We can’t imagine the pain of giving birth to one kid, much less two at the same time, and give Jennifer Lopez a lot of credit for doing it both in real life and on screen. Two years since she gave birth to her twins Emme and Max, Lopez is back in mommy mode in The Back-up Plan, playing a woman who responds to the ticking of her biological clock by getting artificially inseminated. In predictable but fun rom-com fashion, she juggles romance with a yummy dairy farmer/cheese merchant (Alex O’Loughlin) and double pregnancy, looking lovelier than ever — with and without her faux belly.

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We’ve long been fans of the eco-friendly, organic bedding from Amenity Home. Since 2004, founders Kristina De Corpo and Nicole Chiala have been manufacturing the chic, modern fabric items — with prints inspired by silhouettes in nature — in Los Angeles. So we were eager to see the company’s new Arroyo Collection of tableware, inspired by the mountains and canyons of Southern California. Each item, from the rectangle tray ($88) to the salt and pepper shakers ($36), is hand-hewn from Forest Stewardship Council-certified, sustainable walnut and finished with food-grade beeswax. Enter our giveaway by May 31, 2010, for a chance to win a set of four napkin blocks, which have a special groove allowing them to double as placecard holders — a $36 value!

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We can never get enough of the superb Susan Sarandon, so we’re thrilled that there are two opportunities to watch her this weekend. On April 23, she traces her ancestral roots on NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, in an effort to find out what became of her grandmother, and on April 24, she stars opposite Al Pacino in HBO’s You Don’t Know Jack, about assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, M.D. (Photo credit: Michael Caulfield/Getty)

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We recently came across a thought-provoking column by Yasmine Ryan called “Why Climate Change is Worse for Women.” Ryan cites a U.N. report that climate change affects poor women the most — and women make up 70 percent of the world’s impoverished. Because women also make up the majority of farmers and are responsible for collecting water and wood in poor nations, droughts, water shortages, deforestation and natural disasters have a bigger impact on women and their livelihoods. We believe having our voices heard regarding climate change is important, so, in honor of Earth Day, we’ve collected seven ways to take action!

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We’ve been a proponent of voluntourism since high school, when we spent a summer in Mexico as part of the Amigos de las Américas program. Now, after hearing from a friend who recently helped save leatherback turtle eggs to aid conservation efforts in Tobago, we’re considering taking another volunteer vacation. It’s a great way to see the world and have a positive impact while you’re there. Throughout the month of April, travelers who book one of the 18 trips offered by Planeterra, the nonprofit voluntourism foundation of Gap Adventures, will receive a 10 percent discount. Those booking a voyage during Earth Month through either company also have an option of adding a $5 donation to the Kenya Community Tourism Project.

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At our first magazine job, an orange cursor blinked as the words we typed appeared on a black screen, and the staff of four publications shared one lone computer with Internet access. It’s safe to say we’ve seen a lot of technology advances in our day. But we’ve never seen as much excitement as that surrounding the iPad. In case you somehow haven’t heard, Apple’s new handheld tablet allows easy access to the Internet, email, photos, music, maps, movies — and even books, with the free iBooks app. But we’re most excited, of course, about the new opportunity to read digital magazines, such as VIVmag, on a handheld device with a large screen, through the free Zinio app for iPad. To celebrate, we’re giving away a free iPad — along with a free year membership to VIVmag — to two lucky winners every week now through May 2!

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We’re bombarded daily with advertising urging us to buy things, and subtler but no less effective forms of marketing like product placement in movies and TV. But did you know that the beautiful people ordering a new brand of vodka at the bar might be on a company’s payroll, or that the couple serving you freshly baked cookies at the open house might be actors hired by the Realtor? What if your attractive new neighbors were really a marketing team, planted to shill for products they want you to covet and buy? That’s the premise of The Joneses, a new movie opening Friday starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny as a fake couple who take stealth marketing to a whole new level.

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We admit we teared up while watching the Academy Awards last month during the short clip from The Cove, in which a woman mournfully describes the killing of a dolphin as it struggles to escape. The documentary sheds light on the slaughter of thousands of dolphins and porpoises in Japan, where their meat is labeled and sold at markets as whale, despite containing toxic levels of mercury. When the film won Best Documentary, our search to learn more about the issue took us to TakePart, an online community where people can inform themselves about social, environmental, political and cultural issues. We signed up for the website’s Members Project, a campaign co-sponsored by American Express that awards up to $200,000 in funding to five nonprofit organizations every three months.

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We’re not surprised that actor Toni Collette won an Emmy last fall for her role in the Showtime series United States of Tara. After all, the 37-year-old was the only nominee playing five different roles, the result of her title character’s multiple-personality condition, aka dissociative identity disorder. Inside the suburban wife and mother Tara Gregson also lie a promiscuous teen (T), a prim June Cleaver type (Alice), a swaggering redneck male (Buck) and an animalistic expression of her id (Gimme), all with the ability to emerge at inopportune times — trying the patience of Tara’s husband and kids.

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We admit we’re pretty hard on our toothbrushes, and we replace them even more often than the every three to four months recommended by the American Dental Association. So we were happy to hear about the Radius Source Toothbrush, which minimizes waste with replaceable heads that snap into long-lasting handles made of recycled materials. And if you’re one of the first 500 Facebook users to post a photo or video of a re-use for your old toothbrush on the Radius Earth Day Contest Facebook event page before Earth Day, you’ll receive a free Radius Source toothbrush!

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