Breaking News with Maggie: We've Been Awarded!

This is Maggie Wilson of Breaking News with Maggie, here to report that we've been awarded by our friend Reese from Reese's Pieces of Life.

Okay, so it's not exactly "breaking news" since I already mentioned it last week, but just go with it.  I needed another "Breaking News with Maggie" post. ;)

Before I get to that, though, I wanted to mention that I rather stupidly forgot to mention my birthday last week.  It was the 3rd, and Rachel and I celebrated by watching "The Hobbit".  FINALLY.  I cannot TELL you how long I've been waiting to see it.  We watched it in regular 2-D.  Mama gets kind of seasick watching 3-D.  We also hadn't heard great things about the spiffy-however-many-frames-per-second filming that they did, so we stuck with the "normal" version.

I came to the movie with mixed feelings, and after watching it, I felt the same way.  I think there were some parts that were really awesome, but some of it was overly huge and big and epic for a little story that was more of a fun, lighthearted children's book.  Granted, it's been a while since I've read it, so there were some things that might have been from the book that I just didn't remember.  And yes, I know that Peter Jackson pulled extra material from "The Necromancer" and all that (trust me, I know my Hobbit movie trivia!).  Some of the film was great and some of it seemed to drag on a little more than necessary.  And for some of it I was just thinking, "Really?"  (For example, Bilbo running after the Goblin and defending Thorin towards the end of the movie.  Where did that come from?  And who on earth was the weird goblin guy anyway?  I don't remember him from the book!  And while we're at it, didn't the Goblins set the trees on fire, not the dwarfs?  Okay, I'd better move on before I get stuck here forever.) ;)

I will say this:  the Riddle scene was AMAZING!  It was just like I'd pictured it.  Andy Serkis did such an incredible job of bringing the split personality to Gollum.  He managed to pull off a character who was completely creepy one minute and someone to be pitied the next.

I did like the casting of the other characters, too.  Martin Freeman made a great Bilbo, and I did like Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield too.  Even if he was in *gag* "North and South".  I won't hold it against him. ;)  At least he was in "Captain America" too.

And speaking of Thorin, guess what I got for my birthday from Mama?  That's right, my very own Thorin Oakenshield action figure!!

Isn't he cool?  

She found him on sale at Kmart, so she was able to get him for me.  I'm planning on doing a review post later.  I figured if Mama can do review posts on her blog, I should be able to do one on mine. ;)

But enough of that.  On to the best blogger award!

For the first part, Tess and I get to answer 5 questions.  Oh, wait a minute.  Tess says that since it's a reward for our whole blog, it's only fair to have everyone who's contributed answer the questions.  Goody.  This won't take all night or anything.

Here are the questions we're supposed to answer:

1. What is your favorite post that you've ever created?

   I'd have to say that my favorite post was my Avengers Discussion post I did with Rachel.  

   Tess said her favorite was her "Tea with Tess" post (the only one she's done so far).  Just a warning:  Emma and Tess spent this entire post discussing their Jane Austen favorites, so if you're not a fan, I'd skip this one.

   Emma's favorite was her series of posts on her trip with Mama that she recently did.

   Hayden's favorite post was her post about her vacation from last summer.

   Jenna liked her post about Thanksgiving with Papa's family.

   And Rachel and Charlie chose their series of posts on their coast trip, also from last summer.

   

2.  What is your favorite photostory that you have ever taken part in?

   We all particularly enjoy our Christmas posts with the photo stories.  We especially liked the Christmas posts from 2011.  You can see a couple of them HERE and HERE.

3.  Why do you blog?

   Tess and I started blogging to get more writing experience, Tess because she wanted to be a writer and I because I wanted to be a journalist.  Since then, we've continued for the same reasons but also for the social aspect.  It's great meeting other doll bloggers out there. :)

4.  How many followers do you have?

   We currently have 95 followers (just 5 more until we can do our giveaway!).

5.  Do you like being nominated for awards?  

   Um, yeah!  What's not to like?  It's always nice to know your writing is being noticed and appreciated.

And now, we get to nominate 5 other bloggers for this award.  After a bit of discussion, we decided to nominate:

1.  The Bolton Girls from The Bolton Girls Travel Journal

2.  Kiki from Kiki's Corner

3.  Jenny from A Doll's Life

And that's as far as we got.  Many of our favorites had already been nominated (in fact, I think even some of the ones we nominated were already nominated!), and a lot of our favorites haven't been actively blogging for a while.  If you've already been selected and you'd rather not participate a second time, we understand.

Tess wants me to insert here that we were primarily trying to stick to other doll bloggers since Mama also received this award and will be nominating human bloggers.  She also wanted me to be sure to mention that just because we didn't nominate you doesn't mean we don't like your blog or anything.  She always gets really worried about "offending the readers". ;)

I guess that's about all for now.  I've got to get to bed.  We'll be back later with more awesomeness. ;)

Oops, I almost forgot this was a "Breaking News with Maggie" post.  So, to keep it all official, this is Maggie Wilson, signing off. ;)