A Pantry Full of...

Yes, that's right. Baby food. For the first three months of V eating solids, we mostly made our own, but as our schedules got more hectic and her palate diversified, it got more difficult and convenience won out. That's where this picture comes in.

Babies R Us had a huge sale on Earth's Best Organic baby food last week. 20 for $10. The cheapest I have ever seen it anywhere else is 69 cents a jar so I was ecstatic. It helped that I had several coupons making several of the jars free. I left the store with 78 jars of baby food. The bottom shelf of our cupboard now looks like the baby food section of Target, but that's okay. From left to right, we have breakfast, grains and fruits, fruits, veggie/fruit combos, veggies, entrees (meaning things such as rice and lentils, green bean casserole, etc.), and soups. Yes, I am a little OCD about how my cabinets are arranged. Part of this comes from working at Kmart during my high school years and having to straighten shelves for hours on end. Part of this comes from working in a lab now. If you looked at the rest of my house you would never guess how organized I can be. Anyway, we are hoping this is the last of the baby food we will be buying, since V has been eating more of what we are eating now.

She also has really enjoyed the teething biscuits that Earth's Best makes. (I know, I sound like a commercial for the company, but they really do make great products.) Here she is enjoying one now:

In fact, she loves them so much that she is only allowed to eat them in the highchair because otherwise she gives the dog a bite between bites of her own. Speak of the devil, it's nap time. Teething biscuits can't take care of all her tears. :) (Although sharing a popsicle with daddy seems to. )

Tandem

It has taken me WAY too long to get this book review out, but here it finally is. It seems that whenever I have thought about writing it, I've been at work or someplace that hasn't allowed me to post to my blog. So here it is...

I've sort of been on a fiction kick lately, and after reading the synopsis for the book Tandem, by Tracey Bateman, I thought I would send away for it. When I received the book in the mail, however, I was a little disappointed. I could tell from the cover it was going to be about vampires, which had not been mentioned at all in the blurb on the Blogging for Books website. I wasn't in the mood for another Twilight knockoff, especially some poorly done Christian one, but I decided to give it a chance anyway.

The main storyline was semi-interesting; there are ritual killings going on in a small town and no one knows who the killer is. I thought it would be fairly difficult to deal with vampires in a Christian novel without it coming off as stupid or cheesy, but Bateman does a fair job of it. There are a few minor storylines that need more development. Apparently there is a prequel, Thirsty, and if you didn't read that there are parts that aren't detailed enough to make much sense. Toward the end there is a section that seems like it was just kind of thrown in to wrap up some loose ends with a few characters; it wasn't really satisfying to me. The part that bothered me the most though was the relationship between the main character, Lauryn, who is an unbeliever, and Billy, a preacher's kid who has just returned from the mission field. Bateman seems to not have a problem with a believer pursuing a romantic relationship with an unbeliever at all. I am not comfortable with this being promoted by a Christian author when I have seen it cause so many problems in real life amongst people I know.

One thing I really appreciated about this book was the attention it gives to Alzheimer patients and what their families go through. Lauryn has to take care of her dad all by herself (she has no other family to help) and the author paints a good picture of the physical, mental, and emotional toll it takes on her as her dad's Alzheimers gets worse . This wasn't enough to redeem the book for me, however.

If you're interested in previewing this book, you can download chapter one for free.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

And the winner is...

ME! Last week, I entered several giveaways on the BabyBuys blog. This isn't unusual for me; I enter giveaways on Moneysaving Mom, Bakerella, and other blogs I follow. However, this is the first time I've won something...and what did I win??

Okay, so BK isn't the greatest restaurant to win a giftcard to; the point is, I won something! If nothing else, I won ten dollars worth of sodas. :) The card came in the mail today.

It encourages me to continue entering these giveaways. Who knows, maybe next time I'll win the iPad or the $500 giftcard to Target!