Ever since I seen my first ‘baby in mother’s hands’ photo, I knew I just had to do that photo when I had children of my own.

Something about that one pose just always said so much more than the ordinary… a mother’s love, her protection, just the purity and serenity of it. With that, I always knew I wanted to make it really special.

Once my first child was born, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew it was going to be quite some time to get it finished but realized back then that the wait and hopes that it would be a reality one day would make it that much more meaningful. So I waited. and waited.

When Brody was seven-weeks-old, I took him to get his photos taken at Portrait Innovations. Telling the photographer that the first pose (before any crying, or sleeping, or nursing came into play) I wanted to have my son in a diaper in my arms facing left. After a funny first look, the photographer preceded to do what he was told. .

Brody, seven-weeks-old

That is when I found the amazing company, Canvas On Demand. And not knowing then, but knowing now that I am hugely in love with this company. Mainly because they took such great care of me and the prints of my sons. Definitely helps too that they still have Brody’s baby canvas up in their showcase next to Ty Pennington.

I ordered a 2′ x 3′ canvas of Brody, with a 1.5″ thick Gallery wrap.

When it was time for my second son Tanner  to grace us with his presence, I made sure to put it on the calendar that we must do his first professional photos when he was also seven-weeks-old. This time, same instructions just facing right. And again, did the special request for high-res image.

Tanner, seven-weeks-old

Talking to a rep about what I wanted to do and how I wanted it to look just like the one I did from years past, I was blown away at their service! She pulled up Brody’s artwork (seriously printed 3.5 years ago), took the new artwork and did her best to match them up and sent me approval of what it would look like to make sure I was happy. I expect this from local printers, I’m a production manager (one of my many jobs at my company)  for goodness sake, but for a large national company to this magnitude to treat me like a mom-and-pop shop, was truly outstanding! So Canvas On Demand, if you ever come across this post, THANK YOU!

It was just a few months ago, I was shown a catalog from Uppercase Living. Turning to the pages to bedrooms, I came across the saying ‘side by side, hand in hand, heart to heart’ and I was SOLD. I knew once I got the last canvas done of Tanner, this would be the perfect saying to have in between.

Since my bedroom walls are a grayish-blue and most of our bedroom furniture is a deep black-brown, I chose the colors of the wording to be ‘Stone Cottage’ and ‘Slate Gray.’ I ordered the 18″ x 7.75″ so it would work with the large canvases on both side.

Finally, after over 3.5 years of waiting….my vision of this is finally real, picture-perfect on my wall.

Relaxing, serene and full of love.

I know my boys will eventually grow up and not be my snuggly baby boys that I am so honored now to hold and hug and kiss, but I will always have these two special memories adorned on my wall, and so happy I get to be reminded of it each morning, and each night.

I love you beyond words Brody and Tanner. Beyond words.

xoxo

Yes, I tend to be more on the ‘last minute’ side rather than the organized scheduler. I knew Valentine’s Day was coming up soon. I told myself last week it was ‘next Tuesday.’ Still… today it’s the 13th of February and I’m picking up my boys from daycare when it hit me that Valentine’s Day is actually tomorrow.

Nice.

Thankfully, my husband and I don’t really celebrate this holiday with gifts. So there is still time during my lunch hour tomorrow to pick up that card with sweet nothings jammed inside it. But what about cute Valentine’s for my boys to bring to daycare tomorrow morning?

So as I was preparing the boys their dinner this evening, I contemplated in my pantry and decided on a game plan.

Marshmallow Pops – (similar to cake pops, but with A LOT less work, and A LOT less time to complete)

Ingredients: Marshmallows, Almond Bark (or other candy chocolate melts), Lollipop sticks (always have them on hand for cake pops), and sprinkles.

I also am in LOVE with my Wilton Chocolate Pro warmer. I use it for everything. I even have a separate one to make my scent wax samples to pass out for Scentsy. So easy.

Using Log House Almond Bark brand, I used three squares and it yielded about 25 pops.

Pictures are pretty self explanatory. First, we got the marshmallow pops ready by inserting a stick into each of the centers.

Next, I just recycled a large Keurig coffee box we still had in the house and jabbed crosses into it with a knife. Worked perfect for holding them in place and to let them dry later.

