thebabyperks

I am extremely OCD with my phone's battery life. The thing is, I don't text people, call people for hours on end, or Face Time. No, I scroll through Twitter during my school day and pretty much use my phone for music.

However, I still see my iPhone battery life as a game. I try to keep it at the highest percentile possible, and then when I get home I get a sense of satisfaction for doing so.

I keep my brightness almost all the way down, I exit out of every app right after I use it, etc. Why do I do this though? It doesn't help my battery that I keep it on 75% and then charge it all night.

I know this a really random post, at 8:55 at night, but it has been bugging me lately. Today, I tried to break my rebel habit of preserving my phone battery and right now it's at 41% battery.

Do you guys have problems like me or am I a loser who is obsessed with my phone's battery??

Anyway, until next time!

I caught your attention didn't I?? In English we have just begun reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It's an early dystopian kind of novel, and like I said before, I just started reading this and I've only read 40 pages. It's such an interesting topic though because in the society the fire fighters don't stop fires they start them. Books are forbidden in the world at this time and the firemen must burn down the books (obviously there is a lot more going on but this is the point I want to talk about).

As I read how they burned books I was actually cringing. How could someone burn a book, especially on purpose! Books have so much power and have so much knowledge compacted into the writing. The fact that a society would take away all books is unfathomable.

I finally got my bookshelf in my room and I realized I only have around 10 books of my own. I can't wait to go searching for some of my favorites and some that I've been wanting to read for months. I really want to build up my bookshelf and the fact that people could just storm through and destroy that.... Ahh it's mine boggling.

My class also looked up the United States top banned books (click here to see some of the topped banned books). For 2013, Captain Underpants was rated #1 on the banned books list, #4: Fifty Shades of Gray?!


A lot of books were banned because they were inappropriate for the age group. Why are we sheltering kids so much. Yes I understand that 50 Shades of Gray probably shouldn't be handed out to 5th graders (or any student for that matter) but really, even The Hunger Games was in the top 5.

Books teach valuable lessons and address multiple tough situations. Books are a gateway to life and if you restrict reading, so much in the world is gone.

You all know I love to bake and I will use any excuse to bake food. Easter is tomorrow and so this afternoon I made some cupcakes.

First thing first I had to find a good vanilla cupcake recipe. I simply just googled "vanilla cupcakes" and stumbled upon the blog "My San Francisco Kitchen". The pictures of the cupcakes looked great and I was looking for a recipe that didn't involve sour cream. Her recipe was good to go click here to see the original post.

Then I had to figure out how to decorate my cupcakes, which I actually did yesterday when I thought I'd want to make cupcakes. I bought some shredded coconut and vanilla icing. I really don't like making icing because it never has the right consistency so I just buy it (and it's less to clean up).

Ingredients for Cupcakes:
1 cup softened unsalted butter
2 cups granulated white sugar
4 eggs
2 tbsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup cold milk

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350F
2) In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
3) In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Then beat the vanilla in.
4) Slowly pour the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Stop occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl.
5) Pour the milk into the batter and mix slowly.  
**The original recipe called for  1 1/3 cups of milk but I just used 1 cup**
6) Scoop batter into a cupcake pan lined with cupcake liners.

7) Bake for 20-25 minutes
8) Remove and let cool completely before decorating.

Decorating:
1 tub of vanilla icing
Green food coloring
Shredded Coconut
Mini Eggs (chocolate with candy coating)

Instructions:
1) Mix vanilla icing with green food coloring until desired colored
2) Ice the cupcakes
3) In a gallon bag mix 1/2 a tsp. of water with a few drops of food coloring. Pour the coconut into the baggie. Seal the bag and mix up the green food coloring and coconut.
4) Using your hands, (or if you have a better utensil?) spread the colored coconut on the icing.
5) Put a dab of icing on top of the coconut and put the mini eggs on top
6) Enjoy!! 

-Hopefully you enjoyed this, I made up the decoration by myself so hopefully it makes sense. If you guys bake cupcakes or anything with an Easter theme comment down below and I'll go check out your recipes.

 **I forgot to take pictures of me actually decorating, sorry!!


And on a side note:

I started my day with my cousins, my aunt, and my mom. We went to a place called "Painting with a Twist" and we painted, obviously. It was so cool because when I first saw the painting we had to do I was like, uh no I can't paint a Van Gogh. See what happens is the instructor teaches you how to remake the painting. Again, I was pretty nervous but the paintings turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. I really can't wait to do this again.

