In order of frequency Water Goat's milk OJ Decaf Iced Tea (Hey, I'm a southern girl) Water was a great choice for us because they are wonderful about drinking water now.

I think it is something each family must decide for themselves. My husband and I are both preacher's kids and were raised with a Sabbath rest mentality. We try to limit our Sunday activities to church- or worship-related. We won't miss a church service for a sports game and unfortunately, there was no way to know in advance if the kid's games would be scheduled during a morning or evening service time (they have games ALL DAY long on Sunday). So we've not participated. It is also why my children cannot participate in a second fencing practice each week. It falls on Wednesday night and we have church.

All depends on air quality here, but that is true even when my kids are not sick. However, if they have been sick (usually respiratory), I won't let them out on even a moderately poor air quality day.

I use a simple 18x24 inch white board that gets put up. The kids have individual-sized ones. Calendar? We have a calendar up in the kitchen but it is just a normal wall calendar. This year we all decided on the Elements one.

Exactly. And the point is that is should be up to the institution to decide. That is what religious freedom is all about.

Our group doesn't really limit field trips by age unless the location requests an age-cut off or limits the numbers. One that comes to mind was the juvenile court house. The judge said 12 and up (understandable given what they discussed). But the vast majority of our field trips include babies in strollers all the way up to teenagers. I wouldn't have had a problem with a 6th grader going on a K-3 trip to the grocery store if they were polite and well-behaved. They may have even been helpful. The mother went about it the wrong way though. Her attitude unfortunately is common. I frequently run into homeschool parents who think rules don't apply to them.

I personally wouldn't even try and come up with a number. That's God's business, not mine. Our population is what it is.

I agree 100%

Coconut Ginger Curry

It is VERY tough to find books that do what you want because most evolution books sound like the below quote. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. I finally gave up when I realized every children's evolution book I'd found didn't encourage real thinking. They just stated the science catechism and expected you to revere it.

The option of "personality at that moment" kinda cracks me up. Are any of us married still to what that man or woman was BACK THEN? It's been 17yrs. My husband and I are very different from our 25 and 21 year old selves. We change every day and every day we wake up and say the same thing, "Today, I decide to love you." "Soul" doesn't quite capture it either. I married a flesh and blood man with a personality and a spirit. I'm committed to him. Period. I'm not committed to just his looks or his personality or to some nebulous spirit. I married all of him. And as he changes, I change. As I change, he changes. We are one. Anything else is beyond my reckoning.

My husband and I had the exact same response. Neither of us would hope that we'd take that route with a disabled spouse. We believe in married until literal physical death parts us. We have a friends who have no qualms about saying they'd divorce each other if one of them came down with Alzheimer and was institutionalized. That BLOWS our minds. My husband actually responded with, "Man, it makes me glad you are not...so-in-so (the friend we know would divorce her husband)." That said, the story is a very sad one. We feel compassion for this family and realize that decisions are a lot harder to make when you are actually living through that kind of a trial.

And I understand how frustrating it can be to have your faith mocked. ;) That gets very old.

Actually I don't get this. Wouldn't it be just as easy to argue that it is good for those who are offended by Christ to drop the usage of Christ in words such as Christmas? At least they aren't breaking the 4th Commandment by using the name in vain. I sometimes feel like its danged if ya do and danged if ya don't. A nonchristian offends folks if they use Jesus' name and they offend folks if they don't. I'd love for people to treat Christ's name with respect. I'd love for Christians to realize that it is much more of a violation of the 4th commandment to slap the title Christian on a health,wealth, and prosperity book than it is to write xian in a tweet.

My favorite is a slice of good quality crusty bread, slice of tomato, and gouda cheese. Slide under the broiler for a few minutes. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack...It's good ANY time.

:iagree: THAT drives me crazy!

I like Ligonier's short yearly post on this... http://www.ligonier.org/blog/does-xmas-really-take-christ-out-christmas/

LOL. I thought you were saying you didn't like Pinterest. I was going to agree. I signed up and deleted my account a few days/weeks later. I realized I actually like WORDS more than I like pictures. Call me an oddball.

We eat a lot of it frozen especially during the summer. Make smoothies. Mix with yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta. My kids say it almost turns into ice cream if you mix it with yogurt. On top of cereal. Bake with it for cobblers and crisps. Heat on the stove and use for topping ice cream or desserts or oatmeal.

By mutual agreement, we don't celebrate it. It just doesn't do it for us.

Ours is up. http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-in-review-12312-12712.html

I completely agree. I'm not sure I can word this properly. These mega churches do a pretty good job of making people feel "welcome". Because of that members often think erroneously that people KNOW them. They hit a period in their life of trial whether illness, finances, marital problems, temptation, etc and they think the church will be there for them. In reality the church was never there for them individually. It is impossible. I think Driscoll's church is trying to do something they are truly incapable of doing CORRECTLY because of their size. I think this guy really wanted help and he realized he wasn't a member of a real church being mentored in real relationships but rather a cog in a vast machine. In the end they didn't even know him well enough to know if he was truly repentant or apostate. How sad is that?

:iagree: I'm not a huge Driscoll fan and yet I'm all for church discipline. The problem with a church of this size is that something that is meant to be a personal one-on-one mentoring and loving discipline of a person becomes impersonal and business-like. At least that's the perspective we are seeing in this post. Instead of really having an intimate sit-down with this young man and helping him through the process of restoration, they treated him like one more issue to be filed away when all the boxes were checked. That isn't pastoring. I think it is IMPOSSIBLE for a pastor to truly pastor people in a mega-church. The other side of that coin is for a church to do nothing. That's what most mega-churches decide. Then you wind up with an usher having an affair with a married woman who then gets pregnant with his baby. She divorces her husband, marries the usher, and the only thing that changes is that she now attends second service while her ex goes to first. And yes, they were in our Sunday School class and I wish for their sake and the sake of all those around them that the church had addressed the problem biblically. There has to be a proper biblical church discipline response that falls in between those two extremes. The most troubling aspect for me about the actual paperwork was the request for intimate details about the sinful behavior. I find that completely unnecessary and really unhelpful.

Even with TT you need to check. I had a friend whose son figured out how to "beat the system" with TT.

I learned it in school but I went to private school. I graduated in 1990.