Awards Season

Last year (or was it the year before) I posted my fav dresses from all the awards shows. While I've enjoyed the red carpets this year, it just hasn't captured me like before. Here are my top choices from the Oscars this weekend.

Love the sparkles!

She always looks perfect.

Could she be any cuter. My fav was when Ryan Seacrest asked her about her dress she said that she picked it because it was "sparkly and fluffy". That's the down-to-earth red carpet I'm looking for.

The weird thing on the belt was a little much, but I love the top and bottom of this dress.

 

Worst dress (and hair) for sure. Does she not have any friends that would tell her not to go out like this?

 

The whole night seemed a little bizarre to me. I used to see it as a fun night to ohh and ahh over Hollywood glamor. This year seemed more of a train wreck. I actually liked the host and the tribute to music in film, but the stars and the 'scene' were very disappointing. It felt more like an episode of the Kardashians. Tacky people, horrible plastic surgery (what happened to Catherine Zeta Jones - most naturally beautiful woman ever and now looks nothing like herself), and a bunch of intoxicated presenters. It seemed more like America's opportunity to mock Hollywood rather than admire it. Maybe I'm just getting old.

The speeches just get worse every year. Nobody is spontaneous or has anything interesting to say. It's just about getting through a list of people to thank before the music starts to play to tell you you're out of time. Yawn!

Family Night Fun

Monday night for us is pizza and movie night (sometimes pizza and game night depending on how much homework needs to be done). Rick's done this with the boys since they were little. I admit, it makes Monday night dinner easy. This last year, we've added a fun twist to the evening.

Last summer we were driving by Pirate O's and they advertised stocking over 50 kinds of root beer. How could we resist. We decided we needed to find the best one. We started by doing a taste test every Monday night. Isaac kept the running tally, but it became pretty complicated as we each have different tastes. Every week we'd have to buy everyone's top flavor then add a new flavor to test it against. Sometimes one of the favorites would be temporarily out of stock. Now we just pick two new flavors each week and have a blind taste test. We have learned each others tastes and can pretty accurately guess who will like what. It's fun.

I've been saving one bottle cap from each flavor....

and made fridge magnets.

Zane goes to Sweethearts

Zane's first official school dance. He was asked with a vase full of candy hearts. We had to find the ones with letters and on back and unscramble who was asking. (bad photos, sorry)

We bought an "easy" button from Staples to answer with a note saying, "The answer was easy." We threw in some Sweet Tooth Fairy cake bites, because... yum.

Here they are on their way to the dance. Cuties!

OK, I'm going to be honest here. I don't understand why everything is such a big production. Sure the answering and asking with creative ideas is cute, but also a bit ridiculous. I can see doing it for Prom or a big event, but not every dance. My theory is that some kid was scared to just call and ask a girl to a dance so his over-achieving, crafty, Mormon mom made up some crazy way to make it easier for him and, poof, we all followed suit. Then there's the actual dance. When did the whole day-date thing start? It's great to spend time with friends and have fun. It's just silly that it somehow became an expected part of a school dance to spend most of the day together. Simple can be fun. Simplify, simplify, simplify!

Weekend Report

This weekend flew by. I was off work on Friday so we started the day with a quick ski up American Fork Canyon. I only took one photo. I'm never a very good judge of how many layers I'll need. There was a biting wind where we started so I bundled up. However, as soon as we got going (up hill the first 3/4 mile) we were sweating. We skied up to Granite Flat campground and ditched our coats while we skied around the campground. The snow was a bit sticky, but it was a beautiful day. We skied about an hour and half, which was a perfect start to the day.

Friday Zane's band, Of City and State, performed at In the Venue. It was fun to go watch him perform. They sounded good and Zane has great stage presence.

Sunday, Rick ended up with the flu, so it was a quiet day at home.

In the continuing kitchen remodel saga, we ordered a new stove and sold our old one, only to later get word that our new stove is on backorder until the end of the month. Time to break out the crockpot and microwave meals.