Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you got a chance to catch part of the show today. Paul and Tom didn’t disappoint. Paul was the forecaster cowboy, riding his inflatable bull… and Tom was bigger than life as a sumo wrestler. They did a great job of making some quick changes and bringing some fun moments to today’s show. Behind the scenes we enjoyed some lighter moments, especially when we could hear the fans going full throttle in their costumes.

The rest of us, both on camera and off, did our best to keep the Halloween spirit by wearing orange and craving sweets.

Actually, I plan to feed my children dinner before they go trick or treating so they don’t complain too much when I cut off their candy supply early in the evening. I certainly want them to have fun, but as most parents will tell you, the last things kids need is a sugar rush about an hour or so before their scheduled bedtime.

Who am I kidding? I’m sure we won’t get to bed at our normal time tonight. It’s worth it, though, to see all of the kids’ smiling faces and hear their laughs and squeals.

Paul says the rain should hold off until about 7 o-clock, or later, so the weather won’t be too scary. I hope all of you have a great Halloween… and enjoy more treats than tricks.

Good Morning, everyone!  While today’s show was fun, Dan and I can’t wait until tomorrow.  Tom and Paul are planning to dress up for Halloween, but they won’t give us any hints about their costumes.  Knowing those two, we can only imagine……….

Many of you might remember that last year, Tom dressed as an ear of corn.  I’ll never forget walking into the studio at 4:55, looking up, and seeing a 6 feet, three inch tall ear of corn.  My first thought was, I’ve got to get more sleep.  Tom wasn’t a full time employee then, so I guess he was trying to find a way to butter up management.  It worked.  Things have been popping for Tom ever since.

Paul says his best costume, at least so far, was when he dressed up like a nun.  Apparently, he had a mustache at the time.  I doubt if anyone else had a prayer of beating Paul in the costume contest that year.

Dan says that one year he and his buddy went as a bunch of bananas.  He says they were having problems coming up with how to dress for Halloween and as they were wondering around, they saw a bunch of bananas.  His buddy just kind of joked that they should go as bananas.  You’d think that even the suggestion would have made Dan split, but he decided to go for it.  Dan admits it was a great ice breaker at the Halloween party he attended.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve never had any great Halloween costumes.  I guess I was saving up my creativity for when I became a mommy.  This year, my boys are Tigger and Pooh and my daughter will be a bowl of honey.  My boys think their sister is pretty sweet… at least at this stage of their lives.

Have a terrific Tuesday, everyone and don’t miss tomorrow’s show.  I’m afraid you would miss a pretty scary, yet informative, show. 

It is good practice to periodically take a look at our diets and examine what we are eating. Many people eat different amounts throughout the day depending on their schedules, choice of foods, cravings, and other factors.

Take a look at how much food you are eating and how often you are eating it. Are these mainly processed or refined foods? How many times are you eating fresh or whole grain foods? Do you know what the portion size is for the foods you regularly eat?

These are some questions you can ask yourself when reviewing your eating trends and habits. One area of your diet that you should try to examine is snacking. Most people consider this their pitfall to maintaining a healthy diet. Traditionally snack foods have taken on a “bad guy” role because of the sugary and processed food products that have been marketed and made easy to access.

The good news is recently there have been more healthy, portion-sized snack products made available. You have to look for them closely in the grocery, but some key words to look for:

- “100% Whole Grain”—the 100% is very important to make sure you are getting plenty
- “Baked”
- “100% Real Fruit”
- “Light” or “Low Fat”—make sure the fat isn’t being replaced with sugar.
- “100 Calorie Packs”
- “Reduced Sugar” or “No Sugar Added”
- “Low Sodium”
- And don’t forget you can always snack on the purest snacks like fresh fruit, vegetables, and nuts!

Snacking doesn’t have to ruin your efforts to eat healthy. In fact, if you snack on healthy items, it can actually help your diet! It can keep you from overeating at meal times, keep you metabolism going throughout the day, and can help keep your energy levels from dropping during the day!

The trick is to choose your snacks wisely and avoid eating too much of them. Take a look at some of these ideas to help you get an idea of a healthy snack:
- 2 cups of light popcorn
- low fat yogurt
- 2 cups vegetable soup
- 1 cup trail mix
- Whole wheat English muffin with apple butter
- Smoothie (with real fruit!)
- 5 whole grain crackers with cheese or peanut butter

You can find more ideas for healthy snacks of websites like EatingWell.com or FoodNetwork.com.

If you pay attention to your diet, it can help you live a more healthy life because you will be giving your body the vital nutrients it needs to function efficiently. It is ok to eat a few snacks during the day, as long as you are controlling what you eat and how much you eat.

Remember that snacks shouldn’t make you feel full…they should just keep your stomach from growling!

Happy Monday, everyone!  I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend!!

Dan and his girlfriend had a good time at the Purdue game.  Yesterday, they took advantage of the beautiful weather and enjoyed a game of tennis.  Apparently, Dan’s girlfriend used to play tennis in high school and is quite good.  I love tennis, but I’m not very good at it.  It’s a great way to serve up some fun and a great workout.

Paul had a nice, three-day weekend.  After 8 weeks, and lots of teasing, he finally got a haircut.  To be honest, I didn’t think his hair looked bad a little longer.  I thought after 8 weeks, his hair would have looked worse. 

We did have a somewhat hair-raising (and pretty funny) moment on the set this morning.  We were talking about the new movie, “Dan in Real Life.”  Dan and his girlfriend saw it this weekend.  I then joked that his friends can see Dan in real life all the time.  Paul then joked, “I heard the reviews on THAT are awful.”  We all got a nice laugh out of that one. 

We had a nice weekend at my house.  The kids are SO excited about Halloween.  If my director says it’s o-k, I might bring some pictures to show on the air later this week.  Then all of you can see who is most important in my real life.  Stay tuned!

Microsoft is dropping 240 million dollars to advertise with Facebook. This move will install Microsoft as the exclusive 3rd party partner on the site.

Microsoft beat out Google in a bidding war for the deal and the amount that Microsoft paid for the 1.6% stake in Facebook puts the value of the social-networking site at $15 billion. That’s a lot of cash!

Facebook will be making a major advertising announcement on November 6th.