We have 10 ourselves, but we are good friends with a few other families who also have 10. We know quite a few families with at least 7. Most of them homeschool, and most of them are military, like us. I think having medical care often means military families feel free to have more children, especially Christian families. I think 10 is a pretty common number to stop at, for big families. We have a 17 year spread, so our oldest was starting his senior year when we had our youngest. It was getting harder for me to stretch at both ends of the age spectrum, so it made sense to be done. I was 41 at the time and knew there probably wouldn't be too many more. I didn't really want to have more once my oldest went to college.

No, you can major in whatever and still be in ROTC. The list is specifically for AFROTC, and those majors are preferred for the scholarships they hand out before high school graduation. You could major in underwater basket weaving, register for ROTC classes as a non-contracted student, and then apply for a "sideload" scholarship from the detachment for later years. I don't believe Army ROTC cares at all about major. It seems to me that my sons AROTC scholarship friends have all sorts of different majors.

Yeah, I was going to say, marry the son of an alcoholic. My dh is, and he never drinks. He saw the effects it had on his dad and his family, and he figured he probably had the propensity, genetically, to become dependent, so he just doesn't drink. Unfortunately, he still has some of the baggage from growing up in that family. 😓 I don't drink, so it works out well. I've never found any alcohol that I have enjoyed drinking. I'm like your daughter--I can't stand the smell or the taste, so I'm not remotely tempted. My oldest son does drink some, once he turned 21 a year ago. He is at a senior military college, and I think it can be a big part of the Corps there. I would say there are definitely men I know who were bigger drinkers in college, and then really slowed down or stopped after they graduated. I know a lot of people who rarely, if ever, drink, and it's definitely not a part of our social circle. I'm sure your daughter will be able to find someone! It's not a unicorn thing, I really don't think--at least once college is over.

I can definitely relate to the moms you are talking about. I've been homeschooling for 18 years. My oldest 2 are in college (electrical engineering majors and very successful), and I homeschooled them all the way through. My good friend and I created a small junior high and high school co-op of about 5 families when we lived in VA, and that co-op was definitely the reason for my older kids' successes. It's pretty impossible, at least for me, to do all things well in high school, and I think you are going to have to outsource some things or band together with people who are gifted in areas where you are not. My kids never liked online classes, so we only did a handful of them. Then we moved to Ohio one year ago, and in some ways, it was a relief to me to get away from the co-op, just because it was so stressful to be teaching a junior high and a high school science course each year, plus memory work for the younger kids and sometimes Latin (my parts of the co-op). It was taking 2 days a week, with labs, to do the teaching. I felt like my younger kids were missing out on time with me, and I was so exhausted and burnt out. My moving led to many changes. My good friend ended up putting her 2 remaining high school kids in public school, which really was the best thing for them. The older one is very gifted musically (guitar), and he was able to have many, many more opportunities through the school than he was able to homeschooling. The younger one has a difficult personality, and having other teachers and classmates has been good, plus he can play football (homeschoolers can't play on public school teams in VA). She is still homeschooling her youngest, a daughter. I am still homeschooling, but my oldest 2 at home are dual-enrolling at the CC. I'm outsourcing more classes for my junior high girls. And I still have 4 elementary aged kids I am trying to teach. I'm still just feeling so tired and burnt out. It's like I just have no margin for anything anymore. I even outsourced science classes for my junior high girls, and a few years ago, I could never have imagined that. I'm sure my classes are way more rigorous! I don't even *like* Apologia books! But I just can't right now. I need a breather. My oldest daughter (8th grade) is really gifted athletically, and she is running with the local public school team here. She is also feeling the pull of being with the friends she is making on the team. I'm not inclined to put her in the public school, but she may run with the local Christian school and take a few classes there in high school. As I think ahead to when my younger kids are approaching high school, I can not say with 100% certainty that I'll still be homeschooling them. There's a few excellent Christian schools around here, and maybe we'll try them. I don't know. Or maybe I'll be rejuvenated and re-inspired! Whatever I decide, I am sure I will not be enthusiastically cheering my choice. I would hate being tied to a formal school schedule, and I think there is soooo much busywork in school. I despise all the extra things that I see my friends post pictures of (Leprechaun traps, 100 day things, crazy whatever day)--I don't have time nor interest for that. But on the other hand, I need to be able to exercise. And my brain is just fried. Fourteen more years seems like an eternity. I'm just worn down and tired. I don't even have particularly difficult kids or any with special needs! It's just a long haul. Give grace to your friends, especially the ones with large families! I found it MUCH easier back when I just had a bunch of little kids. I was in control of the schedule, and I decided what was important. Now everything matters more, for the older kids, and there's just a lot to keep track of., leading to the mental exhaustion I'm feeling.

