Hollywood's Big Night Out

I wasn't too thrilled with the red carpet last night at the 2011 Academy Awards. The event was missing my favorite TV stars (January Jones, Sofia Vergara) and there weren't any big fashion 'wows'. The show itself was pretty entertaining, especially since I was a bit tired from my birthday weekend.

If you watched the carpet or the show, you know Purple was the it colour. Mila, Natalie and Scarlett all looked stunning. But Cate, what were you thinking? If you had only ditched the shoulder pads...

    

There were also a few celebs living out the Red trend (remember the Golden Globes?).

   

Gwyneth Paltrow was one of the more original style setters. I loved the Calvin Klein Collection dress she wore for the carpet. Camila Alves also looked amazing in this Kaufman Franco.

 

I am also a fan of Reese Witherspoon's look in this black and white Giorgio Armani Privé gown. It took me back to the 2000 Oscars when Julia Roberts won for best actress in Erin Brockovich. Timeless.

 

I can't believe I'm saying, it but I think I'm becoming a fan of Anne Hathaway. Yes, she was pretty awkward hosting with James Franco, but the girls got style. And hair. She pulled off a different hair style with each dress change. How is that possible? My favorite look on Anne was the red strapless Valentino.

       

Happy Birthday from Halifax

Madelyn and I are off jet setting again. This time we are in Halifax visiting my dad (or Madelyn's Grandpa D)for my birthday. I won't tell you which birthday it is, I'm in my 30's :)

Here are some fun pictures from skating today at a Halifax outdoor rink that was set up for the 2011 Canada Games. Blue Sky, Beaver Tails and Beer...great birthday so far!

  

Baby Gates & Update on Baby Proofing

We are 40% complete on our Baby Proofing List.

This weekend we my husband tackled one of the largest items, installing baby gates. We ended up getting simple wooden Evenflo Top of Stairs Plus Gates from Baby's R Us, since they were 50% off (Sale ends tomorrow, click here). So far they have their pro's and con's.

Pro's:

• Mason now has his own gated room in the basement. Good bye crate!
• Mason's dirty paws can stay in the basement.
• Madelyn is safe for crawling backwards around the house.
• The gates we got are safe and cheap.

Con's:

• The latch is hard to open using one hand.
• The wooden pieces that should slide easily get stuck together.
• I have to go through 2 gates to get from the kitchen to the basement family room.
• They are a bit of an eye sore.

If you are near baby proofing, I do recommend these gates but only if they are on sale 50% off. Otherwise, I'd look for a better option.

Excited about Food

Don't you wish you could always be this excited about the food you're eating?

Well, here's a recipe that is sure to melt your heart. These cookies are sooo quick and easy to make. Put them together with some hot dogs and chips and you've created the perfect Valentines Dinner for a man. Thanks Katie for the recipe!

Katie's Chocolate Crunch Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups oats
• 2 cups Rice Krispies cereal
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup diced pecan halves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.
3. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, oats, Rice Krispies, chocolate chips and pecans and stir together.
4. Drop batter on baking sheet in mounds of about 3 tbsp and flatten with hand. Bake for 8-9 minutes or until pale gold.

Happy Valentines Day & 2011 Grammy's

What a great Valentines Day. I get to spend the day portion with Maddy and the night with my amazing husband. I'll ignore the fact that I have to hand wash a dishwasher full of dishes (stupid dishwasher), vacuum 1,000 rice puffs that have crawled all over our first floor, clean a muddy dog (thanks weather), sit through a tone def library program, and dunk my head in a public pool. It's still going to be a fantastic day since I'm sooooo in love with this little munchkin. Isn't that little Velcro bow so cute?

Now...on to last night's red carpet. I'll keep it short: bright colour is wear it's at. And Shoes. I so wish I had somewhere to go that required 5" platform heels...

Red Carpet Style Likes: Esperanza Spalding (in ?), Keri Hilson (Basil Soda dress), Heidi Klum (Christian Louboutin shoes) and Eva Kardashian (Ashi dress & Brian Atwood shoes).

   

Performance Style Likes:  Rihanna in Dior Couture for her performance with Eminem & Dr. Dre, and Gwyneth Paltrow wearing Wilfredo Rosado feather-diamond earrings for her performance with Cee Lo Green and a bunch of muppets. Her shoes were amazing...too bad I couldn't find a better shot of them.

 

Not a fan: Jo-Low, love your Christian Louboutin's but that Emilio Pucci is too short. Ri, this Jean Paul Gaultier was a bad choice all around.

 

Photos courtesy of Just Jared.

Blue Valentine

  

Dear Readers, I have missed you. I won't bore you with endless excuses of where I've been or what I've been dealing with....I'll just thank you for checking back in, and tell you I'm going to try really hard this week to get back to blogg'n.

I love Valentines Day. It's the hump day in the middle of the Winteriest month of the year: February. It also signifies that there are only 10 days left until my birthday (yay). My hubs isn't so into the holiday, but he's a good sport and plays along. Tomorrow is our 6th Valentines Day together. We were able to score some grandparent sitting last night so we celebrated a couple of days early with flowers, a Keg steak dinner and a movie date to Blue Valentine.

I was really looking forward to seeing Blue Valentine because I loved Ryan Gossling in the Notebook and I thought it would be kinda like that. Nope. Aside from the wicked acting by both Ryan and Michelle Williams, this movie was ultra-depressing. Where the love scene between Ryan and Rachel McAdams was amazing, the scenes in Blue Valentine made me really uncomfortable. I actually thought they were kinda soft-porn. I didn't even want to look.

So how to I rate this one? It's a big "Free Rental from Netflix" or "Rent for cheap".  Whatever you do, don't go tomorrow on Valentine's Day...stay home and watch the Notebook instead.

More on Teething...

Why do I have messy unwashed hair for the 3rd day in a row? Why am I still in PJ's at noon? Why do I have bags under my eyes from getting up at 5am? Easy answer: Madelyn is sprouting her 2nd tooth! This time it's on the top and way more painful (measured by fussiness) than the bottom tooth.

We tried a new product last night: Orajel. It seems to be working okay, def better than Camillia (sorry naturalpaths). My backup is Baby Tempra/Tylenol but I'd prefer to reserve that for the worst of hours.

Yesterday, I called Telehealth Ontario to make sure Madelyn wasn't actually sick with something else since she had a low-grade fever and runny nose. In case any of you moms out there are also fretting about this stuff, here is a list daddy found of common Teething Symptoms. Click here for the full article.

• Irritability
• Drooling
• Coughing
• Chin rash
• Biting & gnawing
• Cheek rubbing and ear pulling (watch out: could also be a sign of an ear infection)
• Diarrhea
• Low-grade fever
• Not sleeping well
• Cold like symptoms (runny nose, etc.)

Dedicated to teen love

I saw this on A Cup of Jo and I just had to share it. So cute!