Meet the wife of Johnny Depp’s character, Mad Hatter, from his latest movie Alice in Wonderland:

No, really this has nothing to do with the movie. Unless the Belgian designer, Walter Van Beirendonck, designed it from being inspired by the movie. This model presented the over-the-top (okay, no more puns) creation at the Autumn|Winter 2010-2011 ready-to-wear collection show in Paris.

It started out as a really rough evening (food craving wise). I made spaghetti for the hubby and girls & made Maplelicious Butternut Squash Mash for myself. The Squash Mash was good, but the smell of the spaghetti was so overpowering – I wanted a bowl! So, I had an orange & sat down at the computer to search for some good recipes that I can eat. I successfully found some to try out throughout the next week, but one sounded so delicious I had to make it tonight, the Awesome Apple.

The Awesome Apple is a simple and easy dessert that takes very little prep time (depending on how long it takes you to slice an apple) & 2 minutes cook time. And it is soooooooooo delicious! Now I realize that the point of my fruits & veggies diet is to eat healthy and lose weight, but it was definitely worth splurging a bit! Ok, I just added up the calories & with a large Fuji Apple, C&H Golden Brown Sugar, Ground Cinnamon & Jif Peanut Butter it was 256 calories – but you can definitely lighten that up with a lower calorie PB [Curiously, I just found FitzNutz which is only 25 calories per Tablespoon. I just ordered the trial size and will update you once I try this stuff!]. This is a recipe that I will definitely be making more often!!

The Awesome Apple

1 Apple (I recommend Fuji’s because they’re the best!)

1 T. Brown Sugar (heaping)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1 T. Peanut Butter

Slice the apple (peeling is optional, but I highly recommend it). Place the apple slices in a microwave safe bowl & sprinkle with the brown sugar & cinnamon. Add the peanut butter & microwave for 2 minutes. When it’s done, stir & enjoy your delicious dessert!

So, I’m sitting here watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition & looking around on Twitter. I see this tweet, “Jessica Simpson Aims to Send 50,000 Pairs of Shoes to Haiti: Jessica Simpson and her pals Cacee Cobb and Ken Pave… http://bit.ly/5pIFFd” from kimwow. So, I go to the website www.50000shoes.com, which is ran by Soles4Souls, where you can donate $5 to send 2 pairs of shoes to Haiti (their goal is to send 50,000 shoes to Haiti in 50 days).

So, I’m looking into how you can spread the word, when on the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition I’m watching, this truck pulls up & Paige Hemmis gets out and announces that this non-profit organization, Soles4Souls, donates shoes to people all over the world who need them. Then, she opens the back of the truck to reveal 1,000 pairs of shoes that will be donated to Mama Powell’s (who is the episode’s inspiration) school back in Jamaica.

Seriously, when I heard Paige say “Soles4Souls“, my mouth dropped open & I could at once see (& feel) God’s providence at work. I knew at once that I needed to give to Soles4Souls at 50000shoes.com & post this entry.

OK! Magazine’s new issue shows Kourtney Kardashian holding her baby with what appears to be an unnaturally slim post-baby body. Seeing the cover of this magazine while in line at the grocery store, makes this mama (who still has 30 lbs. to lose to reach her pre-pre-pre-baby body) feel pretty miserable about her own post-baby body. Great, another celebrity mom who’s baby weight just seems to disappear magically…

[Granted, it is my fault that I am just now starting to eat healthy and workout regularly to lose the baby weight now that my youngest is 7 months old]

Well, Kourtney’s weight on the OK! cover did disappear “magically” via Photoshop. I’m sure Kourtney wishes that it was that easy to lose the baby weight (I know I do). However, Kourtney called out OK! on their fabricated “Exclusive”. She told WWD that the magazine photoshopped her body, that she hasn’t lost all the baby weight. She also tweeted that a weekly mag had their facts wrong – that she gained 40 pounds (not their claim of only 26), and that they did not have an exclusive with her.

