We are all fed, dressed, and tooth-brushed, and the beds made, before I begin anything.

Every night. I believe it is because I have a hard time thinking through anything during the day, being with the kids, so my mind wants to do it at night. Sometimes it runs all night. I will either be awake or have very vivid dreams. Some nights I just give up on sleep and read all night.

I started giving our son a weekly spelling list of ten words. They are from the Mrs. Perkins Dolsch sight word list. He works on reading, writing and verbally spelling the words all week. Then on Friday morning I give him a spelling test. He has become much better at learning all ten words. At first he could only learn six a week. (The words he misses get recycled onto the next week's list. ) Within five weeks he was getting them all right. The first time he got them all right, he was super excited ! He asked for something to celebrate with - so now I give him a dum dum if he gets them all right. He enjoys his candy and is extremely proud of himself. It sounds so basic but this is the first aspect of his academic work he has been really excited about. He also gets excited when we are reading and he recognizes words from past spelling lists, and he is pleased with how much easier reading is becoming for him since we started the spelling lists. All in all it's been a very positive, motivating thing to add for him.

This is my recipe...it is also posted at recipezaar. It is egg and dairy free, because my kids are allergic to dairy and eggs. This is breakfast every day. 2 cups whole wheat flour 1 tbsp Rumford 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 cup cooking oil 2 cups plus 2 tbsp water (you can use milk or a milk substitute if you want but water works fine) Whisk together dry ingredients, then add in oil and water and whisk until smooth. Cook one pancake at a time quite slowly, on med-low or low heat. I use a non stick pan or a well seasoned cast iron pan. Do not flip until the pancake is bubbly and the bottom is cooked to the edges. I serve these with apple juice syrup: 1 cup apple juice, 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, bring to a boil, allow to cool. Store in mason jar in refrigerator. The apple syrup and cinnamon pancakes are really good together. Came back to add: I am making them now. I measured a couple and they are 1/2 inch thick. I don't know how much loft you are looking for but these are 1/2 inch. Also, I do not worry about mixing too much. I remix them with the whisk before I pour each one. They are very thoroughly mixed. I think the key with this recipe is that the batter is thick, and must be allowed to cook very slowly.

I love having this list here....thank you all so much. I have put a stack of things on hold at the library and will go pick them up tomorrow and let him try some of them out and see what he likes :)

Thank you all for the suggestions ! :D

DS1 is almost done with the entire Bob Books series. I would like to find another series of short books like these that will give him more practice in what he has already learned, and also help him to advance his reading. I can have him read Dr. Seuss books, but they don't seem to offer much in the way of advancing his skills. I would like to find something secular, and also avoid Disney movie themes. If anyone can recommend a series I would appreciate it ! TIA !

I over-caffeinate and then clean something. Vacuuming up hair and scrubbing the ring out of a toilet are the cleaning jobs I find the most satisfying :)

Our older son is 6.5 and very much doing first grade level work. He is not yet doing two digit addition. But he plays around with multiplication in his head, and also enjoys playing Timez Attack. He has gone through the 2s and is about halfway through the 3s. He will be playing with cars in the basement and come up and say mommy, five plus five plus five plus five plus five is twenty five ! Then we talk about how another way to say that is "five, five times" or "five times five". He's learning multiplication naturally by playing with the concept. I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm not going to be giving him worksheets for multiplication until we've gone through two digit addition and subtraction, but I have already purchased a workbook for it (the Kumon one) and I will help him with it as much as he wants to explore it until we reach that, while still working toward more advanced addition and subtraction.

Ours is just a squeak under 50% of take-home pay. Managing this gets tough. I watch our grocery spending very carefully, buy all resale clothes for our kids, inexpensive shoes for the oldest that get handed down to the youngest, toys from resales and garage sales, etc. I choose our books very carefully and review them from the library first if I can get them (we are fortunate to have a large suburban library system with a great internet setup to draw from), then I look to see if I can save a significant amount by buying them used (these are not curriculum materials with resale restricted); if I have to buy them new, I make darn sure I find the lowest price and I almost never pay for shipping. I'm also careful with our household energy consumption, especially with the heat and AC. Every winter I'm finding ways to make our house leak less heat. We only eat out on very rare occasions, and so far we don't use babysitters because that would become a big expense. Almost the only vacations we take are to visit DH's parents and they help us cover the cost. I hardly ever buy clothes for myself - I wait until someone gives me a gift card to LL Bean and then order what I can use the most. We drive our cars for at least ten years. Right now we have a car payment we are 1.5 years into and I will be so happy when it's done. Our house is very nice but oh I fantasize about selling it when the market comes back and fitting snugly into a much smaller and more efficient home, perhaps in a lower COL area, and maybe having an evening job when our kids are a little older and having extra money to put away.