So, who braved the stores today? There is no way you'd ever get me to go out and shop on Black Friday! I would much rather shop online, especially on Cyber Monday. I will buy anything online, I'd even buy diamonds online before I would go out to the stores!

We are still in Ohio visiting CJ's family. We leave for home tomorrow. Sunday it's back to the grind and Monday it's time to shop online!!!

Not only are there a variety of personalized holiday baby gifts at BabyStuffGifts.com, there are also these awesome plates:



If you like these and want to place an order, please submit your order by December 9th, 2011! All orders received after that date are NOT guaranteed to arrive by December 24, 2011.

Also, if you "LIKE" Baby Stuff Gifts on Facebook you will receive a coupon code for 10% off these plates, personalized baby toys and even personalized baby gift baskets - my favorite!

Have you heard of Child's Own Studio? Wendy Tsao makes toys from the pictures kids draw. I (thankfully) got my order in early enough so the kids will have these for the Holidays.

As many of you know, CJ and I both work from home as freelance writers. I've been doing this about 6 years, him, only a year. We had a really good run this last year BUT we decided that it is just too unpredictable. Yes, we always knew it would be, but not knowing what your income will be from week to week or month to month is just too draining, emotionally.

I started looking online for jobs for him and found a ton of Chef de Partie Jobs - a fancy phrase for "station chef" or "line cook" because he loves to cook AND he is good at it!

However, he decided to go back to a staffing agency he had used once before when he first moved here (from Ohio to Pennsylvania) to see where he could be placed and his years of building and repairing guitars, plus all his machining experience landed him a spot as a machine operator for C.F. Martin Guitars!

Now he is really excited to get back out into the work force!

Today is competition day for Olivia! Actually, it's the first cheering competition of the season and Northampton hosts so they won't compete, but they will still perform. She is at Jeff's right now, he has to get her ready - can't wait to see her! She has so much stuff to lug around to these things. She has one of those nice jansport backpacks but I ordered a personalized bag - it's a duffel bag that has her name embroidered on it and it is of course, black and orange!

Woke up to this:



GO NAA MINIS!!!!

Since CJ and I got married on Halloween and it was a last minute decision, our honeymoon did not to happen right away - in fact, we have decided instead of paying for diamond rings and fancy wedding bands, we would save our money and put it towards a 'Disneymoon' -and we are both so excited!

We chose March 5-9, 2012 because we just got back from Disney last month and already have a June trip booked with the kids - we wanted to go somewhere in between those trips. We are also contemplating an October 2012 trip so we are using our DVC points to the max in 2012 - which means we are paying for the March trip out of pocket.

We decided to book the Polynesian Resort. Before we became Disney Vacation Club members, we always stayed at the Poly and even though Bay Lake Tower is our home resort, the Poly will always be our "home".



We love the atmosphere at the Poly. The beach is pretty and the rooms are quiet. Here is CJ enjoying the view from our balcony at the Poly during our very first trip to Disney as a family:

Why do some people think everything you say or do is in reference to them? When do these types of  people realize they are not important and they need to move on?

Times have changed since I was in college and watching my son go off to college makes me feel a little helpless. I know there is a lot of advice that I have from my past that is applicable but a lot of it I feel like he already knows because kids are growing up so much faster these days. My son is bright kid with a good head on his shoulders and I know that he I have raised him well enough to make good decisions and not get into a lot of trouble.

However, for all of us who’ve been in college we know that sometimes you do stupid things that didn’t feel so stupid when you were actually in the act of doing them. I guess it’s part of the growing up process and I should probably just take a step back and let him spread his wings but I still get scared for him sometimes. One thing I do like about his move to college is that he will be getting his own apartment off campus so I can come and visit whenever I have free time.

The first thing we will do when he gets everything moved in is updating his clean his apartment and start making some changes to the furniture. I recently had a friend of mine tell me about Directv which made me really excited. Now I'm day dreaming about the my old college days again, those were the best times of my life.