Blondies!

photo courtesy of kern.justin on Flickr

Today is National Blondie Appreciation Day-- as in blonde brownies, not the musical group led by Debbie Harry (although they deserve their own national appreciation day too!). I am torturing myself by posting this because I heart blondies even more than regular brownies. I am jonesin' for one, but I am still on my quest for skinniness in 2010, therefore I will refrain as long as possible.

But could someone make a batch of Martha's Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies and email me with every single detail of how they taste????? HA!

In other highlights from around the blogosphere:

• Check out these adorbs printable Valentine bags from Farm Chicks
• The cutest Happy Birthday post from Danielle at Thompson Family Life
• Free downloadable brownie bag design from Kathleen at Twig & Thistle (photo courtesy of Kathleen's blog). Maybe you could fill it with some blondies!
• Some drammer surrounding my best dressed Golden Globes gal, Christina Hendricks (in Christian Siriano, might I add). On a side note, if I could look like anyone in Hollywood, despite my constant quest to lose weight, it would be Christina Hendricks. I think she is soooo impossibly beautiful. Cathy Horyn is just a hater.
• I so want to see The Runaways and not just because I love KStew. I think Joan Jett is such a bad ass, and I'm so excited to see her story told. Looks like it's debuting at Sundance and will be released in March. Gotta love the fashion and makeup of the late 70s.

Any fun weekend plans? I discovered a realllllly gooooood (although Ryan thinks it's trashy) low-point cocktail: Skyy Grape vodka and Sprite Zero (2 pts!). So I'll be drinking my meals. Ha. Besides that, Q has her very first ballet recital tomorrow night! I'm so proud of my lil' goofball. Happy weekending, all! xo

Bowl-Riffic

Sorry for the lack of posts! Last week, the Girl Land household was rife with the gack. V had it one day, then Q three days later then Q AGAIN two days after that!!! I never thought we'd get healthy. Somehow, Ryan and I dodged that bullet. I'm sure we'll pay later somehow.

That being said, Q had her first real birthday party yesterday. It was a bowling party for her friend, Ramona! Q had a blast, and I did too. Somehow I passed up the yummy cupcakes (I'm trying to be good...yes, again), but I did have a bite. Here are some pics from the festivities:






We also got to have date night last night and somehow pulled a DOUBLE FEATURE. We also both had to take a No-Doz. How lame are we? We saw The Lovely Bones and A Single Man. More on both later this week, but I was disappointed with the former but in LOVE with the latter. Off to watch the Globes now, but I will seriously be disappointed if Colin Firth does not win something for his role which, in my opinion, was his best role ever.

Hope all is well with all of you. Being a government employee, I get tomorrow off (yippee!). Planning some Jazzercise and some sort of artsy craftsy project for the girls-- maybe some tissue paper flowers! xo all.

Girl Land's Top 20 Films of the Decade!

In the spirit of Roger Ebert's list, here is my own, but I couldn't pick just ten. I'm bored. Can you tell?

28 days later (2002)

Amelie (2001)

Lost in Translation (2003)

Chocolat (2000)

Monsoon Wedding (2001)

About a Boy (2002)

25^th Hour (2002)

Stranger than Fiction (2006)

The Good Girl (2002)

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Punch Drunk Love (2002)

Brick (2005) – Let the Right One In (2008)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Match Point (2005)

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) The Lives of Others (2006)

Inside Man (2006)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

The Orphanage (2007)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

In Bruges (2008)

**Post Edit: Forgot about some of my faves! :) Let me know if you liked any of these. xo

The Fantastic Felicity Fox Brooch

We took Q to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox over the weekend. Ryan and I both adore Wes Anderson, but we weren't sure if Q would like it. Apparently the singing and dancing animals more than made up for the fact that much of the dialogue went over her head. Plus, buttered popcorn and Sprite smack dab in the middle of the day didn't hurt either.

photo courtesy of totalfilm.com

Needless to say, I-- we-- loved the film. My favorite character was Ash who was played by Jason Schwartzman. I mean, how could I not love anything with anthropomorphic animals in it? Especially ones who live in a hollowed out tree trunk house?

I am sure all you crafty gals out there who have seen it noticed Mrs. Felicity Fox's wonderful fox silhouette brooch. Well, I set out to recreate it with Shrinky Dinks! Now you can make your own.


1. Save this image to your computer. I took my Girl Land logo and modified it to look relatively similar to Mrs. Fox's cute cameo. Be sure to click on it to enlarge it all the way before you save it.