We took turns inserting the marshmallow into the melted chocolate, and circled the stick around to get chocolate 1/3 to 1/2 way down the marshmallow. Do a couple quick turns of your wrist once it is out of the chocolate to let any excess fall back into the pot.

Time for sprinkles. Brody of course probably ate more than he put on, but hey.

We put them back into the box once we were finished to let the chocolate harden. With the chocolate we used, it doesn’t take long at all.

Brody loved it!!  He also loved poking holes into separate marshmallows with his finger while we were waiting, then filling the entire inside with sprinkles and stuffing the entire thing in his mouth, but that could be another post all together.

While I was waiting for them to dry, we went to the office to say hello to my girlie best friend, Pinterest, and see what free Valentine’s Day printables were out there. I came across these darling ones. Perfect for Brody and Tanner to give to the daycare kids, that happen to be mostly boys. A lot of the ones I found were too lovey-dovey for my manly men .

The original .pdf download was four to an 8.5 by 11, which was rather large for a small project like this. So I just doubled them up and printed them at 50% on cardstock. Turned out PERFECT. Cut them out with scissors and put a hole punch in the corner and we wrote the boys’ names on the back.

I had these treat bags laying around since you never know when kids need treats for things, and just wrapped the valentine card with it using the ties the treat bags came with. Now that I am remembering, the treat bags came from Micheal’s.

and Voila. Easy treats for Valentine’s. Yay!

Brody liked the ‘I’m Wild about you’ Monster one the best.

We made about 25 of them….

But only 18 ended up in the container to go to daycare. Oooops, I wonder where the rest went .

P.S. We did save one for Daddy when he comes home tomorrow from the fire station. So now he gets a card and a marshmallow. I am such a wonderful wife! lol.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you noticed recently, I started running again.

Usually I would find myself just running (in my minivan) to the nearest fast food restaurant during my lunch hour to avoid trying to find a parking spot downtown, having to go out in the cold, or making the excuse that I didn’t have time to do anything else but a drive-through because I needed to get back to work. These were my excuses anyway, even though on the inside I was just craving Wendy’s sea salt french fries with two sides of ranch.

But those cravings didn’t do anything but make me lazier, while pretty much putting all my ‘baby weight’ I ever tried to lose, back on.

Nice.

I don’t know how it is for you, but for me to make lifestyle changes where weight is concerned…I need there to be what I call, life events. Not just, “I want to lose weight” but actually physical events where I force myself to do things that in my current state wouldn’t feel comfortable with doing. Events with deadlines.

Previous events that worked for me:

Break-ups usually were a good one in and after college. Some people stay in their jammies and slippers while sobbing over chick flicks and eating pints of Häagen-Dazs. Not me. I ran. And while I ran I imagined myself in the cutest mini-skirt and tank top when the time came that I might accidentally run into my ex at a bar. Happy to say, that imagination became a reality once, and it felt AWESOME!

Not the same night, but my great friend Barbie was there with me on that 'awesome' night .

Wedding. You don’t get many times, if any, where the party means all eyes on you. And just knowing pictures of this day would surface time and time again in albums, on your wall at home, tagged online, etc. and never wanted to look back and say, “UGH…let’s not look at those.”

One of the best days of my life, celebrating with the love of my life.

Double whammy: Honeymoon. This is a two-for-one where not only you want to look good in your dress, but shortly after you will be spending the week in a bathing suit. And again, pictures of this event would surface too.

On our honeymoon in Barbados.

But then what? Babies!!

Pregnancy brings all kinds of prettiness, let me tell you. Had to say good bye to the belly ring and hello to the stretch marks. (Still want a refund on my belly butter for that one.) And usually during this time of my enlarged-self, the last thing I wanted to do was weigh-in in front of complete strangers (aka nurses), but month-by-month I had to do it and watch the scale roll in higher and higher as they jotted it down, calculating my above average percentage of weight gain. Yes, gaining weight during pregnancy is good for growing babies. But eighty pounds in my first pregnancy…not so much.

1st Pregnancy. This was not my last trimester either.

And you know darn well, well at least with me….I had no urgency to lose the weight when we knew we wanted to have a second child. I lost a bit to be comfortable with myself again, but there was no big commitment to the gym, a track, or love of working out when bottles and diapers were consuming my life.

2nd Pregnancy. With stretch marks Photoshopped out by Dave the photographer.

