Best and Worst of January

Yup I'm doing this.

Okay so who doesn't love award season? I do and I am not ashamed. It is no secret that I love movies and television shows. I also love celebrities and I love pretending that I know fashion better than I do. So here are my picks for the best and worst dressed at January's award shows. Enjoy.

Golden Globe Awards

The Best

Claire Danes

For reals, she looks stunning. Red on the red carpet is hard to pull off. Also can we talk about how she had a baby one month before this? Jealous. And Homeland is amazzzing.

Kate Hudson

The collar on this dress is fabulous. I'm also diggin' the long sleeves and belt. Basically I love everything about it.

Naomi Watts

I think Naomi is a classic beauty and this dress fits her style perfectly. I'm obsessed with the color, the open back and the train.

Not Sure

Eva Longoria

This dress annoys me so much because I think she's so beautiful, the slit is just way too high - too much leg! Also the proportions seem kinda off.

Jennifer Lawrence

I would love this dress if it didn't have the weird fabric on the boobs, from the front it makes them look really pointy. No thanks. 

Taylor Swift

I really like this from the waist down, but the cut of the top is not my fav. Also purple is never a color I would choose for a full length dress. 

The Worst

Lucy Lui

Do I need to give an explanation? I think not.

Halle Berry

I pretty much hate everything about this dress. The slit, the fabric, the weird open spot on her hip and how the dress makes one boob look bigger than the other.

Katharine McPhee

I do not like her hair, the dress or the shoes. This was really off for me.

2013 Presidential Inauguration
(I am aware this was not an award show, but there were two outfits that need recognition)

Beyonce

This dress is so gorgeous. It's fit perfectly and I love the styling - her hair and jewelry are to die for. One of Beyonce's best in my opinion.

Michelle Obama

Yet again Michelle Obama looks flawless. Her bangs are great, the coat is beautiful, and the belt and gloves are perfect accessories.

Screen Actors Guild Awards
(I refuse to call it the "SAG" Awards because I hate that word)

The Best

Amanda Seyfried

This is by far my favorite dress of the entire night. I am really loving the mermaid cut, the color, her hair and the necklace.

Jessica Chastain

She looks like a total movie star and I am kind of obsessed with her right now. I love her hair and I kinda love how she looks like Jessica Rabbit.

Nicole Kidman

She looks stunning. I wish her hair was different, but other than that it is perfection.

Not Sure
Anne Hathaway

I love her hair. However, I don't love this dress near as much. I like the top but the bottom is kinda weird and I think the dress underneath is too short.

Jennifer Lawrence

This dress is not bad, but I don't think it's great. I think it is really underwhelming.

Claire Danes

This dress was so disappointing after her GG dress. I think I would have liked it more if it didn't have the white geometric designs on the side. Plus I don't like how dark her lips are.

The Worst

Sophia Vergara

I really do not like this dress, but I love her. She's absolutely gorgeous but the dress is too shiny and it makes her boobs look uneven. Plus the straps are weird.

Julianne Moore

First of all, her hair is amazing. But this dress is not. She also could use a bra.

Kaley Couco

I think this dress makes her look so short, it needs to be about three inches shorter. Also I am not a fan of her hair.

Christmas Break Trip

Guess where we went after Christmas? It'll be a shocker.

Here's a hint. An old BYU roommate and good friend of mine just happened to visit Allen, Texas - the town right next to where my parents live - last week. When she returned home we were texting about her trip and she admitted to understanding why we always go there. This is an exact quote "Texas is a great place. I do understand now, but it doesn't mean I won't be mad when you're there every five minutes and I'm here."

So yup, we were in Texas again. When planning Christmas/Christmas break we had a little dilemma. We really wanted to have our own Christmas at home but we knew it wouldn't be right if we didn't see our families around the holidays. If we had stayed in Utah for the entire two week break we would have been really bored (almost everyone we know was leaving for the holidays) and frozen. So two days after Christmas we flew to Texas.

