thanks! do you know how long it's good for?

But of course--there's Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" :) I think it's DH's favorite Christmas song. We're big fans of John Denver and the Muppet's Christmas album. I bought a bunch of Christmas stuff on itunes a couple of years ago and made a Christmas playlist. I need to add some more to it this year.

We really like the (critical/creative thinking) stuff from Tin Man Press. I think I originally heard about it here, but I don't see it mentioned very often.

Well, it looks like the good news is that most cats do not pee all over the house. The bad news is that one can't increase the odds of having a good kitty by sticking with just males or just females. Probably what will happen is the new kitten, boy or girl, will be an angel, and my old female cat will be so angry that we got a kitten that SHE will start peeing on everything.

Thanks! Okay, I think we're going to go. We told the kids about it, and they got so excited that they played "amusement park" outside for over an hour this morning :) Any recommendations for things to do, places to eat, etc.? We'll probably be there 2 nights, 2 1/2 days, and going to Dollywood for 2 days. But they don't open until 2, so we'll have the mornings for other things. We might go ahead and buy a 2011 season pass; they have a deal where you get in free for the rest of this year if you do that, so it'd be a good deal if we make one more weekend trip, or if we stop for a day if we drive up to Massachusetts to see family this year. Has anyone done the Titanic museum? Is that any good?

My first attempt at a poll on this site, I believe... We're surprising the kids with a kitten for Christmas (they'll find out about it on christmas, and we'll get one from a shelter or rescue after Christmas). Either coincidentally or because someone is trying to tell me something, lately I keep hearing stories about terrible cats who pee all over the house. I do not want a cat who pees all over my house. The cats in these stories tend to be male. I've had 3 cats as an adult, 2 female and one male. None of them peed all over my stuff (well, my male cat did for a little while, but not until he was dying of liver disease, so I forgive him). But I thought a slightly bigger sample size might be helpful. So...should I steer the kids away from a male cat? Thoughts, anecdotes, etc? ETA: you should be able to pick more than one option if you have multiple cats.

We've done the trip from Atlanta to Boston twice (and from Boston to Atlanta once; the other time we took the train up and flew back). The first trip we did it without a sleeper; the second time we had one. If I could get a sleeper every time, I'd pick the train over flying without a second thought. I hate flying. The sleeper was great, the kids loved it, and the time flew by, BUT it's much more expensive than flying. Without a sleeper....I don't regret doing it once, but I'm not eager to do it again. I'd do it if it weren't an overnight trip, though.

DS used to say this one: God we thank you for this food For rest and home and all things good For wind and rain and sun above But most of all for those we love I think it's from that Songs and Prayers for the Very Young book that Eloise Wilkin illustrated.

Yes. It's a little too bad, because I get to sleep much later than he does. Probably we should both go to bed earlier, and I should wake up earlier. But we're not good at going to bed early.

leftovers or a can of soup, usually. sometimes a sandwich, but our cold sandwich options are pretty much limited to peanut butter and jelly, as we rarely buy lunch meat. I also stock up on nuts and trail mix when they're on sale, so he has high protein stuff to snack on throughout the day.

Do I want to go? We've never been to Dollywood at all, but we're thinking of going maybe for a couple of days the week before Christmas. Is that a good plan? Will it be super crowded? Are there a lot of rides open? Any days of the week better (as far as crowds) than others?

Okay, I had to select the other. I'm against it, but I already hate flying for other reasons and avoid it when possible. I can't say it will reduce the amount we fly, since I've already reduced the amount we fly as much as I feel we reasonably can. DH's sister and her kids are in CA, so there's really no other reasonable way to see them. If I didn't already choose driving or the train over flying whenever possible, this might well have been the thing that caused me to do that.

Our week 16 is up! And now we're on Thanksgiving break.

This coming week is a great one for CVS. They're giving away practically the whole store in their sale that starts Thursday. Here's a list of stuff that's free after Extra Care Bucks (i.e. they give you a rebate for the full price of the item that you can use on anything in the store): colgate sensitive toothpaste eucerin lotion herbal essence shampoo listerine pocket packs carmex lip balm old spice or gillette deodorant reese's singles mars king size phillips in ear headphones or universal remote la looks styling gel renpure hair care organic shampoo I've been very slack about doing CVS the past couple of months (partially because I have about 20 things of free toothpaste and body wash in my cabinet upstairs already), but I'm definitely headed there for this.

I mostly use printables lately. I can potentially get 6 of each coupon this way, if I use DH's computer and our netbook in addition to my regular computer. I sometimes buy coupons on ebay, too. If it's either something I buy all the time (the aforementioned local chicken example) or something I can use that's going to very cheap or free after coupons, I'll buy a lot of 20 of them for a couple of bucks on ebay.

Kroger was having a sale where if you bought 8 bags, the price came out to a dollar a bag. And then I had coupons for something like $2 off 2 bags. Something like that. I had to go to one store to get the coupons out of one of those dispensers, and then take them to the store with the sale.

A few months ago, I got 40 bags of shredded cheese for FREE! Free cheese! Yeah, that was a great day.

My experience is that you can't do groceries for pennies unless you're willing to make some major compromises, but it's pretty easy to save a good bit of money. I buy chicken from a local, Humane Society certified producer. They put out $1.50 off/package coupons regularly, and I buy lots of them on ebay, so I never buy it without a coupon. I do see produce coupons sometimes, too. This site: http://www.mambosprouts.com/ has organic coupons that you can print. And if you do CVS and Walgreens, you can have free deodorant and toothpaste and shampoo for the rest of your life, which, as another poster pointed out, frees up money for other things.

That's definitely what I would do. All the decorations will already be up, and it's one of the least crowded times of the year. We're stuck going in September, because DH is a teacher and he has a fall break then that's the only non-incredibly crowded week we can go, but I'd love to do early December some time and see all the decorations (and have the cooler weather!)

The week between Christmas and New Year's is the most crowded week of the year at Disney. Personally, I wouldn't want to be there then, but my family's not great with crowds. IIRC, there's a thread on the Disboards where people have posted their Christmas week pictures. It makes me anxious just looking at them :lol:

I remember getting that many presents when I was a kid, too...but I've found with our kids that they tend to burn out and get overwhelmed if they have too many things to unwrap. I think a few well-chosen presents are best. We don't have a set number in mind from year to year, but this year is shaping up to be around 5 presents each, plus a couple that are for all of them together. Of the five, a couple are games/toys, a couple of books, and a couple are clothes. Then we do stockings and 1-2 presents each from Santa (we also had a way bigger Santa thing when I was a kid; we do Santa-lite with our kids...I don't let Santa take the credit for all the best presents, for example. The Santa present is a mid-range kind of thing--I aim for something that looks exciting when you see it first thing in the morning, but isn't necessarily going to be the favorite long term).

Like this: http://www.hanes.com/Hanes/Products/Kids-Hanes/Kids_Boys-Hanes/Kids_Boys_boysunderwear-Hanes/HB738.aspx ...but it looks like they have briefs with the same waistband

We have some boxer briefs from Target that have a soft cotton waistband. They're Hanes

Now, see, I thought you guys were going to yell at me and tell me that of course I have to do Latin first :). I'm definitely leaning toward Greek now. Because I think Saille is so cool, I I might just follow her recommendations and give Greek Code Cracker a whirl after the first of the year, and, assuming that goes well and I don't change my mind again, start Greek for Children next year. I talked to DS about it, and he definitely votes for Greek.

For the Island level, if you're doing all the components, I think it can easily be done in 20-30 minutes, 5 days a week on average, not counting some independent time for the child to work on some of the writing assignments (some of them are very quick; some will take some time).