Chocolate Fountain Trainees

As Saturday evening rolled around it was time for another exciting non-sleepover party for my niece Rebecca and her friend Victoria. We call them non-sleepovers because sleep happens very late...or very early the next morning and there's not a lot of it in the end! Rebecca knew she was spending the night at my place but Victoria and I surprised her when we both showed up to pick her up! (If you heard screaming and felt a slight trembling of the earth on Saturday around 5pm that was the girls screaming and jumping with excitement!) A party was being formed!

Earlier that day Victoria had gone shopping with her Grandma and bought Rebecca a matching shirt to hers using her very own money! She'd saved so hard and it was neat to see that she'd wanted to buy something special for her friend! The shirts read, 'Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Looks just like you!'

We weren't even out of the driveway before the gift had been ripped open and the girls were begging to wear matching shirts. As long as she could change while still wearing her seatbelt it was all good. So, less than 2 mins. after leaving the house I peeked in the rearview to see these 2 amazing little girls looking proud as punch in their matching shirts and singing up a storm!

Last time we were together I'd dug up an an old Sandi Patti cassette (yes...no CD player in my car) called the 'Friendship Company.' The girls love it and like the first track to be played over and over. (Oh well, it's a step up from the Barney cassettes we wore out when they were little. Hmmmm...guess Barney will be in my car again someday...nooooo! :o) I digress...

After a quick trip into the grocery store (where they enjoyed playing 'twins') our next stop was the Bulk Barn! As I alluded to earlier, this post is tied into the chocolate fountain experience of Friday night. I figured what better way to train the girls in the art of chocolate fountains then to start them young by decorating chocolate houses. Mmmmm...

At the BB they chose a number of things to decorate their houses. As much as they each wanted to chose different things to decorate with, in the end they enjoyed making them similar to one another's. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery and these girls love to imitate one another!

Prior to the decorating party it was a quick supper of pancakes - their favourite supper these days. When I'd picked them up at 5:00 I said my goal was to feed them supper before 8:00. Victoria was quick to point out at 7:50 when we sat down to eat that we had achieved our goal and supper was started...and finished...before 8:00! I'm getting a little better. I hope Miss Hannah doesn't mind dining late, or better yet, mommy needs to get more organized so that she can eat and be in bed at a reasonable time.

But, this being a typical non-sleepover for the girls, bed wasn't something we rushed to. After donning coordinating nightgowns we made the royal icing, opened the candies and the girls set to work. 1 candy for them, 1 for the house. 2 for them, 1 for the house. You get the picture! My awesome friend Deb made 40 of these houses for her teen girl's group last week yet was still more than happy to make them for Rebecca and Victoria too. Thanks Deb!!

It was so fun to watch them be creative and see how they decorated. They've grown up so much. Just a couple of years ago this would have been such a different scene. Now they took time to plan and patiently hold things as they attempted to slide off the walls or roof. We made a huge mess but they had fun so that's all that matters!

After a half-hour of eating candy, decorating and eating more candy.... the houses were declared completed masterpieces! I think they look great! We let them sit and finish drying then sprinkled with icing sugar snow as the final touch to their winter wonderlands! Beautiful!

What was our next adventure? Teeth brushing, hand washing then bedtime. Ya right!!! These two chatterboxes are hard to get to sleep at the best of times. This time just to ensure they didn't sleep any time prior to 2am I pumped them full of sugar first! Hey....that's what I'm supposed to do when I'm sending them home, not having them stay at my place! Oh well, it's safe to say we all fell asleep about the same time.....earrrly Sunday morning!

Victoria was going to be moving away this past fall but Rebecca and I are really excited that she isn't! I'm thinking 'Chocolate House Sleepovers' might become another yearly tradition just like our 'Apple Picking Sleepovers!' I'm all for that!