I love them too! His dad was one of my high school teachers.

I just made a cookbook for my 2 college boys of easy family recipes, since they are both living in apartments this year, I formatted it in a word doc (2 columns per page, recipes in alphabetical order per section), printed it out, and used a binder with plastic sleeves to put the pages in. I put in extra plastic sleeves in the back for when they want to add more recipes. I used clip art to make a sheet to put in the front of the binder, and I also used dividers for the different types of recipes (soups, main dishes, breads, sides, desserts). My boys were very happy! You can definitely put all text on pages in Shutterfly though. Look for how you can change the page layouts and find the option to "add a text box". You can delete the picture boxes and make the text box the whole page. I used Shutterfly to make yearbooks for our small high school co-op for several years, and I know I did this somehow when I was describing a field trip or something like that, and all the pictures were on the other side of the page layout. I just can't remember exactly how, and my own personal books I used Snapfish for, so that's where I remember the process a little better, lol.

I used that book, along with the workbook, when I taught anatomy and physiology a few years ago. I used the 4th edition, and it was really cheap and easy to find. The book was clear and readable at a high school level. I was very pleased with it, and we had a great time in the class!

No, we took the ball part out. The base is supposed to be for you to drive a scooter or maybe a riding lawnmower up onto, so there's a ramp on one side (that flips up when not being used as a ramp), and then a flat base with a slight lip around it. It has a long square part that fits into the hitch with a pin to secure it. Bob just bought some longer pieces of metal to construct 2 more corners, with pieces connecting those corners to the existing ramp corners. We have another thing, a big "Stow-Away" box that we use when camping, that also hooks into our hitch the same way--a long square part and then a pin to hold it in. This is the sort of thing he used, but ours was cheaper--about $100. I think he got it from Lowes, but we're off to church, so this is the first thing that showed up in my search! 😊

We have 6 kayaks--2 adult-sized red ones, and 4 kid-sized yellow ones. My dh invented this ingenious carrier for them whose base is a trailer thing (but it doesn't actually go on the ground) that goes into our hitch. I blogged about it several years ago, back before we bought the second adult sized one. It's easy to get onto the back of the big van, and I can load the kayaks by myself, although it's easier if a kid helps me. Here is a post where I have pictures.

Lol, I always call them jailhouse windows, because that's what they remind me of, but that has nothing to do with how the windows actually operate! 😂

I just did this on our house in VA that we are selling. I googled and found people recommending Resolve (the carpet cleaner), so that's what I used. I sprayed it on several lines of grout, waited several minutes, and then used a toothbrush to scrub, but it wasn't as hard as it had been before just using some vinegar concoction. Then I would use a wet cloth to wipe off the residue. I was quite happy with the results!

Yes, we got our power back on late Wednesday night, and we moved back into our house yesterday. A group from Be Hope Church knocked on our door with chainsaws, rakes, tarps to drag stuff on, etc. this afternoon, and they completely cleared our front and back yards in about 35 minutes. It was amazing!! They cleared away a linden tree in the front, and a huge pine tree, an apple tree, and the top 15 feet of a spruce tree (that we thought was from our next door neighbor's tree but turns out to have been from our neighbor 2 houses down and across the street 😲), as well as random huge branches that were strewn across the yard. They have been so totally the hands and feet of Christ in our neighborhood, and they were such blessings to us! Our 17 year old isn't going to recognize our yard when he comes home from work tonight! 😄

