You can actually just toss your raw meatballs right into the crockpot to cook with diced tomatoes (peeled), a can (or two) of tomato sauce, basil, garlic and a touch of olive oil (NO WATER) - you'll have meatballs and sauce in a few hours. You can also toss in some raw sausage too if you wanted to add that in. I do a chicken (or turkey) chili that's pretty awesome.....you can do it all fresh or quick.....the quick is easy to at least try it - I have a large crockpot - so 1.5 pounds chicken meat diced up into bite size pieces (can be white or dark meat), 1 jar salsa (medium), 2 cans tomato sauce, 1 large peeled tomato diced, 1 clove garlic crushed (or jarred equivalent), 1 large onion chopped chunky, 1 red pepper chopped chunky, 1 yellow pepper chopped chunky, about 1 cup fresh green beans cleaned and tips cut off (cut in half if large).....add to taste - chili powder, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and jalepenos......cook for a few hours (until chicken is done), then add 1 large can of drained, rinsed red kidney beans, 1 small can of drained, rinsed pinto beans and 1 small can of tomato paste....stir and let simmer about 30 minutes more. Taste and add spices needed if needed to taste.

Silver outside, grey cloth interior - I prefer leather, but we bought this used and it came with cloth, so I live with it. The exterior rarely shows dirt - I know it's dirty though; interior also hides a lot if I didn't do it too. DH's is midnight blue with dark grey leather interior....exterior shows dirt more quickly than mine does, starts to look kind of dusty if he doesn't get it washed regularly.

Tanner Stages in puberty

Woman has a baby with her DH - both are rh-negative, so no problems; then the DH gets sick, it leaves him infertile, but they want another baby, they opt for donor sperm, they go to doc, get pregnant and she is refered to OB for pregnancy....she goes in to see doc/midwife and no one asks if her DH is the father, they assume he is - but he's not.....donor is rh-positive. Oops! Woman doesn't get the Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg) shot following the birth - baby and mom do well and she and the man want another, so they go back to donor and try again - now she repeatedly miscarries.....because she's rh sensitized and each pregnancy will create antibodies against the pregnancy, causing her to miscarry habitually. Does it make sense now why the question is asked? There are so many scenarios as to why a doctor/midwife should ask - the rh factor being only one reason.

Or that perhaps you and your DH had trouble conceiving and used donor sperm is also a valid reason to ask the question. Medical professionals (and midwives are included) need to know this type of information so they can know if they need to test for things like Rh-factor. And the reality is that some women do cheat - the question isn't meant to offend, but to inform where and when necessary between doctor/midwife and patient to provide the care needed.

Actually she's asking to know if she needs to take care of you after the birth for Rh-factor issues - she can't assume that because you're married that your DH is indeed the father - only you can answer the question when asked. it's not meant to offend, it's meant to make sure if your DH isn't the biological father and you do have an Rh-factor issue, you'll receive the shot and be able to have more children in the future.

For scouts it's Miss/Mr. First Name - that is for any den leader within the pack. For DS's friends, it's usually Mrs. Last Name (unless they're in his pack and over to play, then it's Miss. First Name). In some ways it feels odd to hear that, but at the same time, I do think it's a good thing to maintain that I'm not their friend, I'm DS's mother.....to this day, at 45, I still call my friends' parents, that I've known since childhood, Mr. or Mrs. Last Name, even when they say to call them by the first name - making the change is just so difficult because they've always been Mr/Mrs Last Name. They're okay with it sticking, but it's funny because it's hard to change!

The pharmacist should be able to tell you - but he'll likely tell you though that expired is expired, don't take it, even if it's safe to take, will work, and isn't going to be a problem.

DH's father recently recited the Declaration of Independence for DS - he was just amazed (we were too)....when we were discussing, he said when he was in school everyone learned it, along with the Gettysburg Address, Magna Carta, passages from the Bible, and a handful of other noteworthy historical documents and entire sections of plays and books (Shakespeare, Iliad, etc.). He's almost 80 and can pull them from memory still to this day!

It depends if it's a small molecule or not - the type matters and its effectiveness depends on how it degrades in time. Many medications really don't ever *expire,* while others will absolutely become useless with a couple of months of the expire date, and some may even become toxic with time. It really depends on the medication you're talking about!

I think it totally depends on a number of factors, including the current earnings of the spouse and your earning potential. For me, I already have max benefit with SS due to my own years of work and earning a high salary for almost two decades before staying home. We have factored in my earning potential and my social security and my future earnings potential and it still doesn't make any financial sense for us. The type of work I did and would do requires extensive travel, so we'd need a really good live-in nanny since basic daycare wouldn't meet our needs if I went back to work due to DH's insane work schedule....that's not cheap. And while my earning potential remains very strong (six figures) and I know for sure my being out of the workforce hasn't impacted that (had an offer of a very lucrative contract about a year ago and declined) - it isn't worth it to me or us - my level of earnings would take us into a higher tax bracket and since I've always been self-employed, a very high percentage would go to taxes (income, FICA, state and matching FICA) - once we add in the nanny, I'd take home less than minimum wage - less than what I'd be paying a nanny! Umm - no, that doesn't make sense. We're blessed - DH already earns well and I can stay home without worry about finances. I thank God for that.

