So far, we have one go through SM 5A/B, onto Dolciani Pre-Algebra combined with Life of Fred Pre-Algebra (he's doing the second book this summer). Sometime between beginning SM 5A and before starting Pre-A, he also did the first two LoF books (Fraction and Decimals & Percents). He will start Foester's Algebra 1 in September as an 8th grader. My second son is working through LoF Fractions now and will then finish SM 5B, followed by LoF Decimals & Percents. Then he will start the Dolciani Pre-Algebra/LoF Pre-Algebra sequence. High school, according to dh (he's a high school math teacher) will be Foester's Algebra 1/Algebra 2, supplemented with LoF Algebra 1 and 2. Euclid's Elements and LoF for Geometry, finishing with Foester's and LoF more than likely for Trig/Pre-Calculus and maybe Calculus (we aren't pushing it, aiming instead for a very solid base through Pre-Calculus, and will take the Calculus-in-high-school kid by kid.

:grouphug: Praying.

Our parish has 8am and 5pm weekday Masses. We tend to make one 5pm a week, about three times a month, due to my oldest two being altar servers. I had made a grand proclamation at the beginning of summer that we should try to get to 8am every day. I have no idea if that will ever happen! I need to check the times of parishes around us to see if there is a better time for us during the year as I'd love to start our days as much as possible with daily Mass. And welcome to the boards! :)

And like others have said, if one truly believes in the Real Presence, then one would want to be at Mass if at all possible. We believe that the Mass (which is to say the Liturgy of the Eucharist) is the highest form of worship we can offer God. (The rest of that link talks mostly about Mary; but the heart of what we do and who we are is the Eucharist. It is there that heaven and earth meet and we encounter Christ.)

Sunday Mass and Holy Day Obligation from EWTN. It cites Canon Law in the article.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand? http://www.amazon.com/Major-Pettigrews-Last-Stand-Novel/dp/0812981227/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1403316971&sr=8-1

No. The annulment is dissolving the Sacrament of Matrimony by declaring that one or both parties never intended to live a sacramental marriage. That's different than the civil/governmental marriage. Children conceived are legitimate. But in the Church, matrimony is one of the seven sacraments. Here is a fairly quick overview: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/EXPLAIN.HTM

I have everything in hand or on it's way, minus a couple things left straggling. Eldest ds is enrolled in his on-line class. I am almost done making my lesson planning/reading/watching check lists for each kid. I need to finish my checklists so I can start actually doing the lesson planning. Unfortunately I had the realization the other morning that I'm going to have to write a note-taking guide for eldest ds's history this coming year. He will need some hand holding to know what to write down. I'm not looking forward to that.

I did this with my dh. In our case, he left very shortly thereafter. It was a long road we walked, but it has brought us both to a much deeper faith and a place neither of us would have imagined possible back then. The morning I told him was probably the hardest thing I had to do. I was so scared of his reaction and the potential fall-out. We had starts and stops, and some stumbles along the way, but like our faith, our marriage is better now than it was back then as well. Prayers for you both as you navigate this new chapter. Respond with love as much as you are able. ETA: just to clarify. Dh left his faith shortly after I left mine (we were evangelical Protestants). Not that he left me. I just retread that and realized it could totally be read wrong.

I say go for it. I did something similar this past year. All three boys were almost exclusively doing CHC (I did sub a different year here and there for them as needed so I bought individually rather than just the x-grade package). But it was a good year in that it allowed me to refocus and spend time with a few subjects with them while giving me the break I needed from others. This year we are changing a bit because I feel ready to tackle the planning and tweaking I like to do. I was too tired and overwhelmed to do last year. Plus like others have said, CHC and Kolbe are both solid.

I love it!

I have one and love her. She is a college student, and we found her because she's the older sister of one of dh's students this year. She loves my kids, though she was hired to keep dd (3 ½ with Down syndrome) occupied while I got a couple hours a couple times a week just with the three boys. She did early learning stuff, took her out back to play, and keep her out of trouble. Now that our year has wound down, I still have her coming over, often leaving all four kids with her so I can run errands. She's also our babysitter, and we plan on keeping her through the summer so dh and I can get out once or twice a week for a couple hours. We pay her $10/hour. I asked her flat out and she said she gets between $8 and $10 for babysitting. Ten is easier as I pay her by the hour. She's great, her mom is great, and like I said, she loves my quirky kids. Oh, and she was homeschooled and said she loves being back in that environment.

Tonight I took my BJ to a class/lecture at church. Earlier I erased the two page spread I attempted to do for June, freeing those pages and mentally unblocking me from not using my journal (that month spread really stymied me). It was great. I was able to differentiate things I wanted to do that were mentioned from the ideas I got and it all makes sense. I think once in a while I'm going to sit down with my colorful Flair markers and color-code my boxes from dots from circles. Even though they vary by shape, using pencil makes them all look alike if I'm scanning a page. I also think I'm going to use color when checking off or migrating a to-do, and maybe a couple other things. So, the initial writing will be in pencil, but at some other time I'll sit and go through, using color to make things easier to see.

