Hi! It's Zoe. For the past few weeks, I have been staying with my Mimi in California, and a couple of days now, I have made dinner for the whole family. I would like to share my experience making these dishes and give you some easy recipes to make with your family!
 
   The two dishes I have made were some yummy stir fry and and a delicious broccoli and cheese quiche. I had lots of fun making these foods, and I used a couple of techniques that helped me and made cooking even more fun. I put some music on and listened to my favorite music while working my magic, and you can do that too very easily with just a little help from your parents! Most importantly, I was very careful and paid a lot of attention to what I was doing, because cooking can be really dangerous at times, and paying attention is a very important rule. I also read the recipe three times. This helps you not miss anything when you cook so your meal can come out perfect! 


 Here's an easy meal you can make:
 
 Broccoli and Cheese Quiche  

 Ingredients:
    8 eggs
    1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
    1/2 cup milk
     1 deep dish pie shell
     1/2 of a large onion
     2 cups of chopped broccoli
     3 tbsp of butter
     1/2 tsp of salt
     1/2 tsp of pepper

  Directions:
     First, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Second, whisk the 8 eggs, add salt, pepper, cheese and milk. Now, melt butter in a small frying pan. Mince onions and sauté in butter; let the onions cool and put in egg mix. Next, put broccoli in a bowl and microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Add to egg mix  and stir till everything is blended. Lastly, pour into pie shell and let bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Let the finished quiche cool for ten minutes, and then serve, and enjoy! Remember to ask a grown up for help with the hot pie pan and the slices!


   I had fun making these dishes, and I hope you will too! I can't wait to find out what my next meal will be! If you want to learn how to cook, love helping your mommy in the kitchen or just want to comment, just write below! I can't  wait to hear from you! Bye! 

    Hi! It's Zoe. As you all know, it was New Year's Day yesterday and an amazing start to the new 2015 year. I had fun with my family because we went to Houston and saw lots of interesting stuff like science museums and the Houston Zoo. My friend Isabella from California had a question about my New Years start. She says, " Hi, Zoe. My mom said that I should start doing New Years Resolutions. I decided to learn how to play the guitar as my resolution. What's yours?"
   Well, Isabella, my resolution would be to learn the basics of a different language. Though I would not speak it fluently, it would be a start  to learning a completely new language . Thanks for commenting and I wish you luck on your resolution!
   If you'd like to tell me about your resolution or ask me a question, just comment below. I'd love to hear from you. Bye!

    Hi! It's Zoe. As we all know, Halloween was last Friday. For those of us who do celebrate the holiday, it is a fun night (in my opinion) where you can get out of the house, dress up, and Trick or Treat. This year I was especially excited for Halloween because of my costume. I was a super duper Robot!
    To make my costume, my daddy and I started to brainstorm (a neat word for coming up with ideas) on how we could create the costume so it is comfortable and easily put on. First we decided to use this stuff called ducting for my arms. You might see it on a pipe somewhere and it is surprisingly flexible. Then we looked on Amazon for some metallic tights for my legs. After that came the hard part, finding and making the perfect box for the body. It took some time, but we finally found the box. Then it took some more time as we cut it, measured it and covered in tin foil, we also added some cool looking lights to make it look as robot-like as possible. Last but not least came the head. We used tennis balls covered in tin foil for the eyes and punched lots of holes into the box in the shape of a mouth but it was mostly so I could see out of the box. All together, my costume looked like it had come from the future!
          Trunk or Treat
  At my city's main park, we had a Trunk or Treat where a few student organizations from our local college came and gave out candy to whoever came to the event. Lots of kids wanted their picture taken with me because they thought I was a real robot! Many a person commented on my costume and it was fun putting those smiles on people's faces. 
 

  Hi! It's Zoe. These days, keeping the Earth a clean, healthy planet is important because of the huge amount of pollution we are releasing into our atmosphere, land, and waters. All this pollution is harmful to our planet and it is up to us to fix what we've started.
   One of the worst type of pollution is the plastic bag. This is found every time you go to the store and huge amounts of them are used every day. Here are some facts we should all remember the next time we go to buy something.

• 1 billion seabirds and mammals die every year because of plastic bags
  
• Sea turtles and other marine animals can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and accidentally digest them. This can hurt and even kill the animals.
• Plastic bags can take over 1,000 years to decompose which make it hard to get rid of them easily.

