I have successfully done this! :) I gave my dh one week notice...told him that the following week I wanted to sit down with him and go through his stuff in the closet. He agreed. I reminded him the day before. Then the day came and we went through all his stuff. Believe it or not, he got rid of HALF of it! (of course a lot of it was trash--empty containers to rifle scopes, broken stuff from being crammed into his closet.) And I didn't have to prompt him either. Once it was all out for him to see all in one place and time, he could decide what he needed and what he didn't. Sometimes people can't get rid of stuff simply by being told. They need someone to go through stuff with them and help them sort and organize. My dh is one of those. :)

Wow. I didn't realize that cattle ranching can't pay for itself!

Congratulations! :) We just purchased a 9 acre farm and are overwhelmed too. lol! We WERE looking at a place with 25 acres and I am SO glad we got this smaller place. Wow the workload is amazing. And my dh has physical limitations, so all of us have to work together. We are in the same boat...our place was not kept up. So not only are we trying to get it back to a maintained state, but are living, homeschooling and everything else at the same time. 12 hour work days (homeschooling and work) are common for us now. Fortunately, our home is 1400 square feet so I don't have to spend tons of time cleaning inside... To the o.p.--Since we bought this place nearly 3 months ago, here are some things we did to make the workload more reasonable. Kids have daily indoor chores. This helps keep the house under control. If they forget to do a chore on their list, the punishment is scrubbing the bathtub or other chore I dislike. :) So I have clean tubs most of the time. Assigning the deep cleaning as punishment for undone chores is what helps keep the house really clean. I decluttered a LOT. I can have my livingroom and kitchen spotless in less than 30 minutes, including having windows clean and dusting done. I am working at getting all the other rooms decluttered, particularly the sunroom and master bedroom/bath. Those take me way too long to clean. Friday afternoons after school and Saturdays are outside work days. The kids get a flat rate for chore money ($25 a month each) and they have to do any and all chores we ask them to do. This works wonderfully and very rarely do they complain. :001_smile: Sometimes we also work on Sundays, depending on how much needs to be done around here. But we prefer Sundays to be a day of rest. We have to mow ACRES of grass...so dh does what he can and I try and keep the front and side yards mowed so he can focus on rotating the mowing in the fields. We are unable to have animals to eat down the grass...we planted a huge blueberry crop and we don't want the plants eaten. lol. So the trade-off is having to mow. Animals...we have 50 chickens and 10 turkeys. We also have about 40 pheasant eggs in the incubator and our first batch are getting ready to hatch in a week!! Birds are much easier to maintain than many other animals, so we decided to forgo the pig and sheep that we had planned on. ...maybe next year. :) The kids help me with feeding and watering the birds. I take care of cleaning out the coop. So as far as other animals, I don't have any suggestions... Garden--we have a large garden space. The kiddos helped make the space and will help weed it too. My best suggestion (something we've done that has already benefitted us greenhorns) would be to sit down and discuss how much area you want to do upkeep on regularly and figure out a chore rotation. For example, your eldest can run a weedeater while an adult mows. The other areas outside can be 'let go' except for a twice a year maintenance weekend. We've decided to let about 2 acres of our place 'go' but it is just field. So once a year we will burn off the dead grass and call it good.

Excellent ideas! thank you for sharing!

I spent about $1000 for the upcoming year for 8th and 3rd and I still haven't purchased math for my 8th grader. (Haven't decided if we are sticking with ACE or moving on to Teaching Textbooks). I overspent and purchased things we won't use. Ugh. I was way too hasty this year, which isn't like me at all. I don't budget really...and we don't have extra money laying around either. lol! So I plan ahead and sell last years stuff to pay for the new stuff. Generally I am able to sell enough to pay for at least half of next years curriculum.

MFW is open and go. The problem comes in when I start tweaking. lol!

You've gotten lots of replies already...but wanted to let you know my ds who just turned 8 still wears goodnights and occasionally leaks through them. He sleeps very, very hard. Even the nightime alarm (vibrating AND beeping) wouldn't wake him some nights! The alarm would wake me and I would go wake him up. He went for 8 months wearing the alarm and we switched him back to goodnights because there was no improvement whatsoever. So more than anything, my post is commiseration...my dd potty trained herself at 2.75 years old and was night AND day trained in 5 days (when she sets her mind to something...). BTW, the doctor says that nothing is wrong with ds...some kiddos just take more time. I am hoping he will be dry at night by age 10. If not, then we may consider medication, but I don't know. :)

Christians attacking other christians is of satan. I just wish more christians would realize that before they go off on a rant about someone not being 'christian enough' for whatever reason. Ugh.

