Alison Sweeney

Alison Sweeney: When we're having eliminations, sometimes you can smell the Craft Services guy making grilled cheese or, like, bacon. And you know bacon. You can smell bacon. And we're sitting there and we're all being so silent and so serious in the eimination room. And I'm like "We all know there's bacon being cooked in the next room!"

Alison: [On people knowing she was pregnant] As I joked with Ari on set last week, I'm glad everyone knows now, because now they all have to listen to me complain about Morning Sickness. Its been so difficult to deal with the nausea when you can't explain why you can't stand the smell of chicken.

Alison Sweeney: [On learning an Irish accent for 'Days of Our Lives] Accents are extremely difficult… for anyone. No matter what their heritage. My family is from Ireland, which is fun to think back on… and I have been to Ireland once, which was one of the coolest experiences ever. It is so beautiful there. I hope to go back one day. But none of that was at all useful to me in learning this accent. It just came down to spending hours studying, practicing and then more studying. Ben is now read all his bed-time stories with an Irish lilt.

Alison: My hat goes off to people who have two jobs all year round.

Alison Sweeney: (On Scott Reeves' band) Blue County, is just amazing. I am their #1 fan. If you like country music, you have to get their album! Also, they have a new single available on iTunes called 'I Get To', and it's got such a great message.

Alison Sweeney: I almost over-cooked dinner because I was all carried away with finishing my blog.

Alison Sweeney: (On filming arguments between Lucas and Sami) Bryan and I always enjoy Lumi's bickering especially when the writers really include the history of the characters.

Alison: I come home and I try to spend time with my son and figure out dinner, and then towards the end of the evening I try to… I like to know ahead of time how much I think its going to take me to memorize my dialogue.

Alison: I felt a new appreciation for my mother now that I am a mom. I understood so much more about how difficult it is. And, it was really neat for me to spend my first Mother's Day as a mom with my mom and to let her know how important she is to me and how lucky I was to have such a great mom.

Alison: Dave and I love to entertain. We love to have barbeques and friends over and family. I just love being able to say 'Oh yes, I just made scones yesterday, I have them in my pantry.'

Alison: (on her surprise purchase of a new house) Dave and I walked in the front door and we were immediately caught by the square-footage. It's a huge house and the living room has this beautiful raised ceiling and the light is coming in from tons of different windows.

Alison: (on her "Days of Our Lives" character, Sami) I love that Sami is really aggressive and doesn't give up. If she has a goal or an ambition, she goes after it. She needs other things in her life. If her goal was school or a career, the audience would cheer her on, but because it's her love life, they think she is selfish.

Alison: (on the support of 'Days of Our Lives' co-star Deidre Hall) I think Deidre could see that I was interested and eager to learn. So she was always receptive, always helpful, and definately someone I knew I could turn to. She'd offer advice, or give me an open-ended invitation to grill her with any question I had.

Alison: Everyone in the SafeSearching community are such fun, supportive people and it makes it such a pleasure to post and share my life and my work.

Alison: (on planning her son's birthday party) I'm trying not to be one of those mothers who goes completely over-board on the birthday party scene.

Alison: I am a ridiculously competitive person, and I'm not afraid to admit it! My friends always tease me about how I don't play any game just to play; I play to win.

Alison: My mom started riding horses when she was a little girl, so when I was little, she would take me with her to the barn where she rode. Unfortunately, it became clear that I had a strong allergy to horses, but I loved horses so much that I took allergy medicine to help me get through the lessons!

Alison: I've always thought of myself as being 'cute,' not 'sexy'. I'm a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal.

Alison: I have pretty wacky dreams. Way too often, I dream about work - nightmares about being late or forgetting all my lines. One time, I dreamt that I couldn't find my dressing room, and everyone was laughing of me.

Alison: (on what she enjoys getting for Valentine's Day) Beautiful flowers. And send them to work. I don't know any woman who wouldn't want to get them at work in front of all her friends.

Alison: (on her worst Valentine's Day) I had one boyfriend who had planned to take me to a restaurant for dinner and didn't know it would be busy that night. So, we get there, and it's totally booked up. We had the biggest fight because he had not planned at all and didn't have a backup plan. We had a disagreement on the street. I was like, 'Let's go to Jack In The Box because I'm hungry.'

Alison: Oh my gosh. I actually got a copy of Romeo and Juliet with pictures of me and James on the cover. It also said "Written by Hogan Sheffer." It was beautifully done! But the "Lumi" fans have also sent these great Lucas and Sami Christmas ornaments to us.

Alison: (on co-star James Scott) He is very good looking, with that James Bond thing he has going on.

Alison: (on Sami's plotlines throughout the years) The most frustrating thing is that there was no growth in my character. I am not opposed to Sami being a scheming villainess, but everybody learns from their mistakes. How much public humiliation can Sami suffer through before you think to yourself, "Maybe I shouldn't keep doing this."

Alison: (on whether she will write another book) Definitely! I always joke that in the next 27 years of my life I'll write another one.

Alison: Yeah, my mom thought it would be really cute for me to do a commercial when I was like four years old, and I fell in love with it. I had so much fun. It was something I was good at, and I always had a very vivacious, outgoing personality when I was a kid.

Alison: (on how having a child has changed her life) Oh, it's changed everything. First of all, having a child just totally changes your priorities in general. He is my first priority. As aggressive as I am and business minded, and I have all these sort of, I guess, dreams and ideas and stuff I'm really trying to work on, and it's really fun and I love my career, but it definitely takes a back seat to my relationship with my son. It gives me a whole new perspective and motivation to go out there and do good work. But at the same time it's all for him now rather than thinking about other stuff.

Alison: I feel when you're working as a soap actor, there's no real time for you to have attitude or to be young. I learned that right away that you can't be a kid here. When you're working on a show that does at least a complete show every day, and you have to know 30 pages of dialogue a day, then be ready to come in tomorrow and do the same thing again, nobody really wants you to be in the limelight entertaining yourself and messing around.

Alison: Being married is more wonderful than I could ever imagine.

Alison: I didn't go on a lot of dates or have a lot of boyfriends until I was twenty-one, I suppose.

Alison: (On her character of Sami Brady) You can't say she's randomly evil. Everyone knows Sami and whether you love her or hate her, it's fun to watch.

Alison: I was absolutely pressured by an entire industry to lose weight.

Alison: It's hard not to have chemistry with a very good-looking man.

Alison: (on playing a character that was pregnant on "Days Of Our Lives") It was creepy to think that this is going to happen to me someday. It was so soap: to go through four days of labor and then have a C-section.

Alison: At 16, I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm on Days of Our Lives.' Looking back, I can admit it was more the thrill of my job that kept me working at it. I've gotten past the novelty of being on TV. I've worked a lot all my life, but it was a sign that I was finally succeeding, and that was what kept me going.

Alison: (on the store 'Intuition') It's one of my favorite stores in L.A. I love their cute summer clothes and new jewelry designer Saylor Sage's necklaces.

Alison: Friends was so fun! Matt and Jennifer were awesome to work with. I liked being "funny" for a change.

Alison: (on hosting "The Biggest Loser") They approached me out of the blue. I'm really excited about it. I love the show! I definitely haven't been shy talking about my weight issues. I hope that does make me an emphatic and supportive host.