The 88th Academy Awards

On Sunday in Hollywood, California the 88th Academy Awards were held! Oscar night! Leo finally won his elusive Oscar and Kate Winslet was there to witness it. Chris Rock bombed at points in the show and Girl Scout cookies were freely ate during the show. Best performance of the night went to Lady Gaga singing her nominated song. The fashion did not disappoint! Actors and actresses wowed the red carpet with color and style. Let's take a look at a few of my picks...

The Best Dressed

Charlize Theron

Brie Larson

 

Priyanka Chopra

 

The Worst Dressed

Heidi Klum

This is not a Disney princess impersonation night...

Naomi Watts

This isn't 80's prom or a mermaid show...

Amy Poehler

This print did Amy no favors. It also didn't seem glamorous enough for the Oscars.

Kate Winslet

I love Kate but I didn't love this dress. She is usually so glamorous and stylish on the red carpet. This dress though... at one point I thought it was made out of plastic. I think her hair and make up looked great!

 

Who did you love at this year's Oscars?

Saturday Smiles

Every Saturday, I try to post five things that made me smile during the week. Often I find myself getting caught up in the small stuff but this year I'm making an effort to be conscious of it. This year is about being happy and finding happiness even in the small things! Want to join me? Go ahead and post your Saturday Smiles!

This Saturday I'm going to look back on the five moments that made me smile from our wedding.

1. Quality time with each other.

 

 

I love that we got to talk to each other before the wedding. I love that we had a sweet heart table.  

2. Interacting with every single guest.

We built time into our reception to talk to every single guest. We went from table to table thanking them for coming, catching up with them and seeing if they were having a great time like us!

3. My mom walking me down the isle.

My mom walked me down the isle to my theme song to life... the Romancing the Stone theme song.

4. Our favors.

We gave our custom miniature champagne bottles along with a nutcracker ornament. The labels had one of our engagement photos on it along with the date and location of our wedding.

5. My Bridesmaids

These ladies flew to California from all different parts of the country to share this special day with us. On top of that it was the holidays too! They were amazing!

What's making you smile?

Fuller House

Today is the day. Fuller House is finally here! I can't wait to binge watch every episode. Seriously, when I was growing up it was all about Friday night television. I would be outside playing and once the porch light came on, I knew to get inside because that meant TGIF!

Full House led the line up for young kid- family programing on Friday nights. It was followed by Step By Step, Family Matters and Perfect Strangers. The lineup changed some through the years but the Tanners were on our television every Friday. When the show originally appeared, I was in grade school. I related a lot to Michelle at first and then Stephanie because of the closeness in age. This family was totally cool to me.

When I was a kid living in West Virginia watching the Tanners in San Francisco I never dreamed that one day I would be living in California and only a stone's throw from S.F. When I first moved out here that's one of the first things that I did. I traveled to the famous row houses known as the painted ladies and stood across from the houses and in the spot their well known picnic took place.

 

 

 

Every time I drive into San Francisco and see the Golden Gate I remember sitting in my parents house watching Full House. Maybe I watched the show at a very formidable age but I think I'll always enjoy the show and what it represented. My wildest dreams came true and now I can see the bridge in person any time I want.

 

You can imagine my delight when I heard they were going to make a reboot of Full House. I was slightly cringing because remakes can be horrible if their not done right. When I heard the entire cast besides the Olsen twins was returning I knew we were in for a real treat. The build up for the entire season to be available all at once on Netflix has been amazing. Millions of people just like me who are now adults can't wait to see the show. Generations of kids after me have grown up watching it in syndication. Uncle Jesse still looks good, Danny is still being Danny and Joey is still saying his catch phrase Cut it out! Even the pesky neighbor Kimmy is going to grace the screen again.

I for one will be watching it today! How about you? Were you a big Full House fan? Fuller House... here I come!

Our First Dance

When discussing the music for your wedding people immediately want to know what the first dance song will be. In our case it was no different... inquiring minds wanted to know. There was much debate inside our wedding party about what our first dance song would be. My husband is a huge John Legend fan so they were banking that it was something from his collection. We refused to tell any of our family and guests what our first dance song was and made them wait till it started playing. The only person that knew was our DJ. 

 

 

The morning of the wedding my bridesmaids had a pool going on what our song would be. We got tons of rhythm & blues guesses but no one ever guessed our song. I also got a lot of Elvis guess since all of my friends know how I'm an avid fan. While Elvis was not our first dance song we did have two of his songs played for big moments. 

 

Our first dance song was, Stand By Me by Ben E. King.