  These facts are only a few of many and it is up to us to change it. All we need to do is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Have you ever dreamed of being a superhero and saving the world? Well, if you Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, you can! Even when you  recycle one piece of paper, you are still making an impact on the world. Lets learn how to help our planet.
   To reuse plastic bags, we can use them again and again for different purposes to help prevent throwing them away. Things like needing a bag for your wet clothes when you go swimming and and a temporary lunch bag are all ways to reuse plastic bags. You can also get a bit more creative and make some really neat stuff with plastic bags. Here's a cool idea:
                                                                Plastic Bag Wallets
                                         Materials:

• 3 plastic bags
• iron/ ironing board
• piece of 4x4 wax paper
• scissors
• tape (optional)

                                 Directions:
     1. Align the 3 plastic bags and cover them with the 4x4 wax paper.Use iron to melt the bags together ( ask for parent help because this is extremely dangerous). Make sure not to go over 4x4 wax paper because plastic will melt and make a big mess.       2. After melting bags, take off wax paper. Ask your parent to cut a 3x4 piece of melted plastic. Fold this plastic hot dog style. Then ask your parent to melt the sides together using the iron ( use wax paper again) or tape the sides.
      3. Fold the wallet hamburger style and you're done! If you would like, add a pocket or two and decorate your new wallet. Enjoy!
     So there's reusing, an easy and fun thing to do while saving the planet.
  
  Reducing is easy, too. When we reduce, we use less of something, so if we want to reduce the amount of plastic bags we use, we should consider if we really need a plastic bag. Here's an example: if I go with my mommy to the store and buy some milk, do I need a bag for it or could I just carry it by the handle? We can also use reusable bags instead of plastic bags. These little things make big differences.
   Lastly,Recycling. Check to see if your local recycling center takes plastic bags or even your local general store. Like the facts I showed earlier say, it takes a long time to get rid of plastic bags so recycling helps a lot. Recycling uses both reusing and reducing as well. Its everything tied into one, a great way to help our planet.
   So there you have it. Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. Three amazing superheroes to fight back the super villain that is plastic bag pollution. And you can be a superhero as well! You can start right now by spreading the word! Bye!
                                                    

Hi! It's Zoe. Today I'd like to talk about something I started at school called a "petition". My petition was about starting a girls only Four Square court. Four Square is a game played with a rubber ball and four squares. It's popular at my school. I decided I needed 70 signatures for my petition so the school administration would see that a majority of the 5th grade agreed with my statement. Speaking about my statement, I made a page that showed why I wanted this petition, who was doing the petition, and signature lines. Here's a copy of it.  
 

After drafting this petition with the help of my daddy, I decided to get started with my signatures. It was surprising to see how many kids were agreeing to this, and it wasn't only girls, it was boys too! By the end of the first day, 46 people had signed. The next day it was harder to find people who hadn't already signed the petition and wanted to sign it. In the end, I barely found all 70 signatures I needed, but I did. At the end of the day, I brought the petition to my coach and she agreed that a girls-only four square court was a good idea! Better yet, the teacher who runs the Canterbury Knights News (my school's news center) overheard my conversation and he said he would announce the petition on the school's news broadcast the next day! 

Interestingly, after a few days of girls-only four square some boys wanted to play on the girls four square. So we made a compromise. Instead of an all boys and all girls four square court, we made "beginner" and "advance" courts because the real issue all along was that some of the bigger boys played too hard and it never allowed other kids the opportunity to play. The best part was that by the end of the week everybody was happy with the changes and the problem was solved! 

Do you have something you would like to change in your school, neighborhood, or community? A petition might solve the problem. I know it solved mine. Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. How was your holiday? Mine was great! We opened presents as a family after a nice breakfast, and I felt so lucky to have my Mimi by my side! She came all the way from California to spend the holidays with us. After presents and a fun day, we had dinner with my Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Aunt Penny, who was always ready to tell a story or show us a neat trick. It was an awesome Christmas.

I realize how fortunate I am, and I know there are children less fortunate than me. I worked hard to donate to the school's canned food drive, coat drive, and toy drive to make their Christmas better. Volunteering and donating to these causes are important to me, and I do my best to get involved with each one because I know how lucky I am to have a happy Christmas.

My greatest Christmas present was a n amazing sewing machine! It is digital so you can program a stitch and it would do it automatically for you. Even better was the fact my mommy has studied tailoring, so she knows how to sew. The machine is key to having lots and lots of fun. It also gave us great mommy-daughter quality time! With my sewing machine, I got other things to help me get started, like project books and lots of colorful thread. After deciding on my first project from one of the books, my Mimi, Mommy, and I went to Hobby Lobby to buy fabric and few other needed tools. Sadly, my Mimi returned home before we started on the project, but I promised to send her something I made.

Mommy and I began our project. It took lots of time to measure the fabric. Did you know that sewing is great for math because you have add and subtract fractions. I learned to, "measure twice, cut once." After cutting the pieces, I started learning how to work the sewing machine.  I was a bit shaky at first, but slowly I got better. Finally our finished product was ready! We made a reversible, over-the-shoulder, messenger bag!

After that, my mommy and I made a penny purse and a cute skirt. We plan on making so much more! And to think, a great and practical skill for life started out as a Christmas present.  Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. The holidays have been very busy for me and I've celebrated them in so many ways. First was my birthday party.

