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I love riddles. I think they are great because they are fun to tell at school, with friends and with family. Another reason I like riddles is because you get to share them and pass them on. The first riddle below I learned from my best friend. Here are a few of my favorites:

Questions

1. You are walking with a man named Ed and you stop at a ditch where a dead man is lying. Ed turns to you and says: “Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s son.”

Who is the man in the ditch?

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This is a riddle that won’t work to read but it is a good one to tell people. I wrote numbers in here but you really can say any number between 0 and 20.                                              

2.You are the bus driver. Ten people get on the bus. Then at the next stop, 20 people get on and 3 people get off. After that 8 people get on and 2 people get off.  Next, 9 people get off and 17 people get on.

What is the color of the bus driver’s eyes?

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This riddle, like #2, you can only tell someone. Although, this one is kind of like 20 questions because they have to ask yes or no questions to get the answer.

3. A man is in California reading the newspaper. He read a column that was talking about how a couple from California were on a ski trip in Switzerland and the wife was murdered. The police were trying to find out who had killed her. After this man read all of it, he went straight to the police department, told them the husband killed her and brought them back to his house to prove it.

How did he know the husband had killed the wife?

Answers

1. The dead man in the ditch is the son of Ed. The reason is that if the dead man’s father is the son  of Ed’s father, and since Ed doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, then he is the only son of his father.

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2. The color of the bus driver’s eyes is the color of the person’s eyes that you are telling it to, because in the beginning you said that they were the bus driver.

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3. The man who reported the husband to the police sold airplane tickets, and the husband bought a round-trip ticket for himself, but only a one-way ticket for his wife.

Contest

I am having a contest of riddles. I am going to pick my favorite riddle and it will be posted along with your name* and picture* (*optional*). The winner will also receive a mini riddle book made by me.  To enter, just put your riddle in a comment by August 15 and I will post the winner August 20.

Good Luck!

Happy 4th of July everyone! To celebrate you can make this parfait for a snack or even if you’re having a party. These are so simple to make. My favorite part about them is how there is no specific recipe. Also it helps you cool off in the summer sun. All you need is: strawberries, blueberries and French vanilla (or vanilla) yogurt. I like to use special glasses such as a parfait glass or you can ask your parents if you can use one of their wine glasses. If you don’t have access to either of those, an everyday glass would work.

First get all of your ingredients ready, cut the strawberries into fourths (save the prettiest one for later)  and figure out how much fruit and yogurt you will need to fill your glass.

Then add a large-sized dollop of yogurt into your glass.

After that you can start to add layers of strawberries and blueberries until your glass is filled up. If you are using a tall glass, add more yogurt after the fruit and then some more fruit and yogurt. Just keep layering.

Add your last amount of yogurt (which should be thin) and garnish with a few blueberries and the perfect strawberry you had saved from before.

For the last step: Enjoy!

Last year when I was eight I didn’t like brownies. I thought they were too fudgy. Then I discovered Fat Witch Brownies. My mom was making brownies and she said I should try them. I did. They were so good.

They aren’t too chocolatey and the texture is perfect. I like how there is a crispy layer on top – thinner than paper – that melts in your mouth. I prefer the original brownie recipe from the cookbook. I recommend that you try the brownies. I still don’t like any other brownie than Fat Witch. The recipe is really easy. I have made it many times by myself. I encourage you to make them too.

Here are a few tips. An easy trick is that when it says to grease the brownie pan you grease it and then you add parchment paper with two sides hanging out so that once they are out of the oven you can just pull them up and out. To hold down the parchment paper you can use binder clips which can go in the oven with your brownies.

I hope you enjoy making and eating these brownies! Please let me know what your favorite brownies are!

Fat Witch Brownies (recipe from page 26 of Fat Witch Brownies: Brownies, Blondies, and Bars from New York’s Legendary Fat Witch Bakery (Rodale, 2010) by Patricia Helding

14 tablespoons (1-3/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons bittersweet chocolate chips
1-1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2 tablepoons unbleached flour
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9×9-inch baking pan with baking spray paper and line with parchment, leaving an overhang on two of the four sides.

2. Melt butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring often; set aside to cool.

3. Cream the sugar, eggs, and vanilla together; add in the cooled chocolate mixture; mix until well blended.

4. Measure the flour and salt; then sift together directly into the chocolate mixture.

5. Mix batter gently until well combined and no trace of dry ingredients remains.

6. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.

7. Bake 33 minutes or until toothpick tests done (clean or with only crumbs, no batter).

8. Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 1 hour; cut just before serving.

Hi! This is my first post and I hope you like it!

When I was five I went to London. Of course I wanted to go to Hamleys, a popular toy store in London. We were looking around when I saw a lady at a booth showing a few people something. We went over and she had something really cool. She took a special pen and wrote or drew whatever we wanted. Then she let it sit until it was clear. Once it was clear, you picked a foil with any design or color. She then placed it on top of the design and rubbed it with her finger and voilà! The design had the foil color on it. Today, I am going to show you how to do it! To buy the supplies you can go to Gigi Enterprises. You can also go to Tonertex for useful videos and tips.

Here’s one foil design that I made:

Here’s how you can make one:

1. Lay out your supplies

2. Take a scrap of paper and push down on the pen until a small blob of ink appears.

3. Start your design!

4. Wait until there isn’t any blue left and everything is clear. If the room is cold it can take up to a half hour. If you want to quicken the drying put it underneath a lamp. You can let it sit for days, so there’s no rush.

Here (below) there is a tiny bit of light blue left on the “a” so wait until everything dries clear.

5. Place a sheet of foil on the clear design and rub it with your finger.

6. Slowly and carefully peel off the foil.

Then you should have a beautiful start! If the color or design doesn’t show up well you can just place another foil on top and it covers it up nicely.

I like to do parts of the first letter in different colors to add a nice effect.

Continue with the rest.

It should turn out nicely. (sorry about the lighting. The colors are much better in person).

For the heart I’m going to use glitter.

1. Dab your finger in the glitter and cover a small area. Repeat to cover the whole area.

2. For a blended effect, pick some other colors from the tube (several glitters come in a stacked tube).

3. I am using three colors, blue, turquoise and green.

4. Cover a third (or however many colors you are using) of the shape with blue glitter.

Tip: To pick up the glitter, just wipe the glitter as if you had a paper towel but just with your hand because it sticks to skin. Then you can wash it off with soap and water.

5. Then overlap colors a tiny bit when you add the second color. It should look like the colors are blending and melting.

6. Repeat step five. Then remove all access glitter and spread it back on the shape to fully blend it.

It should look something like this:

You can do anything you want with this, cards, school projects, posters, signs anything you can think of. Enjoy!