I didn't toss or sell the Saxon math, so I have that even though we switched over a year ago to Singapore - so I have that too - and I supplement with Horizons workbooks, so I have those, but not the entire program. For the future I have on hand, Lial's Basic College Math, Duxbury's Intro to Statistical Methods and Data Analysis, a box of both DH and my college math books, and my old AP Calculus book - not sure if we'll use any of them, but we have them! Oh and in my dining room somewhere is a precalculus textbook DS picked up at the library book sale that he thought looked "neat".

Perhaps you/he can read The Two Income Trap: Why Middle Class Parents are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren?

Me = two antibiotics, shellfish.....not cats DS = all fish, shellfish, cockroaches (no city college for him, 'eh?)....not cats DH = grass, trees, pollen, dust, thimerisol, powder in surgical gloves, two antibiotics, a handful of chemicals, dogs....and cats

My oldest just turned 7.

K'Nex Education Site Amazon, CNS Stores, Fat Brain Toys, and Kaplan Toys all also sell the education kits online. Buy.com has a limited selection. If you're looking for a specific set, find what you're looking for, the google under Shopping, to see where you can find it at the lowest price. Sometimes that'll be K'Nex, sometimes another site. ETA: I just realized you had "used" in the title - I'd look on eBay for used sets.

I started to lighten the load with DS about two weeks before the baby was born at the end of January....after the baby was born we took a couple of weeks off, then started back up with a light schedule that ramped up again about a month after the baby was born.

I'm not sure I'd label us "preppers" or "survivalists" - but I lived less than a mile from the pentagon on 9/11, and DH lived maybe 3-miles from the pentagon....since then, we both like to have food, water and other things on hand, just in case.

DH works insane hours, but still finds time to do some of the homeschooling - he is set to start French with DS in January and currently takes care of piano practice, jujitsu practice and a good part of the nature-outdoor things with DS for science. When time permits he'll also do hands-on projects with DS in whatever subject we have a project in-progress.

I think here, where we have a large number of homeschoolers, the assumption is our kids are ahead....I hear something along that line frequently in conversations, even amongst homeschool families.

The dictionary has it listed as homeschool.

I sent a PM =)

The mutation doesn't necessarily impair fertility - it does present a very high risk of neural tube defects and heart defects though because it's not only the mother with the impair enzyme action, but likely the fetus too. ETA: There is also a high risk of pregnancy loss due to blot clots forming in the placenta and/or cord, but that also isn't a fertility issue per se. One huge thing to be critically aware of is folate antagonists - like birth control pills. Also antagonists for each of the other nutrients that play a role in the folate cycle (B12, B6, riboflavin, betaine, choline and an assortment of lesser playing b-vitamins). I'm amazed at how many prescription drugs out there impair the folate cycle - things that are seemingly benign, like medicines for acid indigestion! DH's younger sister died from a blood clot (30 years old) from an ace bandage on her ankle too tightly from a sprain - she'd started birth control pills only six months before - and we don't know for sure her MTHFR status (she died 15 years ago), but we're fairly certain, given DH's parents gene mix that she was compound heterozygous. Your DH, as a homozygous C677T absolutely should be on Metanx - 2 a day - it's crazy how some doctors are right on top of this and others just pooh-pooh it. It's partly due to, I think, the literature being so inconsistent - and that's due to the studies methodology not being as tight as it can be in many instances. If you look at the published data, as time progresses, it's getting much better - researchers are honing in how to actually test this gene and it's actions, where a decade ago, it was hit or miss and the methodology was flawed. My doc takes it seriously (he's a homozygous C677T himself), my dad's doc took it seriously and had him prescribed the metanx same day as his results came back (he takes 1/d), my FIL's doc totally blew it off as non-important - despite the fact we've pieced together enough history to understand his father was likely a homozygous C677T (he died at 58 of a massive heart attack)....MIL's doc pooh-pooh'ed it too until she brought in some literature for her to read and then she put her on metanx. All of DH's cousins have had either on-top-of-it reactions from their docs, or total dismissal as irrelevant. It's very inconsistent. Sorry to put in scary stuff - the whole thing took me by surprise - I was the first one tested (multiple miscarriage - not due to the gene though - that's another post) and no one knew until my resullt led everyone else to start the testing process....then a lot of things made a lot of sense in both our families!

Lego table with bucket center insert and angled shelf unit with baskets to hold the tons of legos. I don't have a pic of ours - but these are the ones we have from the websites: The top shelf is nice because DS can display what he's made - the table sides are great since he can leave in progress things where they are!

We've considered it and discussed with our doctor who is quite knowledgeable about the gene mutation....together we decided testing is something that can wait until he's a bit older, so we're taking a 'treat as if' approach since it's likely he is compound heterozygous (he had headaches which stopped once we started the metanx and b-complex - which the b-complex is only a 400mcg folic acid one). It came down to, for us, weighing the risk and benefit. Using a methyl-folate combo, like the metanx, instead of folic acid is much less likely to be problematic, and if he is compound heterozygous, then it's all good. Right now, as I'm sure you know, testing children is controversial and many doctors won't consider it without the presentation of specific symptoms. We actually did a pedigree study within both of our families to look at the incidence and it's scary - every single person has the gene mutation or a combination of the genes, some are even homozygous for the C677T - the worst combo. What's crazier is that every one in both familial lines have married those with the genes, so it keeps getting perpetuated into the next generation, usually worse than the parents individually! In a number of other family pedigree studies they've found similar patterns - we seek each other out it seems! So far as the risk for cancer - the various data I've read - all the studies were using folic acid, which can create a toxic level in the body - the methyl-folate does not, even at extremely high doses. I'll look into the pill you're using though - it may be a better option for DS since he's young!