I go through times where both my hands and feet do this. It's been off and on for a few years now. I have no idea what causes it! Very weird.

When my oldest was a brown belt we paid $2400 to get him up to his 2nd degree black belt. It probably works out to about $100 a month for four classes a week. We also paid in one sum for our 7 yo to his 1st degree black belt. That also was about $100 per month, maybe less. It was cheaper to pay in advance than go on a monthly plan. We pay $55 for testing fees which are every 2-3 months. The higher the belt, the longer between tests and the higher the testing fee. All of their sparring equipment, bags and uniforms were included in price we paid. It is a WTF school with a focus on competition sparring.

I talked to dh and told him you all said it was puberty. He sighed and said, "Oh, that is a relief! That will make things easier when I have my talks with him." I'm glad he feels up to this! :lol:

:lol: Thank goodness for cold cereal and yogurt. Most days I make something hot like oatmeal or eggs or pancakes but today the kids had cereal because I was up early and doing work outside before it got too hot.

Puberty...why does that word scare me? :) Everything else is fine at home. He gets plenty of daily exercise so I'm scared to think of what he might be like if he didn't! lol Maybe we will increase a few of the talks. Mostly I roll my eyes and tell him matter-of-factly to knock it off so we can finish our task and move on with our lives. We have similar personalities and sometimes I get emotional with no apparent reason too so maybe that is part of it as well.

He's always been easy going but over the last year I've noticed him crying more and more when he's frustrated or whatever. And he gets frustrated and annoyed more frequently than he used to. I just handed him his book to read for today and he actually fell onto the floor crying. :001_huh: He does tend to the dramatic. I'm sure some of this is a discipline issue but is some of it a 10 yo boy thing as he gets older? Do they get more emotional as they get closer to the teen years? I expected this out of my dds but not my ds.

Our midwife told us we could bury it or burn it. As soon as dh cleaned up after our two homebirths, the placenta went straight out to the burn barrel and was burned along with everything else. I didn't even want to see the thing, let alone stick it in the freezer!

I love it very sweet. I either boil the sweet potatoes or bake them then mash them with some butter and sugar and some milk if needed. Oooo, maybe even a little vanilla. Then I top it with either marshmallows or a crunch topping (oatmeal, melted butter, brown sugar). Sometimes I top it with both. *yuuuummmm* I have quite a sweet tooth! It's more like dessert than a vegetable. :D For some reason I've had a craving for that for days. Come to think of it, we were supposed to have sweet potato casserole last night with the chicken and dumplings, not tonight. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

My mom used an antique quilt top covered with clear vinyl. It looked nice. I was talking about tablecloths with her the other day. She says she knew lots of people "way back when" who kept the table covered with a pretty tablecloth but took it off when they set the table to eat. We have a big square table. I like the used,rustic look of our tabletop so I keep a small square piece of lace in the middle set with the points to the sides so it makes a diamond shape with a plant on top of it.

You might find some info here: Republic of Pemberley Literary Companion.

I'm with you there. lol Tonight we are having orange chicken legs (in the crockpot) with noodles. I wanted to make sweet potato casserole too but now I don't think I'll have time since I have to take our oldest to taekwondo in 5 minutes. I had this last week planned and tonight was the last meal I had planned. Payday isn't until the 20th so I'll have to sit down tonight and plan the next 9 days so I don't go over my budget.

Our second didn't walk until sometime in that 18th month. Now that he is much older we see that he has a very cautious personality. He is very cautious when it comes to physical activity (which is weird because is good at sparring in taekwondo. lol) But he doesn't like heights and wouldn't even put his face in the water until last summer (now he's our best swimmer). He wouldn't even say his older brother's name until he was 3 1/2 and then he said it carefully and correctly. People still get a kick out of how precise he is with his pronunciation. I figure he just waited to walk until he knew without a doubt he could do it correctly. :001_smile:

I like what you have now! I was going to say that you can make a header from a photograph that you have. Do a google search for making your header for blogger and you will find some instructions. I made one for our RV park's website by cropping a photo of some flowers. I think the dimensions were 640 by 80 pixels. Then use the Blogger editing feature to add it to the header.

Yes, I hate it. I used to love it back when I could eat whatever I wanted. Now that my diet is limited I don't like cooking very much. I try new recipes that sound so good to me (but I can't eat) and no one else in the family likes them. It's depressing. :)

I'm bummed because I just checked the schedule and we can only watch taekwondo online. And the only time the final medal matches will be aired is between 12 and 3 a.m. Like we are going to stay up to watch at that time.

http://www.mealsmatter.org is pretty good. It has a section where you can create your own cookbook from their recipes plus a meal planner.

http://www.hotcouponworld.com is a great place to start. I shop CVS all the time. In order to get the best deals you need to match the sales with coupons. Two months ago I had coupons for a free stick of Adidas deodorant. They were also a freebie after Extra Bucks at CVS. So I was paying nothing and still getting $4.99 back in Extra Bucks. Woo hoo! I love that. Especially when you pair a sale like that with the $5 off a $25 purchase that Lee mentioned. I also shop at Walgreens. I have a closet full of toothpaste, shampoo, razors, etc., that I got free or close to free. I took a break too but last week I got started going again. I skip any sales where I'm already well stocked of the item.

We have 4 dc with 2 doing daily schoolwork. I started working full-time back in June. Dh works full-time at one job and part-time at this job with me. We manage an RV park. I has been difficult. Part of it is our 10 yo needs a lot of one-on-one time still. Our other ds is 7 so he still needs lots of attention while completing schoolwork as well. It has been difficult. Sometimes it feels like school has taken a backseat to my job. I often wonder if we shouldn't put the kids in school but I hate even thinking about that. Our situation is a little different in that the kids are with me all day even while I am working. We live at the RV park and the office is attached to the house. Our evenings are free but we are usually outside doing some kind of yardwork around the park after getting back from tae kwon do. I would worry you might be taking on too much. I am exhausted at the end of every day. I work Monday through Saturday and Sunday mornings we go to church. The only time I have off is Sunday afternoon and I usually take a nap. :lol: Not much else gets done.

:lol: Maybe the hostess is just trying to make it easy since most people are so busy these days. (I'm stretching here to give the sender the benefit of the doubt.:))

I remember living in our house in Arkansas. We moved there when I was 3. I remember standing on the porch during a flood and watching our rubber ball float away. I remember watching people walking barefoot through water and wondering why they weren't afraid of snakes in the water. I was also terrified of "cool guys"--guys who had combs in their back pockets. :001_huh: Don't know where that one came from! I would watch them walk down the street from our porch. I must have spent a lot of time on that porch. I also remember playing with a girl who always had a runny nose. We used to rub dirt on ourselves because we loved how it made our skin brown. We were convinced that makeup was made from dirt. :lol:

Isn't it sad when 102 feels cool? :lol:

Isn't it weird that people freak out at 3? I always thought 3 children was fairly average for a family. I remember being in a store once and the cashier asking, "Are all those yours?" It took me a minute to realize she was talking about our 3 (at the time) children. With 4 now we get a lot of comments. The favorite question is "Do you think you are done having kids?" Yes, we are but I still think it is weird that even 4 kids make a huge family. I guess I'm used to being around families with 5 or more kids.

I've never heard of roux made with butter either. I would think butter would burn too easily. Come to think of it I was at a book signing with Paul Prudhomme years ago and someone asked about this. He agrees with me. :DMy Cajun aunt always made roux with oil.

Younger said it to the older. They are playing with an electronic timer. All kinds of awful things happen when the timer beeps if the "good one" can't stop it. :lol:

I love it when I make them turn the TV off and they get creative.