Also I'm going to try and make this post not super long. I feel like they've all been really long lately and I'm 100% guilty of looking at someone's blog and then being too lazy to read it when it's more than a paragraph long.

Texas Vacation

We arrived in Texas on the 27th and it kinda felt like Christmas was still in the air. Both Grandma and Mim had presents waiting at their house so we made sure to do that first. Jack loved the microwave from Grandma and Grandpa and the helicopter from Mim. Luckily my Mom makes enough Christmas cookies to feed the state of Rhode Island, so by the time we arrived there were still some left. Jack quickly learned where they were and how to get them.

 

Aunt Lauren and Jack were finally together again after not seeing each other since August. Garrett and I loved seeing Lauren too but she never let us sit on her lap while she played our favorite songs on the piano. Lame. But we did make sure to go to Chickfila breakfast (a few times), watch the entire first season of New Girl (while laughing uncontrollably), and hang out with old friends.

  

Garrett and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary while we were there too. Woop! I chose some delicious and entertaining hibachi for dinner and Garrett chose the Mavericks game for the activity. Don't worry, Dirk high-fived us (for real) and Garrett made sure Dirk touched his shooting hand. It was magical.

 

We also went to Mooyah's for burgers and hot dogs to color on the chalk wall, practiced our balance beam skills with T, played tons of dice and board games and laughed at how hilarious it is to "elf" yourself.

  

BUT my very favorite thing we did was visit the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas. It is my favorite museum ever - and I've been to a lot of museums. If you are ever in Dallas, whether it's for a day or a month, you have to go there. You'll thank me for this recommendation.

Unfortunately, this was one of the last things we did and by the time we went Billy, Hannah and Garrett had already left for Utah. Don't worry, we'll be going back with them next time. Plus I really want to go with Hunter and Ethan, they would have a blast.

The architecture of the museum is amazing inside and out.

First we went to the bottom floor to take Jack to the Children's Exhibit. As we walked down the stairs we realized the stairs were also a piano, so notes descended as we walked. (This was a very good sign of things to come) The children's section was awesome. It was set up to look like mini Dallas. There was a skyline of Dallas that doubled as an indoor playground, the Trinity River where kids were invited to play in the water, Trinity Park which had a mini camp site (fire pit, tent, picnic table, raccoons and all), the Dallas Farmer's Market to shop at, and throughout were cages of native animals to Texas. Jack could have stayed and played there the entire time. 

 
Playing in the Trinity River, learning about nutrition at the Farmer's Market and hanging out in the tent.

Little did we know what else was in store. The other exhibit downstairs was the Sports Exhibit. Holy guacamole it was incredible. Outside of the exhibit was this interactive Sports Wall that would light up when you touched it. Once we were inside the Sports Exhibit I was immediately disappointed we hadn't come with Garrett. He would have loved it. There was one area where they record you either throwing a football, pitching a baseball, doing a cartwheel, etc. and then a computer slows down the recording and compares your form with a professional's. If Garrett had been there he would have done this over and over, but none of us wanted to wait in line.

Our favorite part of the exhibit was the track. It was two lanes next to a long television screen where you could race a cheetah, a T-rex, Felix Jones (a Dallas Cowboys football player), or gymnast Emily Richardson. It's even cooler than it sounds. I convinced Lauren that we had to do this, and she agreed but only if we raced the cheetah. Her reasoning was that it isn't embarrassing to loose to a cheetah, which makes sense I guess. After Lauren and I raced Jack really wanted to race too, and he was only interested in racing the football player. He is his Father's son. The first time we raced Jack was a little nervous and wanted to be held until we started running. The second time we raced he was totally into it; he got down on the starting line and when the buzzer went off Jack ran all the way to the finish line and then cheered for himself. It was adorable. Lauren was supposed to be recording it, but she apparently wasn't recording when she thought she was. Good one, Lauren. 

 
Grandma, Jack and I racing Felix Jones - obviously he beat us because he isn't even on the screen anymore.