:party:

I've sent stuff to them. They sent me back a letter (promptly) to keep for tax deductible reasons and I was able to write in the dollar amount the materials were worth. Nice folks.

Spray adhesive. The stuff is awesome.

Coffee made with a french press is so amazing. Mmmmmm....

Make sure she is getting enough calcium in her diet. My ds has had growing pains since he turned 3. We use heat packs and massage to help ease his discomfort until the motrin kicks in. Poor ds...he grew 14 inches in 11 months once. It was very painful for him.

Can you post a picture, preferably with something like a quarter in the photo to give size reference to the bumps? It sounds just like what my dd used to have. And it was dry skin. She still gets it occasionally on her arms if she forgets to lotion up. Aveeno is what works best for her because she has sensitive skin and allergies to fragrances. It took nearly 6 weeks of daily use to see a change. She does have a dairy allergy, but we did not notice a difference in her skin when we eliminated dairy...not that I can recall anyway...I'll have to think about it. It has been almost 4 years since she went dairy free.

I'd suggest praying about it and seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance. :grouphug:

I'm a christian and feel that the scriptures about submission are taken out of context. (Not said to debate, just to let you know where i am coming from...) My dh and I try our hardest to respect each other and listen to each other. Being a sahm can be hard. I struggled for a long time to try and feel like it was worthy. In today's society, being a sahm is portrayed as 'less than' in many ways. I finally came to the realization that being home was beneficial to my family, especially my kids and I had to stop caring what society thought about it and the pressures I felt from every side to go into the work force. Household chores I took on because my dh worked so hard out of the house and was tired. All he wanted was a hot meal and time to chill. So I provided that as best I could...not because of any submission stuff, but because I love him dearly and saw his need and how I could fill that need. Schooling...I worked while my dh went to college for 4 years (my dd wasn't born until a year before he graduated). It was a sacrifice for us both. But when graduation day came, we were both SO proud of his work and effort he put in!! I was glad that I could help him achieve such a wonderful goal! It most definitely felt like I was a huge part of it all because we are a team. When I say it was a sacrifice for both of us, it really was for him too...it is VERY hard for my dh to not work at something that yields pay in the end. It is a big deal to him to bring home money and feel like he is supporting his family. I wonder if your dh feels that way too? I think a lot of men do. I was able to go back to school too eventually. : ) And he tried to support me and help me along as I had done for him years prior. He helped around the house and took care of things that normally I would've taken care of. Dd was homeschooling K and 1st during those years so the extra hand he gave me was a real blessing. Hopefully something here can encourage you. I don't think it has much to do with submission honestly...it is a matter of you getting comfortable in this new situation in your life.

You do have a handsome dh. What sweet pics of him with baby! My dh gets 'the look' sometimes. (Of course, I think he is really hot!) His wedding ring broke some time ago and I need to get him a new one, but he insists he can fix his with Marine Goop. <snort> We've been married for 17 years and I tell him to just get a wedding ring tattoo...but he says he doesn't want to commit to that. :lol:

:iagree: with this post 100%. When we run into situations that don't seem 'logical' to me, I try my best to put myself in my dh's shoes and look at it from his perspective. He isn't some villian who is against me. He is my dh who loves us and wants what is best for us. Going anyway...doing what you (collective you) want with the kids despite what dh thinks...that is a great way to erode a marriage. If my dh were to do that to me...? That would be the ultimate hurt and disrespect.