At my birthday party, I invited my friends over to my house where we decorated stockings that became their party bags to take home filled with goodies. Then we played basketball and sang Karaoke. I love to sing.  And finally we made cupcakes at "cupcake station" in the kitchen. Mommy made un-iced cupcakes that we were able to decorate ourselves. We had three different designs to pick from; a shoe, a purse, and a fish. They came from a book I have on fun food designs. Everyone enjoyed it, though some might not have turned out exactly like the book, we enjoyed each other's work. I think it was my best birthday party ever. 

Another interesting holiday celebration was my 5th Grade Christmas play! And guess what? After trying out and waiting for a few days for the teachers to make their decisions, I got the part of Santa Clause! or as he was known, White Beard, for A Pirates Christmas.It was really challenging because I needed to memorize so many lines and sing and dance. It was a great experience.  It was so much fun and people thought I did a wonderful job. Yeah! 

I have two clips of the performance. A short outtake of a funny bit where I have to walk real fast behind the sleigh pushing it. My family laughed at this because I'm moving quickly and waving funny. The other clip is almost the entire play. It starts where I come in. Hope you enjoy the videos. 

One last thing for this holiday special blog, I want to share my district choir performance with you. We performed for the Night of Lights celebration. I was a little disappointed by how short our performance was, but we made the most out of the small portion of time we were given. We sang four songs. The one below (video - I'm in the green elf hat) was my favorite. We did a great job in my eyes, and I am glad I was a part of it. 

We also had a choir field trip. We went caroling to different places such as hospitals, district central office, and schools. I have to say that it felt good to cheer people up. We ended the trip at Peter Piper Pizza to have fun after a long day. 

So there you have it, my holiday celebrations this year! I hope you had a happy holiday. This wraps up my first year blogging. I will be writing in the new year. I hope 2014 is a great one!

Hi! It's Zoe. First, I want to give a little recap of things I've done since my last blog. For Halloween, I dressed up as a man-woman and went as a "couple". My school had a costume competition based on the book Miss Ataineus, where a child picked a vocabulary word from one of their subjects and makes a costume out of it. I picked the word "couple" and my mommy and I made a creative costume for it. In the end, I won the prize for best costume! 

Most recently, I spent the month of November participating in my fifth year of NaNoWriMo writing challenge. In fact, NaNoWriMo is the reason I have been doing the blog this year. I've been doing NaNoWriMo since I was six years old. In the month November each year, people all over the world set their writing goals for National Novel Writing Month. This year I had to reach 10,000 words. 

At first thought, it didn't seem too big since many authors write hundreds of thousands of words in one book.But, if you think about it and experience it, you might change your mind. That's what happened to me. After calculating the average words I needed to write per day to meet my goal, I found out I needed 333 words per day to accomplish my goal. To me, that was not too bad. But, trying to write after school, doing all my homework and chores, I realized it was hard to keep up with my goal, and I started to fall behind. In the last few days of November, I was writing 800-1000 words trying to catch up. After a lot of struggle, I was able to reach my goal, and I got a certificate of achievement! My novel is called, Under the Surface. NaNoWriMo provides five free hard copies to the kids who meet their writing goals. I can't wait to get mine. 

So, that's it. This was my summary of all the exciting things I've been doing since my last blog. If you want to become a writer, NanoWriMo is a great way to practice. It's easy to sign-up. Have your mommy or daddy help you. It helped me. Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. I have a quick update I'd like to share with you. In my last blog, I wrote about running for Student Council President. I didn't win, but I am happy with the person that did get it, and I know that our school will have a successful year. I'm going to be very busy this year. One of the things I did get chosen to participate in is called D.I. or Destination Imagination. 

DI is a group of kids that are handed a problem that has to be solved with creativity and teamwork. You are scored on these things and the top team will go on to State and then to Globals. My school won global once, and this year, I'd like to lead my team to another one. 

The DI tryouts were held on a Saturday. Although, the teachers were expecting 100 or more kids to tryout, less than 25 showed up! I think just having the tryouts on a weekend was a good choice because it meant only the serious kids would show up.  One of the rules for DI is this, if you drop out or get kicked off the team, they can't replace you, so the team would suffer by being a person short.

DI has another rule too. The team cannot receive any help from a teacher or parent or anyone not part of the team. It's about pure teamwork. Teachers are there only to supervise. Sometimes, they will work around the rule, and get ideas to you craftily. Though most kids don't like this rule, I like it because it can test how creative the teams are coming up with their own ideas. 

With two years of experience, I know what can happen in DI. Two years ago my team placed second in a local tournament. We had lost by six points out of 340. But by pure luck, a raffle was held for an alternate team and my team was picked! We went to state and sadly placed 3rd out of 12 in the rankings. I believe we can blame our lack of teamwork that day. This showed us how things could go from good to bad. This year I'm hoping we show great teamwork and go on to win.

If your school has a DI or Rising Stars group, don't be afraid to join. Never stop the creativity! Bye!