At first I was going to make this into a YouTube video however I didn't know how to organize it. By writing everything I can organize as I go.

First, if you didn't know (which you probably didn't), I went on my church's youth retreat this weekend. It went from Friday through Sunday and the theme was "Person of Interest". Spoiler alert the overall person of interest was us, Friday the person of interest was God, Saturday it was Jesus, and Sunday it was the Holy Spirit.

Last year I hated retreat, I was just in a bad place overall in my life and I was taking on too many people's problems while battling my own. This year I went in with a positive attitude and hey I got a positive experience.

I got put on the pink team and my leaders both made a huge impact on me, especially Mike Bounds. He has so much knowledge and I loved the way he talked about the Bible.

Anyway, for me there were 3 extremely powerful moments.

#1: Each team had to carry a cross up a (good mile, mile and a half) hill. There were around 10 of us on a team and carrying it up a hill was no easy task. As much as I wanted to complain and give up I thought; Jesus did this on his own, I have no right to complain. Just reaching the top, there was this overwhelming sensation of amazement. It brought to life everything Jesus went through for US. Then we each got a nail and nailed it to the cross. The moment I nailed my sins/worries/etc to the cross was an amazing moment of freedom from all my problems.

#2 This year we had 15 seniors in our youth group and on Saturday night we honored them by having a Senior Bonfire. Pretty much my youth pastor, Troy, reads off letters their parents wrote them and letters he wrote them. I bawled even before the first senior's letters were read. All these people have made such a huge impact on my life and I can't thank them enough for everything they've done and taught me. Also it was a surreal moment because in 2 short years I'll be up there as a senior.

#3: The youth praise band was incredible. We sang so many songs, my favorite being "God's Not Dead" check it out here. Every time we sang it I got goosebumps. Just seeing all these people worshiping and praising God was amazing and I would give anything for everyone to experience it.

 If you watch my YouTube channel you know I do a lot of "tag" videos. These kind of videos are so fun and easy because all you do is answer questions (and the journalist in me loves it). However, one of my friends **cough cough Rachel** said I do too many. I watched "Bookables" Bookaholic Book Tag today and loved it but I don't have a book-tube channel. Also, I just posted a tag video last week and decided I probably should cut back a little. I rarely do tags on here so I thought I should today. Hopefully you all won't mind.

1) What do you love about buying new books?
I love that I can declare a book mine and not have to worry about returning it and that someone else will ruin it. I also love that new book/old book smell, but that's a given.

2) How often do you buy new books?
Not very often. I pace the Target aisles every time, combing through the books but I never actually buy them. I usually go to the library or write it on an ever-growing list. Hopefully I can go to a resale book shop or something soon.

3) Bookstore or online shopping?
Bookstore. I'm a pacer, I walk up and down the same few rows of Barnes and Noble 100 times. I want to physically hold the book.

4) Do you have a favourite bookstore?
Mainly just Barnes and Noble because there aren't any other bookstores around me.

5) Do you preorder books?
Nope, again I just add books to my lists.

6) Do you have a monthly book buying limit?
I don't buy books a lot so no again. I want to buy books but I'm 15 and don't have a job which means I don't have a lot of money.

7) Book buying bans, are they for you?
Previous question ^^^

8) How big is your wishlist?
I used to hand write my book wishlist but now I got a "Goodreads" account and have a list "to-read". Currently there are 74 books on my list.

9) Which books do you want NOW?
I want the Divergent series because I only read Divergent back in 8th grade and I want to actually read the entire series. Also I really want to read the Crank series. Those are just a few, go to my "Goodreads" account here

10) Whom do you tag?
Well I did this via blog so comment down below your answers and if you have a Goodreads account, I'll check out your profile.


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I wanted to further my procrastination for history by baking more food. It's my friend Savannah's birthday so I made these. I also bought her some candy and stuff but have to give it to her tomorrow.

OI know I haven't updated for a week. There is some stuff I really want to talk about but school is taking over right now. 

I'm trying to cut down on the amount of bread/flour I'm eating. I found Gluten-free brownie mix at Target that was ON SALE. Healthier food and it's cheap!!