I applaud Kourtney Kardashian for revealing OK!’s lies. If “You Go Girl” were a part of my vocabulary and I were to meet Kourtney Kardashian, I would say, “Kourtney, you go girl!”

Weekly Weigh-In : I lost 5 pounds!!

I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo of my pre-weight last week. I do have this photo from 7/31/09, when I weighed 165:

But I don’t have anything showing 160 from last week. [But that does tell you that from August 1, 2009 to January 18, 2010, I only lost 5 pounds ]

Overview of Week 1

A week ago, I made the commitment to eat only fruits and veggies and to workout more regularly. My husband & I went to the gym twice last week (although our plan is to go three times a week, a scheduled appt. with the vet meant one less day at the gym). One of my goals after watching the first episode of The Biggest Loser was to ride a bike 13.1 miles (the contestants’ first challenge was to ride a stationary bike 26.2 miles in their teams of two – so I wanted to see if I could go as far as half their team’s distance). Saturday morning (which was the least busiest day I’ve seen at our gym), I rode a bike 13.1 miles!! And I worked out with “Your Shape with Jenny McCarthy” for our Wii once last week.

Throughout the week, it was fairly easy to eat only fruits and veggies. However, the weekend was a different story. Saturday afternoon, I met with some friends from high school for lunch. I ordered a salad, but it did have cheese and chicken on it. It was delicious, but I should have asked for the salad without the cheese and chicken. Then, my parents called Sunday evening, they were in town and wanted to know what we wanted from Panda Express. I looked at the Panda Express website and found they had an Eggplant and Tofu entree, so I ordered that and a side of mixed veggies. My parents called me back to tell me that the Panda Express they were at did not have Eggplant and Tofu – but they did have tofu in the Hot & Sour Soup. I love Hot & Sour Soup, but from my previous experience with eating only fruits and veggies, I know it is made with beef broth. However, I didn’t have any other options, so I had Hot & Sour Soup & mixed veggies. So I did have some challenges over the weekend with eating fruits & veggies.

So here I am today & I’m having a really hard time with temptaions. The chocolate from our candy stash (which the girls found today) is teasing me. The barbecue chicken breast in the fridge is calling to me. The Cool Ranch Doritos are beckoning me. However, I’m using the fact that I lost 5 pounds last week (yes, I’m very excited about that!!) as a reasoning factor not to give in to the temptations!

[Note: After talking with my husband (my nutrition advisor), we've decided on one month of eating only fruits and veggies (which means only a few more weeks!) and then I'll move on to counting calories or something like that.]

I met with some friends from high school yesterday for lunch & then did some shopping (had some gymbucks to use and a gift to buy for my new niece), so hubby had the kids for about 7 hours (yes, I was out that long – also went to Target and Lifeway Christian Store). After the kids were in bed tonight, I noticed these clothespin dolls on the floor in the living room.

So I asked my husband if he made these with the girls today & he said “Yes, they were carrying around the book & really wanted to make these.” [the book he was referring to was one Miss Boo received for Christmas, "Clothespin Cuties" from Klutz.] My heart immediately melted, I was amazed that my hubby had actually done a “girly” craft with our daughters. Today was not only the first time he’s been alone with all three kids for this length of time, but also the first time he’s done a craft with the girls. I’m still smiling just looking at these cute dolls.

Back in December, one of the blogs I follow (sorry I can’t remember which one right now), featured a link for a free Aveeno tote bag (I think from MarthaStewart.com). So, I signed up to receive one. Apparently, they either didn’t know how many tote bags they actually had or didn’t have the sign-up to automatically cut off once the number of requests equaled the number of bags they had to give.

They must be in the process of shipping out the tote bags, because Friday I received an email stating that my request was received after their Tote Bag inventory was depleted and therefore I will not be receiving a tote bag. I wonder how many of these disappointing emails they had to send…

With my current fruit & veggie only diet, dairy is off limits. So when I went to pick up some milk for the girls & hubby at the store, I went to look at soymilk for myself. The grocery store had my hubby’s favorite Very Vanilla Silk Soymilk, so I picked up a carton of that when my eye caught a *NEW* product…PureAlmond. Silk now has almond milk! So, I bought a carton of the Vanilla Silk PureAlmond Milk.

