Crazy little thing called Oscar

*EDITED TO SHOW THE WINNERS*
Academy Awards are tonight!
One of these years I'm going to have an actual Oscar party, I think it'd be really fun. (who would come to my party?) Before I was married I liked watching the shows to see all the gorgeous dresses, now (even though I still love the dresses) Bogie and I make a game out of who's going to win. We write down our predictions and the loser has to get the winner a present.

Last year I was mucho pregnant with D, so we kept the prizes simple and when I ended up losing (by ONE) I made a run for his favorite ice cream (at least the current favorite, our flavors change every couple months).

Now, there's something you need to know about Bogie. The man is mad smart in the movie trivia and film facts area. I don't know how he does it. He's our Encyclopedia Brown of films. (I'm not kidding you, people call him at random times to ask him movie questions). Name a director and he can tell you what films they directed, the year, who starred in them...it's quite sexy, actually. So needless to say, he makes sure to watch as many of the nominated films as he can before the Oscars, and when he makes his winning predictions it's with more than just a guess (plus he knows all the politics and ins and outs of the Academy, so there's that). So it is not without a little bit of pride that I reiterate that I only lost by one category last year. See, it's kind of a given that I'll lose because he just knows too darn much, but the closer I keep up with him the more impressed he gets, and I like it when I impress him. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know a ton about movies too. However, I know all of the characters' names and where they lived, and what breed their dog was, and what quote can be attributed to which character. He's the facts dude, I'm the character lady. Not gonna lie, if there is ever a game show that involves movie trivia and needs a couple as contestants, we would totally dominate.

This year, Bogie's in Connecticut so we can't watch them together. He actually doesn't have cable to he can't watch them at all, although we think we have a workaround figured out. We're going to Skype and I'll set my computer where he can see the TV, that way we can "watch" it together. We'll see how it works out.
Anyway, ALL of that to say: here are the categories and nominees, my predictions are in italics! (I know, you're totally on the edge of your seat, right?)

Best Motion Picture of the Year

127 Hours (2010): Christian Colson, Danny Boyle, John Smithson

Black Swan (2010): Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver, Scott Franklin

The Fighter (2010): David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Mark Wahlberg

Inception (2010): Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas

The Kids Are All Right (2010): Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray

The King's Speech (2010): Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin

The Social Network (2010): Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Ceán Chaffin

Toy Story 3 (2010): Darla K. Anderson

True Grit (2010): Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin

Winter's Bone (2010): Anne Rosellini, Alix Madigan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem for Biutiful (2010)

Jeff Bridges for True Grit (2010)

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network (2010)

Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010)

James Franco for 127 Hours (2010)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole (2010)

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone (2010)

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (2010)

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine (2010)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale for The Fighter (2010)

John Hawkes for Winter's Bone (2010)

Jeremy Renner for The Town (2010)

Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech (2010)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams for The Fighter (2010)

Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech (2010)

Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010)

Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit (2010)

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom (2010)

Best Achievement in Directing

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan (2010)

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit (2010)

David Fincher for The Social Network (2010)

Tom Hooper for The King's Speech (2010)

David O. Russell for The Fighter (2010)

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Another Year (2010): Mike Leigh

The Fighter (2010): Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington

Inception (2010): Christopher Nolan

The Kids Are All Right (2010): Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg

The King's Speech (2010): David Seidler

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

127 Hours (2010): Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy

The Social Network (2010): Aaron Sorkin

Toy Story 3 (2010): Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich

True Grit (2010): Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Winter's Bone (2010): Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

The Illusionist (2010): Sylvain Chomet

Toy Story 3 (2010): Lee Unkrich

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Biutiful (2010): Alejandro González Iñárritu(Mexico)

Dogtooth (2009): Giorgos Lanthimos(Greece)

In a Better World (2010): Susanne Bier(Denmark)

Incendies (2010): Denis Villeneuve(Canada)

Outside the Law (2010): Rachid Bouchareb(Algeria)

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Black Swan (2010): Matthew Libatique

Inception (2010): Wally Pfister

The King's Speech (2010): Danny Cohen

The Social Network (2010): Jeff Cronenweth

True Grit (2010): Roger Deakins

Best Achievement in Editing

127 Hours (2010): Jon Harris

Black Swan (2010): Andrew Weisblum

The Fighter (2010): Pamela Martin

The King's Speech (2010): Tariq Anwar

The Social Network (2010): Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Best Achievement in Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland (2010): Robert Stromberg, Karen O'Hara

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010): Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan

Inception (2010): Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Douglas A. Mowat

The King's Speech (2010): Eve Stewart, Judy Farr

True Grit (2010): Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

Best Achievement in Costume Design

Alice in Wonderland (2010): Colleen Atwood

I Am Love (2009): Antonella Cannarozzi

The King's Speech (2010): Jenny Beavan

The Tempest (2010/II): Sandy Powell

True Grit (2010): Mary Zophres

Best Achievement in Makeup

Barney's Version (2010): Adrien Morot

The Way Back (2010): Edouard F. Henriques, Greg Funk, Yolanda Toussieng

The Wolfman (2010): Rick Baker, Dave Elsey

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

127 Hours (2010): A.R. Rahman

How to Train Your Dragon (2010): John Powell

Inception (2010): Hans Zimmer

The King's Speech (2010): Alexandre Desplat

The Social Network (2010): Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross (Trent Reznor? yeah, that's totally the lead singer for Nine Inch Nails. The founding member of Nine Inch Nails just won an Oscar. We live in a great country.)