Last summer, wearing the only suit I dare to be seen in...one with a skirt.

Past summer with baby Tanner.

First summer on the boat with my boys. I was a bit thinner then than I am now, having to wear less clothes seems to do that. I call this my hibernating season but both of these seasons, far from my goal happy weight:).

But now, with two amazing boys and no plan for any more pregnancies, I decided it was time that I needed to create new ‘life events’ that would encourage me to be healthy again….and since I didn’t see any in my near future…I decided it was time to create them.

Introducing my forced life events:

#1: I signed myself up for my first half marathon, the Bayshore half-marathon in Traverse City.

#2: I coerced my husband to RSVP us to a firefighter wedding in the Caribbean with gobs of other firefighters on his department. Yes, forcing myself in a bathing suit in front of ALL of them.

Now if that is not incentive for losing weight and getting back in shape, I don’t know what is.

Both of these ‘life events’ will be occurring in May.  So, last week began my official 18-week half-marathon training program.

Happy to report that my first week, I clocked 6.5 miles on the treadmill, 10 miles on the bike trainer and 5 marbles in my ‘Gone’ weight loss jar.

35 more to go…..and many, many, many, more miles to log.

But already feel better. And now I find myself when I am running (well jogging/fast walking at this point) imagining myself in that cute mini-skirt again…on the beach this time…and not for any type of revenge….but for just ME instead.

Thanks for listening!

-Andrea

What life events do you have coming up?  What are you doing to get ready for them? Please feel free to share!

On this new cleaning and organization kick I am in, I realized one problem I was having in this department, is I just didn’t like doing it!

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Really, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home from work is clean, so I found myself running around like a sweaty banshee hours before company would be coming over, or spend whole days catching up on laundry, with piles of clothes sprawled on our bed just waiting on me to finally fold them.

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And with the ‘I just don’t like doing it’ mindset, I realized the reason why I don’t like it is because my methods of cleaning were far from perfect, no matter how much I scrubbed things, the no-good products I’ve been using were just laughing in my face while I sat filthy, defeated hovered over our toilets in disgust. I knew there had to be a better way.

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So I decided to take my cleaning mission to the streets, or maybe just to my online followers, friends and everywhere in between and ask them not just what they use, but what cleaning products they LOVE, techniques that work and tips and tricks they live by.

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I was OVERWHELMED by the responses, and realized that I’m not alone in this journey. Some girls had excellent ideas for one room, but were looking for answers in another. And vice versa. So, this guidebook allowed me to compile the best answers for each room into one source, for all of us!

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I hope you enjoy it! Plus there are links to some great coupons too!

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And please if you have any ‘must-have’ tips, please feel free to leave them in a comment below. I can already see updated additions in the future.  Feedback and comments are always appreciated too!

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And if you find it useful, please feel free to share and ‘Pin It’ too!

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To download a copy of the FREE e-book, all you have to do is enter your email on the top right-hand side where it says:
Sign up & Download the FREE Crazy Cleaning Guidebook!

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You will receive the e-book link in your email with your confirmation email. (Please make sure you confirm your subscription by pressing the ‘confirm follow’ button first. If you are a wordpress.com user, you will not get a confirmation email when you subscribe, so you can then proceed below.

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Already a subscriber?
If you see ‘You are following this blog ‘ on the right hand side on the blog, or are reading this by email you can click here to proceed.

Update: Look what I found! Proctor and Gamble (P&G) which owns many of these cleaning products and other household, and beauty products has a site specifically for brand samples and coupons. And they deliver them all straight to your door. Perfect find if you want to try some of these winners before you buy them, and when and if you do buy them, use a coupon! Click here to learn more.

Really short-term update! Looking further on their site, they will be issuing a big Sunday paper coupon book this Sunday, January 29 in most large daily Sunday papers. It’s called the P&G Brand Saver booklet and it features over $101 worth of coupons! So look for it this Sunday!

The countdown begins!!

Next week officially starts my 18-week training program for my HALF MARATHON at the Traverse City Bayshore Marathon!

Here is the current fabulous schedule that I’m using. Click here for my training schedule.

For my last couple 10K trainings, I used Hal Higdon’s training schedules.

Which also means it will be my 16-week weight loss CRAZINESS with the celebration party being in Now Jade Riviera Cancun. Ok, well maybe it’s not MY party but a wedding for good friends, but I don’t have to tell my mind that.