I really could write an entire blogpost just about this museum. There was just so much stuff to do and look at, you could probably spend 10 hours there. There was everything there from dinosaurs, gems and minerals, animals, music, geology, energy, birds, bodies, engineering, chemistry and planets. 

  

Of course we can't go to Dallas and not stop at The Cupcakery, it's totally our favorite. 

Another successful trip to Texas has come and gone. As of right now there are no trips planned for the future, so if you're sick of reading about us going to Texas you'll get a break for a little. We will miss our family, good thing we have FaceTime capabilities!

Well I failed at making this a short blogpost. Sors.

Christmas Day

Disclaimer: Sometimes when you Christmas shop you kind of loose track of how many presents you've purchased. Also sometimes you forget to factor in all the other presents from family members that will be added to the pile. So then sometimes when you set up for Christmas and you only have one child it looks like you set up for a Christmas with three children. Oops. No judging - especially because Jack loved it.

Okay now onto the goods.

Want to know one of the best feelings? It's that time right after you climb out of the piles of wrapping paper and boxes and step back and look at Christmas all set up. Garrett and I stood in the corner of our living room for a few minutes and admired our hard work. (Being Santa ain't easy people) Immediately, and without speaking, we both took out our phones and began taking pictures of it. I even used my panoramic camera for the first time (which was a fantastic idea, if I say so myself). But it was so weird, I all of a sudden realized I was being Harlow...

Growing up we always made fun of my Dad for doing exactly this. Except, okay, he was a little worse - he didn't just take pictures of the presents, he videotaped them. This is for serious. It would be so annoying when we were watching home videos, it usually got fast forwarded. We would be sitting together watching a video, probably from around 1992 (because there are literally no home videos of Hannah) and we would be having a great time laughing at how obnoxious we were acting on Christmas Eve and then - mood killer - it then switches to 5 minutes of Harlow slowly panning the camera back and forth without commentary to capture how he Santa set up all the presents. Bor-ing. We never understood what on earth made him want to record how the presents were set up.

So when I realized his love for Christmas present set up was passed down to me I made sure to text him a picture. His response? "Looking at that panoramic picture just makes me happy." I love him. Oh and you can bet your bottom dollar that every year he still spends hours setting up the Christmas pressies - regardless of the fact that there haven't been any Santa believers in his home for probs eight years.

I would like to point out my absolute favorite part of this picture - the "bow" on the basketball hoop. While I was tying a bow on the kitchen Garrett decided to help me out and tie a bow on the basketball hoop. When I turned around I saw his "bow" and I could not stop laughing. He was obviously going for functionality and you know he was pleased with himself. 

I am sad to say that we didn't get any pictures of Jack's very first reaction to Christmas, but as you can imagine it was absolutely ADORABLE. He had his mouth open in awe for about the first three minutes. I actually think it took him a minute to realize that we hadn't been making up the whole "Santa comes while your sleeping and brings presents" thing. Obviously the kitchen was his "big" present and we knew he would love it - we just didn't think he would ignore the other presents for a good 15 minutes.

   

 
 

Other highlights from our morning were;

discovering the basketball hoop,

 
the helicopter,

 
the Monster's Inc. umbrella, the bumblebee backpack,
 
and legos!

Garrett and I were equally excited about our presents, don't you even worry about that. I got a fancy new camera, perfume, sunglasses, the first season of New Girl (which I am obsessed with), season two of Modern Family, and an "I Love Cheese" keychain. Garrett got a new Dallas Mavericks jacket (he's in love with it, maybe even more than he is with me), new basketball shoes, two helicopters, the first season of Duck Dynasty, and several new CDs. We were obviously good this year.

Well probs like everyone else Christmas morning was the most exciting part of our day. After all the presents were opened and had cleaned up all wrapping paper, empty boxes and those stupid twist ties our day pretty much revolved around whatever Jack wanted to play with and whatever basketball game was on. I did make a delicious Christmas dinner and we finished that off with the last of our Christmas cookies. Unfortunately we have to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again, but Jack's birthday is right around the corner people!