I read the Creepypasta link and I'm confused about Slenderman and the Minecraft connection. I asked my boys (who love Minecraft); two didn't seem to know anything (8 and 10); my 12 year old thought it was like an AI character who would "work" for you while you aren't playing. But the Creepypasta article sounds like it's a fictional character in a horror story and not associated with Minecraft anymore. Can anyone help me understand? I cannot fathom what happens to cause anyone, let alone a child, to do such things. :(

Ooh, I'd love to see pictures with decorations. Right now I'm using pencil in mine so I can erase if needed. I bought a Clairefontain medium sized (think composition book size) grid notebook and a nice suede-like violet cover. But the inside is plain. And an excuse for washi tape (I've wanted some but have no idea what I'd do with it) would be nice. ;)

Great idea on the two-page weekly spread. I loved your pictures on your blog, but your description helps me "see" it, ironically. ;)

(((Hugs))) Amy. I would think filing that one away would be a perfectly fine thing to do. Maybe one day, you can take out your personal pages in the beginning and present it to your friend, maybe with notes you have written in remembrance of her dh. But buying a new journal and starting again is completely understandable. I never got through the whole thread, but when the idea popped up again in my FB feed, I decided to try it. I just started but it's great for getting all sorts of ideas out of my head and on paper. I use iCal for all scheduled events, which syncs between dh and me. But I needed a place to start organizing ideas and to-do lists. I wrote out the June calendar, but I need to play with it a bit. I might not include a calendar at all, or something. I just feel right now it would be redundant with iCal. What would you use the calendar portion of a Bullet Journal if you already used Google or iCal or such for scheduled appointments/events?

I agree. I remember distinctly my (girl) friends and I all wearing some type of short under our dresses/skirts in the 70s. None of us wanted the boys to see our underwear. ;) Personally, I'm not a dress/skirt-only person, though I love wearing skirts, especially when it is warmer. Usually I just wear a slip and make sure to wear pants/capris if I want to do something like bike riding or exercise. But my daughter wears bike shorts or leggings under her dresses (she's 3 ½ just FYI), and I will continue to have her do so until she is older. I prefer underwear/diapers are covered. I guess in that way, something under the dress/skirt is a modesty thing for me, though the actual dress/skirt is just because they are cute, make me feel more dressed than my normal uniform of jeans and a T, and gives me an excuse to go shopping once in a while for something fun and new.

I tried progressives last summer and just couldn't do it. The frames I picked were on the small side for progressives and I had them minimize the "computer" space between the distance and close-up parts. It was horrible. So, for a year I've been wearing my single-vision glasses for distance, taking them off every time I want to read or eat. (Eating while watching TV is impossible!) And it doesn't help that when I take off my glasses, my dd takes off hers (and she needs to keep them on all the time if possible). So, next weekend I'm trying again. I'm going to ask them to help me pick better frames (I never really did like the frames; I ended up giving them to my mom who had them filled with her prescription) and just pray it works. This glasses on, glasses off thing is annoying and I really do need new glasses (mine at 4+ years old, all scratched, and the screws are starting to not hold the arms anymore).

All three of mine made their first communions this spring, so we hit up Sears. It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought (I think about $50 per suit) plus they will need them again this fall for their cousin's Bar Mitzvah. Though I don't have high hopes any of them will fit the length of their pants, but one can dream, right? ETA: Had they not needed them for their FHC, I would have held off until the Bar Mitzvah. And without that, they would have just continued with khakis/dress pants, shirts, and ties.

What about Memoria Press's student workbook in conjunction with Dorothy Mills's Book of the Middle Ages? http://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/classical-studies/book-middle-ages

I will have to look into this. Dd is 3 ½, pretty much non-verbal (wouldn't say her name to a stranger even if she could) and has Down syndrome. She isn't a runner, but is a wanderer and it freaks me out to think that one day she might figure out how to get outside by herself. We've been discussing a bracelet for her with our phone numbers on it, but I didn't think a Medic Alert would be good as she doesn't have any health problems I could think would warrant it other than the Ds/non-verbal. Oh, that is my worst nightmare.

They are definitely different. We actually first tried to go from GSwL to LfC A, but there wasn't enough work for each chapter for my boys. Given their grade level (5th and 7th), I took the advice to start FFL. It's visually much better for my oldest (clean, clutter free pages) and has five lessons/sections per chapter to practice the vocabulary/grammar. Plus there is a test after that. To me, GSwL gave them a foundation and familiarity with a lot of vocabulary as well as grammar, so as they are seeing it in FFL, it's not completely foreign to them. The way our timing has worked, we only go through the first five chapters and will restart in August (I'm going to make some review worksheets or something for the first couple weeks to go over what we did this year thus far). But I am happy with the transition and our time with GSwL. I plan on having my youngest son finish SSL next year along side of Prima Latina, and then do GSwL in 4th before starting FFL in 5th.

We went from GSwL to MP First Form this year. I felt the time in GSwL was nothing but beneficial. It is a great introduction to the grammar of Latin and slowly takes you through quite a bit of vocabulary. I taught up on the board and my boys copied the lessons in a composition book.

I have never used LC1, so take this with a grain of salt, but we absolutely loved GSwL. I used it with a 3rd/4th grader and a 5th/6th grader (we started in the middle of one year when we switched from LfC A and then went through the next year). The boys were very disappointed this year when there wasn't more. I plan taking ds#3 (rising 3rd grader) through Prima Latina while finishing Song School Latin, and then he will start GsWL somewhere between the end of 3rd and beginning of 4th. It really is a fantastic program/book.