I'm back! Our neighborhood in Beavercreek was directly hit. It looks like a war zone, honestly. It is an older neighborhood, built primarily in the 70s, with so many mature trees. Those are pretty much all gone, and the ones that are left have their tops branches broken off, or all the leaves stripped off them. The skyline is very different to look at. Our house didn't fare too badly. We have a big hole in our roof, plus lots of siding, gutters, and fascia off, etc. A big pine tree crushed our shed, and part of our maple tree destroyed our fence. Our next door neighbor had a big 40 ft. pine tree. The top 15 feet or so snapped off and sailed into our back yard. There's just so many downwd trees. We also lost an apple tree in our back yard, which was uprooted, and our big tree in front, which just sheared off a ragged stump. One of our minivans had the side windows shatter all over the driveway and the interior. I don't know how anyone would ever be able to sit in there again. I told the kids they must never ever, under any circumstance, walk on our driveway again without shoes, because even though I tried to sweep up all the glass shards, I know I couldn't get them all. Same with our yard. We had some windows break, although just the outer layer (dh and I were laughing that it was good to have very inefficient old windows so none shattered, like happened with many of our neighbors, lol), and I'm sure there are still glass shards in the yard, plus all the roofing nails everywhere. It's a mess. Our big van didn't look like it was damaged, but something happened to it because it no longer starts. We had it towed off today to be looked at, and we're praying it's not a hugely expensive problem. With our other minivan having shattered windows, we are down to one car, but friends who are out of town for 10 days kindly let us drive one of their cars, so at least dh can get himself off to work, and I can deal with swim practices, getting our 17 year old to work, etc. We had just returned from 4 days of camping in MD with a lot of our homeschooling friends from VA. We drove in at 7:00 PM, not thinking a thing about weather. I was so glad we went ahead and got everything unloaded right away so at least all the camping gear was safely in the garage! Then we were trying to get everyone showered and loads of laundry started. I had finished 2 loads, had another in the dryer, and one more in the washer when we got the first NWS alert a little before 11:00. I pretty much ignored it because I thought all the bad storms were supposed to be north of I-70. Then a few minutes later my mom (who lives a few streets over) called to say their neighbors, who are in a one story house, had made it over to their basement with their 2 little kids, and that we really should be in our "basement". (We are in a tri-level, so the basement is still partially above-grade.) So I went ahead and woke up dh, who was already asleep, plus the 3 littles, and got everyone else down to the basement. Fortunately, since we had just been camping, I totally knew right where the flashlights and camping lanterns were in the garage, so I grabbed them too. I put the little kids on a futon right under the window in the basement, and the rest of us were just hanging out there. I texted my mom at about 11:15 to ask if the NWS would let us know when the danger was past, because it seemed like the storm was moving off. As soon as I sent it, the lights started flickering and then went out, and it was not quiet anymore. Everything was crashing around upstairs, and the pressure was very weird. I yelled for everyone to get into the bathroom, and all 10 of us, plus our Newfoundland, squeezed in there! The dog was in the shower stall, lol. We waited there for awhile, but then we didn't have any cell service after that, so I couldn't figure out when things were safe! Eventually we emerged, and went outside to see what we could see of the damage. It looked a lot worse in the morning! All day Tuesday my phone (Verizon) really didn't work in the neighborhood, and it was pretty impossible to get out, with trees and power lines blocking entrances. I could receive texts, so I got all these texts from friends in VA and our 2 oldest sons, but I couldn't respond to them! I couldn't make or receive calls either, so that was so frustrating. Eventually in the afternoon I was able to send super short texts, so at least people knew we were okay! We ended up staying with friends for 2 nights, since it was miserable without power and hot water. We moved back in yesterday. It's going to take awhile to clean everything up, and of course, we'll be getting a new roof and siding. There's a constant noise of heavy trucks, chainsaws, etc. outside, and you can still hardly get down out streets with all the vehicles there. It's been crazy. Our church is sending a group over to help tomorrow with the trees. I'm hoping we can get a lot done. The city is picking up tree pieces as long as they are cut in 6 ft. sections and put by the road. These are big trees, though, so the sections will be so heavy! I'm a little overwhelmed by it all. Many other groups have offered help, but I know there are so many older retired couples in this neighborhood that can't do any of it, and there are so many poorer areas of Dayton that were hit, so we definitely want the help to go where it is most needed first. It has been so amazing to see volunteers out here, passing out water and food, helping with trees, doing all sorts of things. It really is neat to see. I was telling my kids yesterday that now I've survived an emergency plane landing and an F-3 tornado! I'm hoping not to add any more scenarios to my list though. 😆

Ugh, I hate wallpaper. We're still looking at houses, so that whenever our VA house sells, we can move into a bigger one here. If there is any wallpaper (more than like one bathroom), then it's pretty much an automatic no for me. We're in a 1970's tri-level now, with wallpaper in one bathroom and in the kitchen. The wallpaper is fairly neutral, but still. It's peeling in the bathroom, and I just greatly dislike it.

Athletics is super important, but they don't necessarily have to be varsity athletes. There are quite a few states that don't allow homeschoolers to be on their public school teams. VA is another one. And in some areas, the high schools are so enormous that very few people have the opportunity to be varsity athletes, and those that are, are probably being recruited by bigger name (and less academic) schools than academies. In that case, the academies expect the candidates to show leadership and initiative in finding other ways to pursue athletic things--clubs, running on their own and doing 5ks, doing a club sport like martial arts, etc. I would say most people who go to the academies or do ROTC are athletes, but not recruited athletes in their sports. They're well-rounded and athletic. I think for homeschoolers not on varsity teams, the candidate physical fitness test scores become even more important. You can study the different areas and work to max out each score. Some parts, like the basketball toss, are kind of weird, and watching a few youtube videos and practicing the technique goes a long way to improving the scores. You don't want to just hit the minimums, but rather max everything out. Also, having to find other ways to do sports is an excellent subject of an essay about obstacles you've overcome, lol.