I tried it today for the first time and it blew away my tastebuds – it tastes absolutely amazing! I told my husband he had to try it as well, and his response was that it is better than eggnog (which is his overall favorite milk indulgence and has tons of calories). He really liked it and then I presented him with the awesome fact that an 8oz. serving of the PureAlmond Milk is only 90 calories! I love it when something is low-cal & tastes good!! This will definitely be a staple in our house from here on out!

I don’t normally follow gossip blogs, but when I saw a mention that Hayden Panettierre has red hair, I had to check it out. Being a natural red head, I’m always intrigued when others “go red”. I want to see what shade they go with and how they look with red hair vs. their previous look. I have to say I was completely shocked that Hayden went red. But hey, experimenting with hair color can be a curious and fun experience. Especially when you’re an actress and can be constantly changing your looks for different roles. [I have had my share of hair coloring curiosity - you can read my story below.]

Immediately upon seeing the pictures of Hayden’s red hair, I like her better with her golden locks. Not saying she looks ugly with red hair (because I don’t think she could look ugly), but her blonde shade seemed to suit her skin color better. Now granted, the photos taken of her at the airport are with her sans makeup. So, I might like her red hair with makeup that coordinates with her new hue. And sometimes these things grow on me as time goes on – so we’ll see if she keeps it red long enough for me to change my mind.

My hair coloring experience

In high school I let me grandma highlight my hair. Well, it didn’t turn out well, so I went dark (thought it was dark brown, but it ended up being so dark, it looked black). With my pale skin (remember, natural red head here), I was told it looked gothic [which apparently I can pull off as my husband remembers the first time he saw me was when I dressed up for gothic day for Homecoming my freshman year - the first time I saw him was on cowboy day when he wore chaps (I wore chaps that day too) but that's a whole different story].

Oh yea, so I went to the salon to get my hair fixed but apparently the lady was confused when adding the dye to my hair & only highlighted with my natural color which didn’t mix well with the dark coloring – it resulted in green highlights when I was in fluorescent lighting (which of course is what was in all the classrooms at school & earned me the nickname of Shrek from one of the boys in my class). So I went to my regular salon and begged the Queen of color correction (and my favorite stylist) to fix my hair. She said she’d fix it, but she made me wait over a month so that I would never want to ruin my beautiful hair ever again. She had to bleach all the color out a few times before being able to add the red – which was an exact match for my natural color. Of course, red fades fast & she took a job with Redken and moved, so I went back and got low-lights added until the red grew out enough to take over.

Now it’s been 7 years & I haven’t touched my hair with color. Sure I get the “your color is so beautiful” every time I get my hair cut & they say “have you ever thought of putting in some blonde highlights?” – I briefly explain that I had a hair catastrophe & have learned my lesson and won’t be coloring anytime soon.

I have officially completed Day 3 of fruits & veggies only. I have been tempted several times, especially as I have been preparing meals for my family with other items on my no-no list (like meat). So far, I’ve only squeezed in one workout (when we went to the gym on Tuesday night), but I’m planning on getting one in before bed.

Procrastinating as usual though, I was surfing the net and came across a couple great inspiring slide shows from self.com. One features some great foods that you can eat to actually help you lose weight – isn’t that great!?! I’m stoked as they all fit into my current diet guidelines: Combat fat—with food! Food & Diet: self.com.

The second one features some great workouts and actually states that side planks are one of the quickest ways to flat abs. Now I actually tried to do these with Your Shape with Jenny McCarthy on our Wii, but I don’t have enough muscle at the moment to hold the plank. [guess that's what happens when you're pregnant for three consecutive years] However, I aim to keep trying the side plank on both sides until I can do it correctly & work my obliques into flattening my abs. All the exercises in this slide show are great, but make sure you check out slide #5 for the side plank: Create your most sensual shape Workouts: self.com.