 

Not sure if you know the song? You can hear it here.

 

 

We had been given dance lessons but we chose not to do a choreographed dance. We wanted it to be natural and fun. It worked for us and when it came down to it, it felt like the longest two minute song ever because literally all eyes will be on your dancing.

What was your first dance song?

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

Here's what you'll need:

Pretzel Rods

1 Bag of Semi Sweet Chocolate

1 Bag of Green Candy Melts

1 bottle of Sprinkles

2 Mixing bowls

2 Spoons

Wax paper

Microwave

 

First take your green candy melts and cover the bottom of a bowl. If you do not have a mixing bowl you can use a tall coffee mug (which I actually think works better).

Do the same think with your milk chocolate in your bowl or mug.

 

 

I put my chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds and check it to see it's progress. Then I place it in the microwave for another 30 seconds. Times will vary depending on your microwave. Start out using too little time until you know how fast your microwave is going to melt the chocolate. The last thing you want in your house is the smell of burnt chocolate.

 

Once you take out the chocolate, mix and smooth it out with a spoon.

Take a pretzel rod and dip it into the chocolate of your choice. I find that rolling the pretzel rods along the side of the mug or bowl helps to evenly distribute the chocolate onto the rod and keeps it from getting too thick.

Once you have your chocolate onto the pretzel you can either leave them plain or add fun sprinkles. You'll need to decide quickly if you want to add them because the fresher the chocolate is on the pretzel the better the sprinkles stick to it.

For my pretzels, I added the only sprinkles I have in the house at the moment which is Easter ones. Earlier in the month I had Valentines Day Sprinkles all over them. If you decide to add sprinkles have a bowl underneath the rod to catch any sprinkles that don't make it on to the rod. That way you can reuse them and drop onto the next ones.

Once you have your sprinkles on, place the rods on your wax paper to let them harden. Give them a good hour before you bag or place in a container. You want to make sure the chocolate is hard and not sticking to the wax paper when you put them away.

You can make these chocolate dipped pretzel rods for any occasion. If you use the green candy melts you can have yourself an Easter or St. Patrick's Day dessert. I did two of mine in green but then realized I had no St. Patrick's Day sprinkles so I stuck with my milk chocolate.

 

These were my Valentine's Day ones...

 

They only take about 30 minutes to make depending on how many you want to create. Remember a typical bag of pretzel rods has 33-35 inside but there will be broken ones. Plus if you are like me... you snack along the way while making them. So enjoy these fun and easy treats for your next holiday party!

5 Days of My Fashion

I've been working on my fashion this year and trying to get out of the rut of just wearing jeans each day. I have tons of clothing in my closet and I'm bringing them out! This week I sported some new looks...

1. Blanket Scarf

 This blanket scarf kept me warm on a chilly California morning we had. It's Steve Madden and available at Macys.

2. Yellow Country

I've had this yellow plaid shirt in my closet for at least three years and never worn it. Thankfully plaid never goes out of style. I love that it's not your normal color of plaid. I also love these new jeans!

3. Pencil Skirt

This skirt is so comfortable to wear it didn't even feel like dressing up! The top is from H&M and the skirt was a clearance find at Kohls. Can you believe I got it for $9.60? Crazy!

4. Colonel Mustard in the Library.

If you know me, then you know I love vintage and I'm thrilled that vintage styles and colors are in this season. I love this 1970s mustard color! Available at H&M.

5. Spring Flowers.

We went from the weather being 35 degrees to 75! Gotta love Northern California. Spring flowers are popping up everywhere so why not on my dress?!

Let's see what I come up with next week!

Wedding Cake

Our wedding cake was four layers of amazing flavors. The top and bottom tiers were marble with a chocolate fudge filling. The second layer was white cake with a strawberry filling. The third layer was a chocolate with chocolate mousse filling. The entire frosting was buttercream. I wanted the fondant look but I think it tastes awful so our bakery was able to pull off the look with thick buttercream. The top layer of our cake was saved and is in our freezer waiting to be tasted for our first anniversary.

 

We went back and forth trying to decide on a cake topper. We wanted something that fit in well with our winter wonderland theme. We didn't want to do something too Christmas themed because our cake was going to have the snowflakes. We originally were going to do little bears in a tux and veil but at the last minute we saw these wire initials on Etsy and loved them! We custom ordered them and a month later they arrived in time!

 

 

We wanted our cake table to stand out from the rest of our tables so we chose a different linen to go over it. It was a hit! We also had one of our programs on it and our toasting flutes.