It's a whole different application. If your son applies to the Academy, then he will have to do all the USAFA admissions stuff, plus apply for nominations from his senators as well as his representative. And then, as backup, he'll apply to civilian schools, as well as for the ROTC scholarship, if his goal is military service, as opposed to just going to the Academy. As others have said, many get turned down. My oldest ds is the son and grandson of Academy grads. He was triple nominated (senator, representative, and Presidential) in a very competitive district (VA-10)--but he was not appointed, although he did get an appointment from West Point. That's why your son has to be prepared with a plan B. My ds went to Virginia Tech as a part of the Corps of Cadets, on a 4-year AF ROTC scholarship. He's been very successful there and really loved his experience. And he met the woman who is now his fiancee! 😍

I saw this video earlier this week on facebook and shared it. I just loved their joy, enthusiasm, and faith! It was so beautiful and encouraging to me!

Where do you find all these movies? We're dong AP Psych this year, and movies didn't really occur to me because I am most definitely *not* a movie person. We watched "What About Bob" a few weeks ago, just for something fun, but not really thinking about dissecting it or anything, lol. But I know my boys would enjoy watching some of these. I'm not up on how to get movies though. Sometimes they stream them on Prime, but are those all more recent movies? I'm especially interested in the older ones. Where do you find those?

Fleishmann's margarine that is pareve is also dairy-free. We had to use that for our son with dairy allergies before Earth Balance was something we knew about.

We have a 2007 Toyota Sienna (an 8-seater) that I absolutely love driving. It has 175,000 miles on it, but we've had no problems with it. Wait--we had to replace a water pump maybe 3 years ago, On Dec. 21, my newly-permitted 15 year old ds was driving with my dh, and a girl rear-ended him (he was stopped at a traffic light) because her brakes failed. She probably was going 35 mph, and because she realized she wasn't stopping, she turned her jeep to the side, but she couldn't avoid hitting the minivan. So now there's a "v" in the back hatch door and bumper, so the hatch doesn't open, but that's the only damage. It took forever to get the insurance claim going for weird reasons all involving her, but finally her insurance decided to total our van, saying it was only worth $4300, and repairs would cost $3500. My dh really spent many hours trying to understand how they got their figures, and fighting them, and finally they agreed to pay us I think $5700, so his hard work was not in vain. BUT I really don't want to give up this van. We have lots of kids, and we need cheap, reliable vehicles, not new, expensive-to-insure ones. The damage is only cosmetic, so now, thanks to Janeway's thread, we have been talking about what if we "bought back" the car from them (which burns my grits to even say) and had it repaired and inspected. I know we would have a salvage title. Does the inspector even care if we fix the back at all, since it's not a safety/road-worthiness issue if the hatch doesn't open? I know insurance will take $1600 off the price, because that's what they say it is worth for salvage (although junk yards laughed at that amount when dh called them directly and asked . . .). I guess I'm just trying to see if people think we're crazy for even thinking about such a thing. The Sienna has been such a great car. We have an 8-seat 2015 Honda Odyssey, but I definitely do not like that car as much as I like this Sienna. I can't believe Toyota did such a moronic redesign so that their "8th seat" no longer really is one (or at least wasn't when we looked back in 2015). We really can't replace this van with one like it. We still have a lot of years transporting a lot of people plus a big dog, so I like having lots of seat options. And this van we know is reliable, unlike some used one we pick up (costing way more than what the insurance will give us, grrr) at a used car dealer. Sigh. I hate insurance companies. This is such a scam. I wish they would just write us a little check.

You know, I had thought this was a done deal, but I asked dh about it again today. I think he hasn't wanted to bother with getting it inspected at an Ohio State Patrol inspection place (an hour away) and dealing with the salvage title. But I'm going to start a new thread and ask if anyone has done this . . .

Ah, I am so sorry, and I really do understand. We have a 2009 SIenna with 175,000 miles on it. I love driving it, it is also an 8-seater, and it's just been the best car. But a girl whose brakes failed rear-ended it the end of December, and insurance totaled it. We've been back and forth with them, trying to raise the value, so that it wouldn't be totaled. Although the insurance company is now giving us about $1500 more than they originally said, it's still not enough to have them not total it. And even if we "bought it back" at their ridiculous price (i.e., they would take $1600 back from what they were giving us because that's what they supposedly would get from scrapping it) and dealt with fixing it, and getting it inspected so it could be driven with the salvaged title, it just wasn't worth it. I am thinking all sorts of bad thoughts about this girl's insurance company, for sure. I literally cried when I realized we were having to give it up. It took a long time for the insurance thing to be settled, so they haven't picked it up yet, but I think they will this week. I don't want to shop for cars. This car was faithful, and I loved it. I'm still torn up about it, honestly. So know that I am right there, sympathizing with you! May a reliable car drop into both our laps!