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

127 Hours (2010): A.R. Rahman, , Dido("If I Rise")

Country Strong (2010): Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, Troy Verges("Coming Home")

Tangled (2010/I): Alan Menken, Glenn Slater("I See the Light")

Toy Story 3 (2010): Randy Newman("We Belong Together")

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Inception (2010): Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick

The King's Speech (2010): Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen, John Midgley

Salt (2010): Jeffrey J. Haboush, William Sarokin, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell

The Social Network (2010): Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Mark Weingarten

True Grit (2010): Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, Peter F. Kurland

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Inception (2010): Richard King

Toy Story 3 (2010): Tom Myers, Michael Silvers

TRON: Legacy (2010): Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Addison Teague

True Grit (2010): Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey

Unstoppable (2010): Mark P. Stoeckinger

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Alice in Wonderland (2010): Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas, Sean Phillips

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010): Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz, Nicolas Aithadi

Hereafter (2010): Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojansky, Joe Farrell

Inception (2010): Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Pete Bebb, Paul J. Franklin

Iron Man 2 (2010): Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright, Daniel Sudick

Best Documentary, Features

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010): Banksy, Jaimie D'Cruz

GasLand (2010): Josh Fox, Trish Adlesic

Inside Job (2010): Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs

Restrepo (2010): Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger

Waste Land (2010): Lucy Walker, Angus Aynsley

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

Killing in the Name (2010): Jed Rothstein

Poster Girl (2010): Sara Nesson, Mitchell Block

Strangers No More (2010): Karen Goodman, Kirk Simon

Sun Come Up (2010): Jennifer Redfearn, Tim Metzger

The Warriors of Qiugang (2010): Ruby Yang, Thomas Lennon

Best Short Film, Animated

Day & Night (2010): Teddy Newton

The Gruffalo (2009) (TV): Jakob Schuh, Max Lang

Let's Pollute (2011): Geefwee Boedoe

The Lost Thing (2010): Shaun Tan, Andrew Ruhemann

Madagascar, a Journey Diary (2010): Bastien Dubois

Best Short Film, Live Action

The Confession (2010/IV): Tanel Toom

The Crush (2010): Michael Creagh

God of Love (2010): Luke Matheny

Na Wewe (2010): Ivan Goldschmidt

Wish 143 (2009): Ian Barnes, Samantha Waite

My Beloved

As a Father has compassion on his children, even so do I have compassion on those who fear Me. I do not treat you as your sins deserve or repay you according to your iniquities. Instead, I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.

So stop dwelling in the past. You spend too much time reviewing your sins of days gone by. I keep no record of such matters. If I did, you truly would not be able to stand. But I have forgiven you of your sins. All of them!

Or do you think that I may have missed something? Don't do this to yourself. You need to know, once and for all, that the blood of Jesus has paid the price for your sins. Confess your sins to Me, rather than rehearsing them to yourself over and over again. Acknowledge your sin to Me and do not cover up your iniquity. Confess your transgressions to Me and I will forgive the guilt of your sin. And I mean all sin.

Do not trivialize the death and sacrifice of My son with self-condemnation. Instead, trust in Jesus and receive forgiveness of your sins through His name.

If My son sets you free, you are free indeed. So forget the former things. Do not dwell on your past failings. If I do not remember your sins anymore, then why should you?

The NIV Worship Bible, "My Beloved"

Ps 32:5; 103:10,13; 130:3-4; Isa 43:18,25; 44:22; Jn 8:36; Ac 10:43; 1Jn 1:7

An update on life in general

I am eating Reese's Pieces. You know what bugs me? when people pronounce it "Ree-seees Pee-seees". I mean, feel free to pronounced Reese's that way if you like, but the word is "Pieces". pee-suz. You wouldn't say "pee-seees of eight" or "I have three pee-seees of cake". If you're so inclined to make it rhyme, saying both words correctly will accomplish that! okay I'm done.

We're all getting over being sick. It hit me first, and there was a good half day where I was completely zombie-fied. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law who made sure that my children didn't eat each other or bleed on anything because I was incapable of doing anything but sleep. I was really hoping that the kids wouldn't get sick but it hit them a few days later and we're all just starting to recover. It's basically down to runny noses and the occasional cough, although the D-man is on an antibiotic for a throat infection (but it's day 5 of that, so he's back to his regular self and we just have to finish out the dosage so we don't grow superbugs).