So to make it a bit more fun, these will reside next to my scale in the bathroom. The ‘Empty’ jar holds 40 glass marbles and stones, signifying each pound of weight I would rather not have. Every time I lose a pound, one of those bad boys are moving over to the ‘Gone’ jar. It is on like Donkey Kong!

And yes, I know there are a TON of marbles in the ‘bad’ jar right now

I would be extremely happy with 30 of those bad boys moving over (wedding weight) but why not try for my senior-year college days at MSU when I really didn’t have to wear a skirt-bottom bathing suit. That is where Riveria Cancun kicks in. A couple weeks before my half marathon, we will be sun-bathing here, along with 50-100 others from the local fire department.

So you see, it would be quite nice to shop from the Victoria Secret bathing suit collection again. . Just for ol’ times sake!

If you are interested in doing something similar, I got all the jar materials at Hobby Lobby. Jars were 50% off, scrapbooking stick-on letters and found these marbles in a jar near the floral section.

Kindest regards,
Andrea

This city girl turned country bumpkin decided almost three years ago now that she wanted to eventually start living a bit greener. It all started when my first child, Brody, was born and I started making all of his baby food. I ordered a cute baby food making book, food storage containers, and started making frequent stops to the produce section and never looked back. I actually loved it!

What I didn’t love, was all the food scraps I was throwing away in the trash each week. It saddened me and I just felt guilty. In doing so, I remembered that my Nana (your version of a Grandma always had a cut milk carton under her sink to collect her food scraps and then would frequently empty that in a compost pile out back at their country home in Gladwin. I remember thinking that as a child, it was pretty cool that she could turn food into dirt. And if I was a girl and thought that…I know my boys would love it even more.

My concern was…….I am not big on disgusting things, and hey…the green concept is great…but the food rotting and stinking….not so great. So my research started on what I could do to keep up with composting without it getting too gross that I would want to give up on it within a year or two. So in my months and months of research , I thought I found my answer.

The NatureMill Pro XE Composter looked too good to be true. It was perfect! Available through Williams-Sonoma and other places, this baby was clean enough to sit right in your kitchen and makes composted dirt in just two weeks! I just have to put the food scraps in and voila! I was sold. I even was going to go with the upgraded model because it has a lifetime filter, while the standard edition you have to change after a couple years. So for months, this was my answer. I saved the money up and this past Saturday, it was time to purchase…

But.

I didn’t.

I realized as I was looking at this state-of-the-art machine online…I questioned if this machine that plugs into a wall outlet, and does all the work for you, if this was going to make memories like those I had when I was growing up? And how ‘green’ can I be when I’m using electricity as it churns like every four hours of the day, plus all the ‘green’ I’m giving up for this expensive composting gadget. So, I sat back looking at my computer screen visualizing what process my sons will like better… pressing a green button that says ‘Go’ and that’s it, dirt in two weeks….or getting to actually mix green waste (foods, vegetables, etc) and brown waste (leaves, clippings, straw, etc) and see it actually composting down each week. And there was my answer.

So I spent the next hour looking at the different types of composters and which one my sons would like the best.

Without further ado…

I would like to introduce to you, the EnviroCycle Composter.

It got delivered to our door today. So exciting! This bad boy spins on a wheel base to compost. We just need to add a 50/50 green waste to brown waste and spin it about three times a week, more if we want to have it compost down faster. This won’t be a problem, because Brody wants to turn it every time he sees it .

In about six weeks, we should have dirt, and then we just wheel it over to where we want to dump the dirt and open up the hatch then start the process all over again.

Plus, the base isn’t just to hold the spinning wheels, it collects the ‘compost tea’ that leaks from the barrel. I never even knew such a thing exists. But you mix this concentrated tea with 10 parts water (10 to 1 ratio) and you can use this to feed your plants, flowers and trees. So we get a two-for-one with being greener in the Ness household. Tim even liked the idea using the compost tea to liven things up. I’m hoping too that all this dirt will eventually lead to me having my own garden! Yay!

We couldn’t wait to get started, so it came right out of the box and ready to use.

Here is a video tour of our first day of composting!

