Scrunci hair accessories Gel pens & mini notebooks Beads & string (bracelet making - you could get a bigger kit and break it up) Mini lip gloss, nail polish Nice smelling hand cream (ie. Body Shop) iTunes gift cards

4 bed, 4 bath....but, the previous owners, who built the house, left the (finished) room we use for storage as a 'bonus' that is plumbed for an additional bathroom, laundry room, kitchen area and can be (it's pretty huge) configured to create an in-law suite with private entrance - the space is laid out with what would be a walk-in closet set in the space that would be walled for a bedroom, space where a kitchen would go (plumbed) and an area that would be the living dining area. We've thought about finishing it as an in-law suite, but since DH's parents live down the road and my parents have no intention of moving here any time soon, we just keep it as a storage room....they never reconfigured since it would raise their taxes and we keep it as it is, finished but not as a multiple room space or creating an additional bathroom & bedroom since it would raise the taxes.

:iagree: I can help for Joanne too, can someone start a thread for her?

After last year's disaster trying to plan out everything to the day, this year I did each subject separately, in the order we need to do things, from start to end....I have no defined days or weeks to get it done and simply create my weekly lists every two weeks.

I think they need time and breathing room to get the Mom's house habitable and/or figure out the budget and next steps. To me, if they were to move to something temporarily, it's to lay out a plan that will work without having to remain in the circle of chaos and stress at the moment.

http://www.vrbo.com/205725 That's $1800 for a month and is about 21 miles from downtown. That works out to $60 a night for three bedrooms, or $20 a bedroom + the rest of the house.

Aubrey has been on my mind all day - I don't even know her, but being in the situation she finds herself, pregnant and now totally stressed, that isn't a good place to be. An option that might be a good one for now - since her husband is starting work - in and around Denver are vacation homes for rent....fully furnished and often somewhat reasonably priced. This time of the year in CO is still low season and prices are lowest until end of October. A couple of sites to search through: HomeAway.com VRBO.com VRPM.com GreatRentals.com Vacation homes often have higher "sleeps" numbers than traditional apartments, and certainly more than typical hotel rooms and/or extended stay options. We've used the first two, quite a number of times, to rent for vacations - the places are generally very, very nice and reasonably priced! If folks here could (and I'm willing to contribute) get together enough for a month - that could give them some breathing room to either lay out a plan to get the work done at her mom's, or give them time to figure out what to do. Aubrey absolutely has to have her stress levels taken down several notches...I have a PD'ed MIL, so I can only guess what crazy-making is really going on!

:party:

DS was also the only kid in the theater....but from what the ticket taker (?) said, the afternoon before had a number of families with kids. DS was totally riveted and loved it.

:iagree: We recently took DS to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams and there is a part in the movie where they talk about footprints of what they believe was an eight year old boy, with footprints of a wolf next to them. They said they weren't sure if the boy was running from the wolf or it he was walking with the wolf. Well, DS said he thinks he was walking with the wolf, like the boy in the First Dog!

I wouldn't say he's behind. My DS (soon to be 7) is plugging away through HWOT and sometimes I wonder if it helps or not. Overall, his handwriting IS improving, slowly but surely. In addition to doing a couple of pages per day in HWOT, I also have him do copywork on grade-level paper (the kind with wider lines) - just a couple of sentences a day and then he draws a picture (top of the paper is blank) about what his sentence(s) was about. We're starting WWE this year too. I've added AAS and have to say I am very impressed with the program - DS loves it, it reinforces phonics and takes a slow, step-by-step process to teach spelling. Have a look at it, you may want to consider adding it. We're almost done with AAS1 and will then move to AAS2...as we near the end of that, and start 3, I plan to begin adding him doing original sentences and paragraphs (if he hasn't started on his own).

:iagree: Same here, although we've used some of the books suggested above, along with others.

Any kind of nut butter does the trick with ours....they seem to particularly like unsalted almond butter around here, but will definitely get nailed with peanut butter too!

Is your DH doing school online? basically are you bound to CO due to location for school, or can he do that anywhere? How are you holding up?

:iagree: At seven years old, your old computer's OS is going to be different than the new computer. Also you don't want to risk infecting your new computer with a virus from the old one, so I would not install your old hard drive into a new computer! With or without the new computer, you can take the old computer to the computer store and ask them to get your data off the hard drive - have it put on either a flash drive, external hard drive, or even CD/DVD. They'll scan files as they transfer to avoid transferring infected files.

If you're going to have to spend the money, I'd look for a new computer - and also have your data migrated from your old hard drive onto the new computer.

Okay - I just looked on Amazon and they're on sale still... Volume 1 = $26.37 (44% off) Volume 2 = $29.67 (34% off) Volume 3 = $32.97 (34% off - retail is $49.95) Volume 4 = not available at the moment

Check on a daily basis. Amazon just had them on sale a couple of weeks ago - if I remember correctly, they were $29 and change? The list is $44.95.

HATED sleeping on the one MIL had in her guest room. HATED sleeping on one in a hotel room last year. HATED sleeping on one in the guest room at an Aunt's house. To me, they're just uncomfortable. That said, MIL loves hers....and so does my Aunt.

Watch for when they go on sale....full retail is expensive for the CD's, but Amazon routinely (if you watch) will discount 28-35%

Well, our king one lives in our guest room - it was mine before DH and I got married. I LOVE it and that's why I got one for myself - DH however can't sleep on it, he's tried and tried, and initially feels comfortable, but he has broad shoulders, so by the morning, his back is killing him once he gets up. So, it became our guest bed - our guests love it!

None. Plain 'ole white paper was all we used for the minimal amount of writing done in the K year.

That I remember - Star Wars! I'm sure we went to movies before that, but I guess they weren't memorable? But maybe we didn't go to movies? I dunno - we did go to a LOT of Broadway shows and things at the garden, Radio City, etc. when I was kid - tons love live shows and theater - I remember those and was much younger than when I saw Star Wars, so maybe it was my first movie?

For me, I don't detail out the day to day for the whole year - but, by subject I do layout everything we'll do and the order we'll do it....and by that I mean the main text and any workbooks or worksheets that accompany the text, activities, projects, games, books to read that go with each section within the subject, and area places we'll visit or programs I know will come up to remember to sign DS up for in advance. With the sheer volume of "living books" I integrate into each and every subject we do, I need a plan and layout to remember what I have and when I plan to have it used in each subject! Having things laid out also helps expose "gaps" where I am missing things needed - whether it's reading material or activities/projects....if I know what I'm still missing, I can then keep that in mind while shopping and such.

If money were no object - Tuscany region of Italy. But, money isn't growing on trees, so right now DH and I are really quite happy where we're living - basically you couldn't pay us enough to go back to the east coast and deal with the traffic, chaos, and raise kids there! That said, we both still LOVE the east coast - and it's just a flight away (or drive)....same with our other love, the mountains - CO is a flight or drive away....west coast & Sierras, a flight. Living in the middle of the country is something that, ten years ago, if you'd even suggested we'd be here and loving it, we'd have laughed our butts off. When DH was first presented with the opportunity we eventually did take here, his first gut-reaction was "no way am I living in fly-over country!" Now that we're here, we can't imagine not living here to raise kids, the cost of living a lot more reasonable, and to us that matters, plus it's really easy to get anywhere in the rest of the country. We're still not sure what we'd like to do in retirement - we both love the mountains and the coast/beaches.....so we're thinking maybe we'll stay put and travel as desired, or maybe sell and get two smaller places, one in the mountains, one somewhere on the shore? We have ten more years before we'll really start to make that decision though.