Lori Loughlin brings her family together the old-fashioned way, over the dinner table!

“I make sure that we share dinner together every night,” the 90210 actress revealed to Cookie magazine. “I love to cook, and my kids are old enough to help out in the kitchen — from helping to mixing the ingredients to setting the table.”

It might sound peaceful, but Lori says she’s not immune to those “frazzled mom moments.”

“I find that whenever I leave the house with my daughters, I always need to take a million different things, and there are times when I get to our destination and realize that I forgot the most important thing. One time, I was the ’snack mom’ for my daughter’s class, and when I got there, I realized I’d left the snack on the kitchen counter at home.”

Lori says she’s ”flexible” yet “firm” with daughters Isabella Rose, 10 ½, and Olivia Jade, 9 ½. Most of the time her husband Mossimo Giannulli takes the same approach, but there’s still one issue that divides them: bedtime.

“I tend to be more diligent,” she explained, “but my husband is more easygoing.”

If that’s the only thing they disagree about, it sounds like Lori and Mossimo have got nothing to worry about!

Taraji P. Henson has attracted critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Brad Pitt’s mom in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But the mom to 14-year-old Marcel insists the role was an easy one to play, commenting “once a mom, always a mom.”

In fact, she struggles to turn off her maternal instincts even while her son isn’t around!

“I try to mother my friends. It’s like riding a bike: You never forget how to be a mom.”

Just like her character Queenie, Taraji is a whiz in the kitchen treating her son to a home-cooked breakfast every morning.

“I don’t buy cereal,” she said. “Sometimes he wants scrambled eggs, sometimes he’ll have bacon, or pancakes.”

The demands of acting can sometimes threaten Marcel’s requests, but Taraji has found a way of working around it.

“Even if I have a 5 a.m. call, I’ll cook and leave his food in the microwave before I leave. You expect a child to succeed and do well in school, but how are they going to do that if they have no brain food?”

How indeed!

Image source: PR Photos

It won’t be too long until Max Liron Bratman is getting around on his own. Christina Aguilera says her son is “a mover and shaker” who is “so close” to walking!

Ten-month-old Max “is constantly moving, constantly banging on things,” leading Christina to wonder whether she’s passed on some musical genes!

“I don’t know what that means; maybe he is a drummer in the making, I don’t know.”

With Christmas just a month away, Christina is anticipating spending the holiday with her son for the first time.

“Holidays are huge to me, so I am really looking forward to spending the holidays with my family and being able to appreciate the fact that it is my son’s first Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

She also can’t wait to share all that food! Christina doesn’t cook any herself, but she says that’s her next goal.

“My mom loves to cook really southern, good, buttery, salty, delicious, bad-for-your-arteries kind of food, but it is amazing, and I hope to be a cook like that someday because one thing that I look forward to whenever I do go home is tasting my mom’s home cooking,” she reveals. “I want to do the same for Max. Cooking is my next goal in life to achieve.”

Giada De Laurentiis appeared on the Today show yesterday morning to promote her latest book Giada’s Kitchen: New Italian Favourites. And she brought along a very special guest: her six-month-old daughter Jade Marie!

See little Jad’s television debut in the video below!

Image details: The 2nd Annual Kidstock Music And Art Festival served by picapp.com

TV chef Giada De Laurentiis is loving her latest role as mother to nine-week-old daughter Jade Marie. She gave People magazine the lowdown at the Kidstock Music and Arts Festival.

“She smiled for first time yesterday. It sounds so corny – and I remember my friends telling me and me being like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ but it’s so special. Especially when you’re sleep deprived and all you do is change poopy diapers, it’s so great to get something in return,” she said.

In fact, the smile made such an impression on Giada that she told her husband Todd Thompson to keep his eyes on their daughter, just in case she did it again!

“I was telling my husband before I left, you have to make sure to watch her all day, because she will give you the biggest smile when you least expect it.”

So does a chef cope with preparing food for a little one? Apparently she finds the experience inspiring, because she plans to include a baby/toddler section in her next cookbook!

“People have been asking me for years to come up with kids’ recipes and doing all that because I have a lot of kids that watch the show. And I’m thinking, ‘I’m not a mom, not my thing, leave that to the moms.’ And now, I’m so into it!”

You’d expect Jade would be Giada’s taste tester, but that’s not so. Apparently husband Todd is her favorite guinea pig.
“[He's] like, ‘No more puréed food, thank you very much!’ Because I try all the recipes out on him first, so then we’ll see if Jade likes them.”

Poor Todd!