I’m heading to the Farmer’s Market on the Capitol Lawn on Thursday to get a ton of fruits and veggies for the house, but also to start the process again for making a ton of baby food for baby Tanner! Perfect timing, and looking forward to composting all the food scraps rather than throwing them all away this time! Yay!

I also got this book, a quick read to teach myself more about the composting world. So I can teach Brody and Tanner a thing or two about the process while we do it.

Who would have thought this city girl would be so excited about dirt. I guess  that is what I get for living with all boys .

Don’t you just love Summer! Not only do you get the great weather, the kids playing outside and in their bathing suits…and in our case the constant changes of the Little Swimmer diapers …But also all the goodies that kids crave this time of year like Popsicles, slushies and most of all…

ICE CREAM!!!

Knowing this moment was going to come, I always wanted to be able to make our own ice cream at home so a couple years ago I started hinting to my husband that I wanted to get the Ice Cream Maker attachment to my KitchenAid Mixer.

This thing makes it easy to enjoy your own ice cream at home with just a few ingredients…PLUS you get to make it a fun thing to do with your family! Kids enjoy making things from scratch and in this case watching it freeze and grow from milk to ice cream.

I was in my local World Market store this week and came across cute containers on sale of Vanilla Ice Cream Starters and Chocolate Ice Cream Starters for ice cream makers. Not only did I pick up a couple of each, but also gave me the idea that making homemade ice cream should be part of our weekend since Brody and Tanner’s cousins, Kyle and Sarah, were staying with us along with Aunt Leslie and Grandma.

To prepare, I took the freezer bowl out on Friday and stuck it in the freezer. Pretty much all the preparing I had to do. . It has to be in there for at least 15 hours and recommended to have your freezer on the coldest setting.

On Saturday, after a great day swimming and having fun at a family reunion, it was time for some ice cream making fun!

Here is a photo tour of how we made our homemade ice cream:

Our three easy ice cream ingredients:

Our toppings, plus maraschino cherries!!

The KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker comes with a new attachment (the drive assembly) to secure onto your mixer’s motor head.

In a large mixing bowl, we combined one of the Vanilla Ice Cream Starter packets with a cup and a half of Half-and-Half whisking until the mixture has dissolved.

Then we just stirred in a cup and a half of Heavy Cream until all of it was combined.

Freezing Time!

Taking the freezer bowl out of the freezer, you just place the ‘dasher’ tool (comes with it) into the freezer bowl. Secure it in place on your mixer. We have the tilt-head mixture, so you then just lock it in place matching up the drive assembly to fit in the grooves of the dasher tool. Then just turn it on to Stir (Setting 1).

I recommend to pour the ice cream mixture into the freezer bowl from a bowl or cup that has a spout. Pouring it just from the mixing bowl got a bit of it on the counter top the first go at it.

And that’s it! Now it’s time to watch the magic happen.

Let it go on stir mode for 10-15 minutes. The kids loved watching it get bigger and fluffier.

Voila! Yummy vanilla bean ice cream!!

Since the kids wanting instant gratification, we took it from the freezer bowl into the kids bowls and added some chocolate syrup, sprinkles of their choice and of course topped with cherries! YUM!

‘Mommy, spoons please…..”

To get the fun scoop-able ice cream, you just stick the ice cream in an air tight container and freeze it. Once frozen you can make it even more fun by folding in a cup of your favorite fruit, a half a cup of chocolate chips, nuts or peppermint! Using the World Market Ice Cream Starter packets, this homemade ice cream recipe yields one quart. There was plenty for all of us, including the adults and still had some left over to store in the freezer, this includes giving my nephew Kyle a second helping!

With the ice cream maker you can make tons of flavors! The KitchenAid manual comes with its own recipes, plus there are a ton online. Experiment and have fun knowing your kids will have fun too!

YUM!

“Where’s ours?”

Next year, Tanner and Sarah!!

Happy Scooping!

If you participated in my recent post and submitted a video to method laundry detergent, there is a great chance you are in the final crowdsourced video! The new video is below, but make sure to watch it on method’s facebook page and you get a $2 off coupon at the end. WOOT!

Also a big congratulations to Nancy Ness, who won a free bottle of method laundry detergent from my post giveaway. I hope you are enjoying the ‘laundry room love.’

We were so excited to make the Spring Chick pops for Easter holiday that I figured since I was at Michael’s, why not load up on some other ingredients to make some of the other adorable cake pops too.

