Love Pops

  Cake+frosting=cake pops.
 Sounds easy, right?

yeah, I thought so too.
I went over to Pioneer Woman's Blog and read the tutorials from her and Bakerella about how to go about making these cake pops I had heard so much about.  After looking at the pictures and reading both their tutorials I felt confident in my ability to pull it off
(strike one against the momma)
I made a chocolate cake, and let it cool as I went up to get Cate ready for bed...only to come back to this.

 

yeah, he's a peach. 

So I had a trial cake I thought, and good thing, because I needed it.  The cake pops seemed pretty much like the oreo truffle balls that we make so I thought what the heck, I'll just use the WHOLE container of frosting. 

(strike two mommy)

yeah, this is what happens when you use the whole container of frosting.  No matter how long I froze them, they would always be too weak to stay on the stick.  

While I was working on these, I made another funfetti cake for try #2 the next day.  I officially was beaten on day one..

Day 2.  

Funfetti Cake and Frosting

While we were freezing the next batch of pops, we went ahead and melted the chocolate again to perfect our dipping skills for the "good" batch.

{one of my favorite pictures, she's wearing her great grandmothers apron}

I think we got it down...

 

So on the pink we went...

 

ahhhhh,another love day down, but all in all I think it turned out well.  Cake Pop Experiment #1 done.  Maggie already has plans for Cate's first birthday....since you know, mommy KNOWS what she's doing now.  Faith, she haz it in me!

Drama

TWO AND A HALF HOURS.  
Yep, that's right...that's how long it took us to see this guy.  It's a good thing he is the ONLY Santa worth waiting that long for.  He is the most believable Santa I've ever met.  The first time we took Maggie to him was four years ago when we first moved here, and I can tell you I believed in Santa again after their visit!!  We took Fionn to see him his first Christmas, but haven't dared it again since....until this year.  This picture LOOKS like it went okay, and it did...as long as Greg stayed there!  He's trying to hold Cate's hand, I'm not sure if he thinks that Santa is going to eat her or what, but he's making sure she's okay!  Cate WAS okay, until Fionn freaked out, then she started melting.  Of course Mag is looking at the camera, lol...but once again they're all doing their own thing! 

All in all, it was a success...

or so I thought.

(insert the dun, dun, dun here)

UNTIL the next night (two nights before Christmas)

Then as we were getting her bed all set and getting ready for prayers, I looked over and her shoulders were gently shaking as she put her AG magazines away.  I turned her around and she was bawling.  Poor little thing, I knew immediately what was wrong, but I just went with it.  When we went to see Santa she went over and over again what she was going to ask for.  The Glow Dome, AG clothes, and two surprises...it was all she asked for.  Not ONE mention of a new doll.  It didn't even come up.  I knew she wanted one, but she never asked Santa.  She was crying because she realized that she never actually told him (or us) that's what she REALLY wanted.  Through her tears she told me she thought he would just KNOW.  So I kept going with it.  I told her to write a new letter to Santa and I would email it.  But, I reminded her, it was TWO days before Christmas.  So she furiously wrote, and sniffled the whole time and this is what she came up with.

She cried herself to sleep as my heart lept in my chest as I whispered with Greg about different scenarios for Christmas morning.  He told me I was mean, but she was still going to have to work for them.  You just can't whip them out and say see, he did know.  Besides, they were her gifts from us and other family members, not Santa.  

So without further ado...

Christmas Morning

AG Fashion Show

Maggie strutting her stuff as Josefina. This is Josefina's everyday outfit. Maggie had two more trips down the runway, once in Christmas dress and another in pj's.

Josefina Montoya...for a Day

now without delay...back to our AG story....

Our princess did SUCH a great job as Josefina, we couldn't be more proud!!  Now if Mommy could have just gotten her camera to cooperate when she was actually looking at me, but that's a whole other post, geesh!  

American Girl Hysteria

To tell you that Maggie is OBSESSED with American Girls is an understatement....
I mean catalog under the pillow, two dolls in her bed, paper dolls and books on her nightstand, and a Christmas list in her drawer that gets ammended weekly...
What can I say, we ALL indulge her and we can't wait to see her face THIS Christmas morning.
(I'm also confident that she's not going to be reading this post anytime soon so feel safe posting that little tidbit here.)
It's going to be Legend-ARY for her!

She got her first AG doll, her bitty baby "Tasha" for Christmas 2 years ago.

Then for her birthday last year, this HUGE surprise came in the mail...

 Things have spiraled out.of.control (in a good way) since then.

She ripped me a page out of her catalog and sent it with me with her "order" when I went on my mommy trip to Chicago last year!  What's a mommy to do, but go and get her what she wants!

  As one of her Christmas presents last year we went to the American Girl Fashion Show presented by the Junior League and I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head!  She LOVED it.

So much in fact that I kept tabs and after we got back from FL in August we surprised her and let her go to the model search for this year's show.

I know this pic was posted below but this is her and Carissa after we left the model search!  

We got word that she was chosen in early October and started getting ready for the show...

 

We went to the meeting and found out she was going to be Josefina!  She was THRILLED

(once I explained that if she wasn't thrilled with what she got, we could let another girl have the honor) so needless to say she was THRILLED. We went to final dress rehearsal...

and my BIG girl was not nervous at all, as a matter of fact she ROCKED it...

ONLY one more week to go until her big runway debut!  

Stay tuned for her day as Josefina Montoya!

Comparison

 

Today our little princess turns FIVE months, and before I show you all her beautiful new photos, I thought I would show you just how much she does look like her big sister!!

 

This is Mag at 5 1/2 months, and yes this hat WILL be making an appearance soon!  I thought it would be cruel to pull it out when it's almost 90 degrees outside!

Second Grade

Can you believe Maggie is in SECOND grade? I can't, honestly I can't. When Fionn was born we joked around that when Maggie started THIRD grade, Fionn would go to pre-school. That seemed impossible to imagine. Now it's not. It's less than a year away. YIKES. And then it will just be Cate and I, who herself, will no longer be a baby. DOUBLE YIKES! I can only imagine how gray I'll be then!!!

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I need to step back and enjoy the NOW of life. Maggie seems to be growing weekly and sadly she's looking more and more like a little lady than the babe she was not that long ago!

Here are a few shots from last week (and today) 

These are all a series of photos from the last week, the ones with the beret were taken today(her first whole day of school)  The jumper shots with the headband are all the first day, and the shorts are from last Friday.  Her first trip to the bus.  Yes, I'm a dork and stalk my daughter with the camera for just about the whole first week.  She tolerates it well, unless we're IN the school.  Then she refuses to look at the camera until I give up and go away!  I of course, leave, so I don't look like a stalker mom who has issues with letting go.  I think Kindergarten did me in when I could no longer see INTO her classroom to see what she was doing.  For the last two years she's up on the 2nd floor of her school, so I've not even had a choice to try to spy.  BUT next year Fionn starts, so the cycle can start all over.  I'm sure Maggie will just be happy to have some of the attention diverted off of her!  

More posts soon from FL I promise.  With school, Maggie's birthday, Cate teething, and all of us coming down with a head cold it's been a CRAZY week since we got home!