When I was pregnant, one of my friends gave me her hand-me-down Johnny Jump Up.  She told me that when her babies were at the crawling stage and she needed to get some work done in the kitchen she would put them in the Johnny Jump Up in the kitchen doorway and let them bounce up and down while she worked.

She said that they would bounce for hours, happy as can be, and then eventually fall asleep.  Well, let me tell you that it certainly seems to be working for us!  I was amazed at how much the baby loves being in that little thing!  And it leaves me free to do a few things without worrying if the baby is crawling away and getting into mischief!  If you can get your hands on one, I highly recommend it!

Posted: November 26th, 2008 under Life.
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We’ve been invited to hubby’s boss’s house for Thanksgiving dinner this year, and my hubby accepted the invitation.  It will be nice to go and not have to worry about making such a big meal for the holiday.  I seem to have my hands full with the baby and it is hard to get a whole lot done, now that he’s crawling around and getting into everything!   I hope they let us bring leftovers home - if not I’m going to have to get a turkey breast and cook that myself so we can have some turkey here at home for sandwiches.  As far as I’m concerned the leftovers are just as great as the original meal!

Posted: November 20th, 2008 under Business, Entertainment/Fun, Family, Food and Beverage, Friends, Life.
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What kind of cartoons are today’s children watching? I had heard from my girlfriend that her kids LOVE Spongebob Squarepants so I decided to watch it for myself today.  I am shocked. This is a very strange cartoon with adult overtones and not really suitable for young children. What are the writers thinking?  They need to clean up their act if they want me to let my kid watch that show!

Posted: November 13th, 2008 under Entertainment/Fun, Life, Parenting.
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At the grocery store I was going down the cake and baking products aisle and I noticed a box mix for carrot cake by Duncan Hines. The photo on the front of the box looked extremely appealing, so on impulse I decided to buy a box and give it a try. I bought the mix last week but have not been in the mood for baking until today. So while the baby was napping this afternoon I decided to make up the carrot cake mix. It was supposed to be the complete mix - just add water, eggs and oil like all the other cake mixes. But I went ahead and added a quarter cup of chopped nuts and a cup of crushed pineapple to the batter, plus a little box of golden raisins that I had on hand.

Well, the cake is spectacular. Hubby loved it, and so do I.  I’ll be buying another box of that cake mix the next time I go shopping again!

Posted: November 7th, 2008 under Family, Food and Beverage, Life, Shopping.
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We had a couple of dozen trick or treaters last night.  I’m sure glad we had plenty of goodies to pass out!  I like to buy little party-favor type toys to pass out instead of candy.  The kids seem to get a real kick out of them, and I like to think that the parents appreciate the fact that the kids are getting less sugar, but still a nice little treat.

I was quite surprised this morning when we went outside to get the newspaper from the box and saw that the next door neighbor’s car had been egged and his house “rolled” with toilet paper!  I guess the kids didn’t like the fact that they KNEW the neighbor was home but had his front porch light off and wouldn’t answer the door when they went knocking.  It’s too bad, too, because the neighbor is nice enough; just having financial troubles and couldn’t afford to get the kids treats this year.  I’m going to try to go over and help clean up the mess when it warms up a little bit more.

Posted: November 1st, 2008 under Life.
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