The cake pops that caught my fancy right off the bat, were the super-cute Cupcake Pops. They are perfect for any occasion and since they look like mini cupcakes, they must be better for you than regular cupcakes, right? Let’s just go with that theory .

Here is what we needed:

• 18.25 – ounce box cake mix
• 16-ounce container ready-made frosting
• flower-shaped cookie cutter (1.25″ wide by .75″ deep)
• 32 ounce chocolate candy coating
• 16 ounce pink candy coating
• lollipop sticks
• toothpicks
• M&Ms or similar shaped candy
• sprinkles
• Styrofoam
• Pans and Bowls and Spoons and Smiles

And again, these Cake Pops recipes are coming from the Cake Pops Cookbook by Bakerella. Love it, and definitely worth the price it sells for on Amazon.

Since we already went through how to make the cake balls from my previous post, you can click back there for reference. Once you reach the step of making the cake balls, come back here to proceed.

Once the cake balls are formed, they will need to be covered with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge for several hours or in the freezer for no more than fifteen minutes. (My cake balls were slightly bigger than 1.5″ so this recipe only yielded 28 cake balls, the recipe in the book says it should make 48 but honestly I don’t think even if my balls were smaller that it would make that much)

Now it is time for the fun part! Shaping them into cute little cupcakes.

I bought this adorable flower shaped cookie cutter at Michael’s. It actually came in a four-pack with other cute shapes including a butterfly and a daisy (which means just more cake pop shapes in the future .

Take all of your cake balls out of the freezer or fridge. Take one of the chilled cake balls and roll it into a cylinder shape so it fits nicely into the cutter.

Push one of the ends to make sure the mixture is filling the entire cutter and to make one end have a flat surface. Shape the top of your cupcake into a muffin top. When you are happy with the shape you can gently push the bottom of the cake ball out of the cutter and lay flat side down back on the baking sheet.

Once your cake balls are all shaped into cupcakes, return them to the freezer for 5-10 minutes to keep them firm.

While we were waiting for the cupcake balls to get firm,we got out the decorations we needed.

After this picture was taken, I decided to switch the candy coating into smaller bowls to make it easier for dipping. It is recommended that once the candy coating is melted for it to be 2-3″ deep.

So for now, it is time to melt the chocolate candy coating. Put it in the microwave on the defrost setting and stir it every 30 seconds until completely melted.

Now it’s time to dip! Take a few cupcake balls out at a time (move remaining pan of cake balls to the fridge so you don’t over freeze).

Holding the muffin top, dip the bottom side into the chocolate coating just to the point where the muffin top starts.

Once dipped, turn it upside down and swirl your hand in a circular motion to let the chocolate slide down. When the coating hits the bottom of the muffin top, you can stop.

Note: You are almost certain to get chocolate on the tips of your fingers during this process, so have a dish towel ready to wipe them off. Do not use water because it can make the chocolate unusable.

Place the half-dipped cupcake ball on the muffin top side back on wax paper cookie sheet, or another plate.

Immediately dip a lollipop stick 1/2 inch into the chocolate candy coating and insert stick more than half way through the ball from the flat chocolate bottom while the coating is still wet. Brody kept on rubbing his belly at this stage and kept calling them his ‘yummy chocolate cakes. ‘

Let the chocolate candy coating dry completely. Then start to melt the pink candy coating and get the rest of your decorations ready since you will need to decorate with sprinkles while the pink candy coating is still wet.

The decorations are ready! Can you find the hidden Mickey? .

Holding the lollipop stick, dip the muffin top into the pink candy coating. Tip it upright (if starts to drip a lot, it means the coating may be too warm so flip it back and let it cool off a bit). Use a toothpick dipped in candy coating to help get any spots not filled in.

Place the M&M (M side down) onto the center while coating is still wet and sprinkle away!

Put finished cupcake pops in Styrofoam to dry. As you can see, this is one of the things I forgot to buy at Michael’s, so I am reusing a Styrofoam block for one of my Christmas decorations. Hey, it works .

TA-DA! Cute Cupcake Pops.

These are the cute lollipop gift boxes I found at Michael’s. Great to let the kids decorate with stickers or could be fancy too by wrapping a big ribbon around it for holiday/celebration gift-giving.

And just in case you were wondering ….these cupcake pops are Brody approved!!!