If your baby won’t take a bottle, just put chocolate milk in it. Variation: If your baby won’t take a pacifier, dip it in honey. Ah, the old bait and switch. Both these pieces of advice were actually dispensed to me in the doctor’s office (by fellow patients). Do not try this at home, folks. Seriously, these are both very bad ideas even if your baby still doesn’t have any teeth to rot. First, babies usually don’t need bottles or pacifiers – in fact, introducing [...]

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Tomorrow, June 2, is National Hunger Awareness Day: what are you doing to address hunger in your community? Isabelle has been quite enjoying our little vegetable growing project – while growing it herself hasn’t induced her to actually eat lettuce, she’s pretty into it and so am I. Thanks to my friend, Rosemary (@sufficiency) I heard about the Plant A Row/Grow A Row project where gardeners plant an extra row to donate to the hungry. Sounded like a great little project for us – and [...]

Our LLL Annual Garage & Bake Sale is coming up this weekend and I need some fresh ideas on what to make. My old standby is the cream scone loosely adapted from the Joy of Cooking and some of my mom’s Mincemeat Bran Muffins (I call them Raisin Spice for marketing purposes – learned that the first year). Mom’s Mincemeat Muffins (makes 22-24 muffins) 2 eggs3/4 cup vegetable oil2/3 cup brown sugar2 cups buttermilk/sour cream1 1/2 cups mincemeat1 1/4 cups All-Bran Cereal2 cups all purpose [...]

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So I was all ready to build Isabelle a castle cake for her birthday – when she tells me firmly that she wants a princess crown cake. Hmmm… ok – change of plans then. I was feeling particularly pressured to produce a stellar cake because a. she’s five and b. since we just got back the day before her birthday and I forgot that many bakeries are closed on Mondays, I ended up showing up to her class with No Frills-purchased cupcakes (hang head in [...]

Neat and easy ‘hamburger’ cake.

It’s birthday season at our house – starting February, one of us has a birthday every month. Tom’s 2nd birthday has snuck up on me – I’ve been much more focussed on Isabelle’s Valentine’s and planning her birthday. He doesn’t really have any independent friends and let’s be honest, when you’re two, more kids is really just more competition for toys and treats. So, we’ll be doing something pretty low-key with some friends and family… which suits me fine.The only trick is that when our [...]

As promised, here’s the finished product for Isabelle’s 4th birthday: her mermaid princess cake (who knew I would end up with a girly girl?). I’m pretty proud of it – it turned out to be quite the centerpiece. Plus we got to hack a Barbie doll in half, so two good causes were achieved. www.doudoubebe.com