The plague set us back a week or so in the whole sleep-training schedule, although last night he did pretty well. I have to find a way to curtain off his crib so that he can't see me if I peek in on him or once I'm in bed (we share a room). Still working on that, I think that will help with the night-time wakings because I can plug him back in and then "disappear". or maybe not, but it's worth a shot.

Last week we had a day in the mid-70's! It was awesome, took the kids outside where ZaZa terrorized the poor Corgi (not really though, they just chased each other around the bushes) and D ate mulch (but only a little bit). Fast forward a week and now we have 6 inches of snow on the ground. I am rolling my eyes at you, Weather. Feel the snark.
Our taxes are filed, paperwork is done, tasks on my to-do list have been accomplished. You would think that would leave me feeling satisfied and productive, but I'm so used to having nagging items on my to-do list that when there isn't anything I just feel like I'm forgetting something.
D turned 11 months yesterday, which is quite exciting because it means next month he's 1 and I have a party to plan! Nothing super-elaborate, just some snacks and a cake, maybe a balloon or two, and whoever wants to come. If 5 people show up, neat-o. If 30 show up, that's cool too! I want anyone who is friends with us and wants to come celebrate our son's birthday to feel free to do so, like an open house-type deal. I'd do every birthday that way if Bogie would let me. I mean, who am I to deny people the pleasure of my company? We sprouted some pretty cute kids, why not let people come admire them and maybe bring them an autographed Pujols baseball or some gold? Okay, I'm done. In all seriousness though, I want whoever wants to come to feel welcome to do so and will be sending an event invitation via FB to all ya'll (okay, most of ya'll because some of you are really far away and I haven't seen you in years. but I'll send it to you too if you really want me to!)
Speaking of D, he's actually crawling now, pulling himself up on everything and was observed (although it's only happened the one time) actually letting go and teetering freestanding for .05 seconds before thumping down on his padded little butt. He's getting braver about holding on to things as he stands, so I think standing on his own is just around the corner, especially since he tries to stand up from a crawling position too. It looks very funny to have him straighten his legs and stick his tushy up in the air while doing a handstand. babies are funny. He's also starting to talk, I can get him to say "hi" and "dada", although we're still working on "mama" and he doesn't know what any of them mean yet. I'm also working on his sign language so that we can communicate with him as soon as possible ("all done", "milk", "more", "eat", "sleep", that kind of thing) We did it with ZaZa and it was great to have her tell me she wanted more food when she couldn't even talk yet.

I'm excited for his party, and ready for Spring to be here, and REALLY ready for the sleep-training to take hold so this kid sleeps through the night and I can function as a normal human being again! and now I'm going to go watch an episode of Psych and eat some more Reese's. ree-suz. with milk.

You might be a mother if:

-taking a shower is not so much about getting clean, but rather feeling like a human being again.
-you decide to go exercise at the gym just so your kids have an indoor jungle gym to play on
-you can remember every name of every cartoon character your child has every watched, but not where you left your car keys
-you delay putting one kid down for a nap so that you can put all the kids down for a nap at once and maybe (just maybe!) get a nice stretch of "me time" (that may or may not involve ice cream and Psych. wait, who said that? I mean, laundry and dishes of course!)
-you jump at the chance to get some groceries because you can get out of the house
-playdates help keep you sane
-you're willing to do messy activities even if it means extra cleanup because it also means some peace and quiet
-you've ever changed one kid's diaper while another one (or two) kids were using you as a jungle gym
-you've ever crawled on all fours out of the baby's room so that he or she couldn't see you and would go to sleep
-you have become ambidextrous because of the frequency with which you have to handle utensils with your non-dominant hand
-your child is talking to you and you don't hear what he/she's saying because you're thinking about how stinking cute he/she is
-you've ever gone to the bathroom and had more than one audience member under the age of 3

For my Love...

Well, we're moved

We're out of the house. Everything's in boxes and I can't find anything even when I remember which box I put it in. This move was the most emotional for me, I'm not sure why. I actually cried after the landlord left from doing his walk through. All of the empty rooms that used to hold all of our furniture...it just made me sad to be leaving this place, none of the other places made me sad. Maybe it's because I liked this house the best out of all of the places where we've lived. Or maybe it's because we had our second baby while living at this house, so it felt the most like our family's house.
I'm so tired, and ready to be done moving things and arranging things and organizing things...but that part has only just begun. sigh.
I'm very emotionally and physically exhausted right now. I could really use a vacation for some R&R, but I won't be getting one any time soon so I'll have to figure out alternate ways to "recharge my batteries" as they say.
"...show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed..."