2. I always paste my image into an MS Word doc so I can move it to the outer edge and not waste my Shrinky Dink paper. Print image at 100% on inkjet Shrinky Dinks paper. I found my Shrinky Dink paper at Hobby Lobby, but apparently other brands of the same type product can be found at Michael's and Joann's.

3. Cut out the image. Around the scallops are hardest, but even if your cuts aren't perfect, no one will notice.

4. Follow the instructions on your paper package. Your image should shrink from original size to about 1.5" wide by 2.5" tall. This shape domed nicely in the oven! I pulled it out before it could flatten all the way-- I thought it looked nifty.

5. Spray with an acrylic sealer or clear nail polish. Hot glue a pin back onto your brooch, and voila! All you need is a yellow red apple dress, and you'll be a foxy mama too.




If you want something a little more Kristofferson, I think that Enna's wooden picture frame brooch is adorable. Happy Shrinky Dinking, all! xo

New Moon Hangover CAUTION SPOILERS!!!

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo I've been. Twice now. Probably will see it at least a few more times in the theater. If you have NOT seen the movie yet, you may not want to read any further. But if you have, I am curious to see what you thought.

Here are my thoughts:

*I absolutely love the soundtrack, and I was happy with all the song placement. A couple of my friends and I even predicted where songs would go, and I got a few right. That sounded wayyy less pathetic in my head.

*Loved the opening scene with Bella's "grandmother".

*Loved Jasper's reaction to the paper cut and how he just kept busting through everyone to get to her. Sometimes, you forget that they are vamps and that they are bloodthirsty.

*Something little that I loved-- when Carlisle was stitching Bella's arm up, and she was resting her hand on his waist. I don't know why I liked it, just thought it was endearing and kind of showed a closeness between the two. Is that weird?

*I thought both Edward and Bella looked absolutely beautiful in the movie. Loved the kissing scene outside her truck and the desperation of it and a little bit of moaning never hurts (sigh).

*Love Movie Jacob way better than Book Jacob. In fact, when I re-read New Moon before seeing it, I actually liked Book Jacob better because I was picturing Taylor.

*Kristen really didn't annoy me at all (no sputtering!) in New Moon which is funny because she's totally getting ripped apart in reviews and Taylor's reaping the accolades. Because, and don't hate me...

*I thought Taylor's acting was pretttttttttttty bad. Still liked Movie Jacob, still like Taylor, but there were some lines that made me cringe. There was one really bad one when Jacob is yelling at Alice, and now I can't remember, but it was realllly lame.

*Where were the damn tears?????? Like seriously, can't these damn actors cry on cue? Or couldn't they have stopped the cameras and given them some eye drops or something? Bella didn't REALLY cry once and neither did Jacob. Or Edward for that matter. Fishy.

*My favorite scene may very well have been the one in the forest when the wolves were chasing Victoria. The Thom Yorke song in the back may be one of my faves now. I am going to miss Rachelle LeFevre in Eclipse. :(

*Wishing they played the music in the trailer for the running through the palazzo scene at the end (played here around 1:33). Way more dramatic!



*Of course, and it seems most people would agree, Alice's flash forward of Bella and Edward hunting in the forest was so dreadful. Yeesh. Whuuuut was up with Edward's clothing? Or hers for that matter?

*And did anyone else notice that it seemed Edward had on the SAME clothing that he did when he left Bella? Like 4 or 5 months later? Well, sans the suit jacket, but that was a little grody. Until my friend reminded me vampires probably have body odor that smells like lilac and honey. HA.

*One of my favorite scenes from the book was when Bella finally realized that Edward still loved her. It didn't work for me in the movie-- too rushed and it was supposed to be AFTER they left the Volturi lair. Felt kind of cheated just as I felt cheated with the meadow scene in Twilight!

*Bummed they cut out any good shots of the cake!!! And a whole couple lines about the cake in general. It was the piece de resistance at my Twilight party. Oh well. It was still a good schtick I suppose.


Anyway, already getting some ideas for my inevitable New Moon partay. It's going to be tough to top the first, but I'm up for a challenge. Definitely making some wolf pack tats and probably a dream catcher or two!!!

So I'm curious to see what any of you think. My husband is glad this is all over. For now anyway...he just rolled his eyes when I told him the opening of Eclipse was just over 7 months away. Yippee! xo