2018 Wrapup

Has anyone every noticed that “wrapup” is such a weird word?

Oh wait. There’s supposed to be a dash between “wrap” and “up.”

That makes a lot more sense now.

Hey guys, and welcome back to my blog! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Big thanks to everyone who watched my Christmas AGSM as well – if you haven’t watched it, be sure to do that right now!

I did a 2017 wrapup at the end of last year, and it was really fun so I decided to do it again.

And . . . let’s go!

In January, we were introduced to our awesome GOTY, Luciana Vega (who I even wound up purchasing!)

FMR54_Luciana_Doll_and_Book_1

The other big thing that happened in January was the release of one of my series, Travels With Grace. Grace actually went to Washington State with me for Thanksgiving of 2017, but I didn’t release any of the pictures until January 2018.

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She visited her cousins Grace, Lea, and Cara, while I visited my cousins S and M.

In February, I did a hilarious How Much Does AGs in Alaska’s Brother Know About AG? post, which had some great results.

I also posted on The Customization of Tessa Elizabeth, where I showed you all how I created my customized TrulyMe doll.

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I also launched another series, “According to Crystal,” with my “Valentines Day According to Crystal” post.

In March, I did my first guest post with my rabbit Moe, who was more popular on blog than I thought was ever possible.

Seriously. You guys went gaga for my little rabbit.

Moe is the best! Carrots, Mmmmm! – Faith

Magosh he’s ADORABLE such a bun wow. Ahem. I WUV HIM. – Tess (blackiesunshine)

Moe is so adorable!!!!! – Sapphire

AWWWW! Moe, I have lots of carrots, come hang out with meeee!!!! – Natalie Therese

Aw, Moe!!! You’re so cute!! – Liz

And for good reason, too – he’s adorable!!!

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I also did my first collab with my friend Elysium, from Prompted Pens!

I celebrated two huge milestones in March – first, reaching 1000 likes on American Girls in Alaska, and second, my three-year blogiversary on WordPress (I started blogging long before my AG blog, for those of you who don’t know).

In April, we celebrated Easter . . .

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And then went to Texas!

I brought back Travels With Grace for that one.

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In May, we celebrated Crystal’s 15th birthday!

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Then, I celebrated my one-year blogiversary with a tee-shirt giveaway!

Our winners were Dianne and Faith.

June was fairly boring. I went on a hiatus, so that was pretty much it.

Pencils

In July, I did a Patriotic Photography collab with Chachel from Wild Sketch, which was super-duper fun!

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In July, I announced the arrival of our adorable Chihuahua puppies, Jaxon and Callie, who my family had adopted a month earlier.

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You guys, of course, loved them. 🙂

I also did Take 2 of “A Summer Photoshoot,” which I did the year before as well. This time around, I used Lindsey instead of Crystal, but we went to the same park.

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Those two photoshoots are still my favorite (and you can bet you’ll see Take 3 sometime this summer! Which doll should I use this time?)

In August, I welcomed a new doll into the family – Luciana Isadora Vega!

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And then came her debut photoshoot.

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Crystal made another appearance on “According to Crystal,” this time with a back-to-school version!

I was super lazy in September (I’m kidding, school started so I was a little busy), and I only did two posts – introducing Tessa’s rabbit Mischief into the family, and then a photostory about him.

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Then came October, when I did an adorable fall photoshoot, “Pumpkin Pals,” with Molly and Luci.

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And we had a family meeting, with interesting results.

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In November, I promised you guys that I would have an awesome surprise for Christmas! (And I hope I came through on that one!) 🙂

I also shared some of my best non-doll-related pictures.

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On Novemeber 30th, Alaska was shaken by a huge 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck southcentral Alaska, 10 miles north of Anchorage.

That’s when I wrote my post “Please Be Praying.”

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We’ve had 6,000 recorded aftershocks since then, the last really big one on Dec. 27th (which was a 4.9 at 5:30 in the morning, waking my entire family up as our house shook back and forth for about five seconds!)

I started December off with a ballet photoshoot of Tessa in my backyard.

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Crystal returned once again with “Christmas Shopping According to Crystal.”

And then . . . dun dun dun . . . I revealed my HUGE CHRISTMAS SURPRISE!!!

It was a holiday American Girl Stopmotion, which I posted on my brand-new YouTube channel!

Click here to watch it! https://youtube.com/watch?v=VJHUWoYy314&t=47s

And that just about wraps up the year!

But wait – lastly, some stats! (As of December 27th, when I wrote this post.)

5,984 views

1,774 visitors

81 posts published (including this one)

1,162 likes

Views from 10 countries

136 followers

1,064 comments

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for such an incredible year! You are all AY-MAY-ZING and I can’t wait to have another great year of blogging, and the occasional YouTube video, shared with you guys!

Much love from the AGIA family!

happy New Year!