. I wish I lived in the early 1900s, when people lived in fancy, beautiful houses and wore frilly clothes. Sigh…

So here is the attic. I cleaned all the cobwebs and dusted everything off. I use this old desk to write and do my homework.

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Here is a closer look. I love the old things I found, like the camera and old photos. The camera unfortunately doesn’t work any more.

I keep my doll up here too. And I also have a nesting doll! It’s not old, unfortunately. But I think it looks so cool.

I hope my little brother doesn’t read this blog, hehe. Because I’m about to show you where I hide my candy. Oh well, it’s in a really obvious place anyway. I hide it in the bottom drawer of my desk. And yes, I still have Christmas candy left.

And I totally have to show you this cool thing I found. I guess it’s a hanger for clothes or accessories. This was one of my Grandma’s things that she had in her house.

So anyway, there is my hiding spot. I love it, don’t you?

Guys, I am so bad at this! But we did go on a very exciting trip this Christmas, so I don’t feel too bad. 🙂

We went to Canada to Quebec City over Christmas. They have real winter up there, with snow on the ground and ice on the lakes. And we did lots of skating. We visited the old part of Quebec which was really cool. It was built by the French in the early 1600s. For some reason the English came along and decided they wanted the city, so to protect the city the French built walls and set up canons.

We had our family Christmas just before we left. Dad said something about opening them after we got back but we put up a fuss. So we opened them on the Friday morning before Christmas.

I saw a suspiciously doll sized box under the tree. I’ve begged for a doll for the last three Christmas’s! But my parent’s always told me I was too young or wasn’t careful enough with my things or something. 😦 But this Christmas, maybe…!

I’m gonna be soooo disappointed if it’s not a doll. But I will try to be grateful anyway…

It is, it is!! It’s Isabelle!! I’ve always loved her because she danced. And her movie is awesome. I love ballet. Eeek, I’m so happy! Thanks, mom and dad!

I love her so much!

And I love all my other presents, too. I hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too!

Hi! I know, things have been super busy lately. I wanted to make lots of Christmas posts, but between school, parties, Christmas caroling, shopping, and getting ready for a trip, I just didn’t find any time.

Anyway, we put a Christmas tree up earlier this month. My next door neighbor, Chrissa, helped me decorate it. My sister said she had too much homework (aka playing games on her iPad; we all know that) and my brother said that Christmas trees are for sissies. Sigh. So I was telling my friend about it on the way home from school and she offered to help me. She’s a great friend.

Here I’m opening the box of Christmas ornaments.

Chrissy’s dog, Coconut, wants to play with them. So I hold onto him while I hand Chrissa the ornaments.

The Christmas tree isn’t very tall this year, so we don’t need a ladder.

And here is our tree! Isn’t it pretty?

Well, Mom made me a Christmas Sweater for me to enter in the Pixie Faire Christmas Sweater Contest, but when she went to the site to enter today, she discovered the last day to enter was on the 10th of December, which was yesterday. Soo disappointing! But I can still share it with you at least. So here it is. 

She made the snowman applique by hand. She even sewed all the tiny sequins on one by one. It took hours. And now I have a cute sweater! I love it. It’s so thick and warm.

Thanks for joining me and my friends in our adventures!

Hello, my name is Penny Rosa Valencia, and I live by a back road full of potholes in the Appalachian Hills. I say “hills” because my mother grew up out West near the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, and she insists they are hills, not mountains. Ha! But I don’t know any different, because I haven’t been that far out West. The farthest I’ve been is Minnesota, but that’s a different story for another day.

Anyway, back to introducing myself. You may be wondering about my last name, especially since I have strawberry blonde hair. My mom is from Irish descent, and almost all of my relatives on her side have red hair. Obviously I inherited it too. My dad’s family is from Spain, which explains the last name. My Dad was born in Spain and his family moved to America in 1987. All of my aunts and uncles and cousins from my dad’s side of the family live in New York City. My mom is from California, but they met at College in Pennsylvania and we have lived here ever since. I hope we move to New York someday. I always have such a great time with my cousins when we go there for Christmas.

I am the middle child in my family. I have one older sister, Alessandra, 11, who we call Alex, who is smart without trying and thinks she’s the coolest girl in school or something. And a younger brother, Antonio, who is six. He’s a pest, and thinks we’ll be scared of things like spiders and snakes. And mice.

I am 10. And I like glitter and pencils and notebooks and stories. And my favorite place in the world is our attic. It’s quiet and mysterious and inspirational. (Those are words I learned recently. I feel so big using them.)

Well, I guess that’s all I have to say right now. See you on the next blog post! Thanks for reading!