Well, with 10 kids, I am definitely one of the ones you are talking about! Although 2 kids are in college, and our oldest still-at-home son is usually working at dinner time, so that just means 7 kids a lot of the time, which seems small to me . . . lol. I don't expect to get invited anywhere for dinner, but people (good friends and family) definitely do. It's usually a big pot of soup or chili and baked potatoes or something else easy and scalable, if that makes sense. And I certainly offer to bring stuff. Usually I invite people over to eat, though, because it is very easy for me to make large amounts of food (I do it every day!), and I have all the big pots/pans etc. and can easily add some more people to the meal count. We stopped doing individual birthday parties for kids long, long ago because I absolutely could not deal with tons of little presents coming in all throughout the year. In VA, we would sign up to bring dessert at our weekly Bible study near a child's birthday, and the birthday kid got to pick what dessert I would make and bring, and everyone there would sing. Then at home, we would have the child's special dinner (whatever he picked out to have), maybe a cake or at least ice cream or something, and open presents from us (usually just 2 or 3). So I would not have any issue with anyone not getting my kids gifts! No more stuff! Now we have moved to Ohio, and we are living close to both my parents, and my aunt and uncle. I have really appreciated how they spend time with different units of kids--they will have the 3 youngest over to play at their house for a few hours, or they will watch a movie with the middle kids, and they will take an older kid or 2 out to dinner. Like previous people have said, it's not the same thing for each child, but each child feels very loved by them individually. Honestly, i know several members of DH's family think of our kids as one amorphous unit and don't really know them individually. I am certainly glad we didn't worry about what they thought or their potential relationships when we kept having kids, lol. We have been very blessed to have lots of very good friends as well as other family members decide my kids were worth investing in and getting to know, even though there are a lot of them, and it's led to very fruitful and positive relationships. So hopefully if you aren't up to the challenge, there will be others in your nieces' and nephews' lives that will be!

Could you just suggest that they divide college resources evenly by family? That way each child in your family would get less, but your family would get an equal amount. I don't know from experience though--neither of our extended families have helped us financially. And even though my husband came from a family of 6, his family still thought we were crazy for having so many--"Why don't you stop?! You're not even Catholic!" was their direct quote. My parents were supportive theoretically ("Children are all a blessing"), but as I was one of only 2 kids, they really couldn't fathom why we kept having kids either, lol. But we pretty much didn't ask or care about other's opinions, and I am glad for that! (And I think it's hilarious that 4 is such a potentially shocking number! 😂)

We will hopefully be buying a house later on this year . . . Last summer we bought a house in Ohio, and we moved here (from northern VA) in August. But we knew that houses in our (old) neighborhood really don't sell well after about June, so we didn't rush to get the house ready. In fact, we had lived there for 14 years, with 10 kids, so the amount of stuff and minor wear/tear/damage was overwhelming. My girls ran cross-country with their VA team in the fall (they did the workouts during the week in Ohio on their own, and then we drove back to VA for meets) so that gave us opportunities to pack up stuff we didn't get around to packing up before the moving truck came, as well as start on all the repairs. Finally we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the VA house, and the hardwood in getting refinished this week, then painting, then carpet, and hopefully we will list the beginning of April . . The house we bought here in Ohio is really small compared to our VA house (2200 sq. ft. instead of almost 5000), and it just doesn't work well for us, long-term, but we could afford it as well as the VA house. So when (if??) the VA house sells, we will look around for a bigger house here and rent out this one. Since the base is really close, hopefully that won't be a problem. I've continued getting emails with new listings since last spring, and to be honest, there are just a lot of small ranches with no basements, or tri-levels in this area, and they just aren't big enough for us long-term. I want a place where kids can come home too--but we still have 8 kids still at home, so I'd like at least 5 bedrooms, a big kitchen/eating area (we have a 10-foot table), and a basement. Ideally, I'd want a main-floor master, so we could age in place here. Houses like that are further south than we want to go, because we'd like to stay relatively close to my parents. But in some ways I'm glad the "perfect" house hasn't come on the market yet, since we aren't in a position to do anything about it anyway! Hopefully this summer though . . .