I love my MacBook, a few years ago switched from a regular MacBook (which the kids use now) to a MacBook Air. Love love love it, but I've also been using Macs since they first came out. I also have a PC laptop that I use for gaming. I only use it for gaming, nothing else, because I just don't like the OS interface.

I love this blog for some budget friendly recipes. http://www.budgetbytes.com/

I'm currently combining my 7 year old and 5 year olds for math with Right Start. My 5 year old is a natural with math and my 7 year old has some delays (dyslexia and some suspected processing delays) and it is working out well. They both enjoy Right Start, and they like working together and playing the card games together.

Me too. I ended up sneaking around to see him for a couple years in high school and never shared anything with my parents, then once I was 18 in college started dating him again. That was followed by a 4 year marriage that was horrid and then divorce. I honestly think that if it hadn't been forbidden, the relationship would have run its course in about 6 months when I was a teen.

I have a Britax Marathon rear-facing behind the driver's seat in my NV. Width doesn't seem to be an issue, but it's usually just DS1 (no booster) and/or DD1 (backless booster) that sit up there with her. DS2 was in a forward-facing Radian until about a month ago, and I loathed getting a good install with that stupid thing! DS3 has outgrown the rear-facing limit of his seat and is forward-facing in a Marathon in the door-side of the 2nd passenger row.

I also gained a lot of weight on Depo Provera, granted this was many years ago. Since then it seems like my body has not tolerated hormonal birth control very well. I had the Mirena for a year (just got it removed about 2 months ago) and gained about 35 lbs during that year. Since getting it out my hair loss has returned to normal (it stayed at the post-partum hair loss rate the entire time I had the Mirena) and my weight gain has stopped and I'm slowly starting to lose weight.

My 3 year old DS just started potty training a couple weeks ago. Small (one-piece, easier to clean) potties that are easy to access, naked from the waist down, and potty treats. One for a pee, two for a poop. It's messy but it's working, same method I used for my other boys. With them I transitioned to going commando under loose pants (as tight underwear seemed to be too much like a diaper). It's getting warmer, so he wears boxer briefs and a shirt most of the time now.

Some kind of top that I where I can easily get a boob out for the little one, comfy pajama pants with it in the morning or evening.

I love YNAB Classic, it has really turned our budgeting around. Seeing how much we have left in each spending category has been the key, instead of just seeing the account balance. Before we would see however much $ in the account and DH would buy a new game, I would order new curriculum (wine & Prime, baby), or we'd pick up some extra things at Costco. Then the automatic bills would come out and we would have "spent" that same amount of money 3 times. Now we can see what it is designated for and that was the key for us. I didn't know about the changes in YNAB to a yearly/web-based system until this thread. That's disappointing, I don't want to switch.

It's primarily the pond that makes me uncomfortable, and potentially the unfenced yard. My DD1 (9) is fine supervising my 1.5 year old in our backyard, but it is fenced and there is no pond.

Well, last time I went to a homeschool convention I came home with a kitten. DH was NOT impressed.

The Malem worked here. It took the full 12 weeks mentioned in the packaging, but it did work. Those were some tiring nights, but it was worth it. I had washable bed pads on the bed (between two fitted sheets) to make middle of the night sheet changes quicker.

Thank you for your input! I moved her down to the A1 book and that seems to be a better fit. That has the added benefit of her not noticing when her younger brother passes her since they're no longer in the same book.

I live on the Kitsap Peninsula, but I would have assumed somebody was asking about the Olympic Peninsula. :)

I had it, it flared up for a few months (several episodes a day, with increasing intensity) then seemed to stop. That was a year ago, now it only happens about once a month. I was initially diagnosed with it in the ER, I went in to make sure it wasn't another pulmonary embolism.

If this were a secular event then I would definitely be interested.

I'm using Dancing Bears with my 7 year old (dyslexia suspected but not diagnosed) and have a couple questions about use. First, with the cursor. How long do you keep using the cursor to uncover each sound? I'm hoping that at some point she'll be able to read "cat" instead of just sounding it out slowly and then putting it together, but I'm not sure when that will happen. Do I just keep uncovering the words bit-by-bit? My 5 year old son is also using the program and will be passing her soon, so I'm not sure when to just show him the whole word. Secondly, the Mastery Tests. So far she has had to go back and repeat the section each time she gets to a Mastery test, largely due to the laborious sounding-out of the words. Do I just continue repeating these sections as necessary, until she can pass the recommended time frames for the words and number of errors for the sentences? Any advice or BTDT-experience would be great.

This gives me hope that I'll have more energy in another couple years.

I have chronic daily migraine and migraine with aura, have since I was a child. They're under moderate control with daily preventive meds and quarterly Botox injections, I only get about 2-3 a week. My kids know there are days that we are going to have to adjust our schedule because my pain is peaking, it's hard dealing with noise sensitivity with 6 kids. Unfortunately my 9 year old daughter also gets migraines.

My gallbladder problems seemed to be triggered by (relatively rapid) weight loss. I was eating a healthy diet and through portion control, lost about 60 lbs over 5-6 months. So not too rapid, my doctor seemed to think it contributed. Once the attacks started then they occurred about every other day regardless of what I ate. I ended up having it removed.

Cut, no. Wash, yes. DS1 is 11 and his hair is down to his chin. He's welcome to wear it however he wants.

My older 4 kids each have their own account. They join each other's worlds over our LAN, and we also run a homeworld that we all play on together. (They have a lot more mods in their own worlds.) None of them play on external servers, so language, etc. isn't an issue.

Oh, I wish I could find something like that here! My 5 year old sensory seeker really needs something like that, but the local one is for ages 8 and up.

We rarely go out to dinner, usually if we're traveling or on our way back from an event. We're more likely to get takeout, since my 3 year old can be challenging. As for movies, it has to be something we REALLY want to see for us to take everyone out. When Star Wars came out the local drive-in did a special winter opening so we saw it there. Then DH and DD2 saw it again a few days later, then DS1, DD1 and I saw it ourselves again. We split up for movies more often if we don't wait for DVD, or see it separately. It's usually not worth it to try to find a babysitter. I went to see Deadpool by myself because DH didn't really care too much about it, and he'll do the same for movies he really wants to see.

My middle son (5) is a thumb sucker. He wants to stop but he can't, says it just "automatically" goes in his mouth when he's not thinking about it. He's also SPD, sensory-seeking. He's in speech therapy for apraxia and the displacement of his teeth from sucking his thumb just make things more difficult. This is what we bought also. I showed it to him on Amazon first and he said he wanted to try it. It's taking a long time, he wore it for a few weeks and then we stopped. He was fine for the first few days afterward, but then started back up so he's back in the T-guard again.