Adventures! That would be a good fit for both of those grades, you are right. :) With Core D, your youngest would be left in the dust. Adventures ends up being many folks' favorite MFW year. Us? Not so much. THere is nothing wrong with the program. It is me. I simply do not have time to devote to doing all the fun and cool stuff that Adventures has. Ds LOVES the state sheets! He looks forward to that every day. I've been trying so hard to make sure my dd is ready for highschool in just over a year that my little guys history has kind of gone by the wayside. :glare:

No problem. :) I am going to ramble a bit. We switched to MFW for biblically integrated ancient history (in Creation to the Greeks) and decided to continue with it through the Reformation this year and 1850-Modern next year. Some folks use Mystery of History alongside Sonlight cores to get the integrated history in cores 1 and 2 (B and C?) You know, there are things I prefer about SL and things I prefer about MFW...I wish they were combined for the perfect-to-us curriculum. lol. With MFW I used the book suggestions in the appendix and purchased enough of the suggested books so that I could have scheduled readers and read-alouds for the entire year instead of doing the 'book basket'. I don't 'do' the library well. :) So that is one thing I miss about Sonlight was the pre-written schedule for readers. But what I prefer about MFW is the ability to choose my own books from the appendix. I can't have it both ways! So I just take a day in the summer to schedule the books I choose. For next year, we are using 1850 to Modern times and I.am.excited!! We will probably stick with MFW through highschool for my eldest. I want to be able to delve deeper into other subjects in highschool and Sonlight seems 'too' history heavy in highschool for my taste. I plan on using the MFW highschool as written instead of adding tons of books to it like I have the last 2 years. :) With ds, I won't be using MFW past Adventures unless I feel God-led to do so. It just doesn't seem to 'fit' for some reason. :confused: He loves being read to, but he would not be ready for Creation to the Greeks in the recommended 4th grade. So I'm not sure what to do for him yet. He is a project/hands on/visual learner. In some respects, Sonlight feels...hmmm...rougher...and MFW more gentle. That is probably because SL brings up some difficult topics at younger ages than MFW does. When we did Core D (or maybe it was E) we totally and completely skipped the World Wars Usborne book. It would have been too much for dd's tender heart. That was the only one in that core that I recall having trouble with though. And what I really, really don't like about MFW is the science being integrated with it. I wish it were a totally separate entity. We really enjoyed SL's science. It was a blast!! They are both great programs! We had some excellent SL years and are having excellent MFW years as well. Gosh I probably didn't help your decision become any easier. Lol!

:grouphug: Dd and I were in the same exact position. I fumbled the math big time. It will be okay. Congrats on having such success in other topics!! We LOVE history...If I could, I would read/learn/teach history all.day.long. and forget about all other subjects. lol Oh, and we started using ACE math. I had dd take the online placement to see where we needed to start. She really has flourished with ACE and is nearly caught up. I don't care for ACE math in younger grades, but have been impressed with the upper grade levels.

Because of vocabulary in the core books, you could easily skip Wordly Wise. The TM will give you vocab words and their definitions. SL has art books...we used their Usborne Children's Book of Art and my kiddos really liked it...even my then preschooler. I don't see it on the site, but we also used an Usborne poetry book and Usborne Intro to Classical Music (I think that is the title). We enjoyed all of them.

I am not remembering if we did Core D in dd's 4th or 5th grade year...I'm thinking 4th. So she would have been 9. Wow it was SO much fun! We STILL talk about books we read that year...Walk the World's Rim, Johnny Tremain, Carry On Mr. Bowditch...we were just talking about Nathaniel Bowditch today actually. I think it would stretch an 8 year old a bit...but it would be a great intro to American history, IMO. I guess it would depend on the child. My ds will be 8 in a few days and there is no.way. that he would be ready for that core any time in the next year, probably 2. :) If you have a strong reader who is interested in the subject, I think it would work out wonderfully. Oh, and don't be intimidated by Landmark...I was at first but it is an AMAZING book. I still remember dd's reaction when I read her the introduction. She looked at me with saucer eyes and said, "WOW!!" :) Science doesn't have to match.

We use ACE math and it is mastery. My dd does exceptionally well with it...it is the first time that she has had math she can understand and retain. :) I couldn't tell you about other subjects...sorry.

A friend of mine has a great pyrenese and they have her shaved to 1/4 inch. It did amazing things for the amount of hair in their home, made the doggy more comforable, and it looked great besides. If your dog is cooperative, it is easy to do at home with standard Wahl clippers. I shave our dog in the tub, take out all the hair, and then bathe him. He loves it! To get him used to the clippers, I let him sniff them, then I turned them on so he could hear them, then I let him feel the vibration while they were on. Now, he will lay down in the tub and has been known to fall asleep while I am shaving him. lol. I guess it is like a doggy massage. The first cut or two probably won't look great...it is hard to make it look good when you are starting out with really long hair. I try not to let our dogs hair get longer than an inch before shaving him again. It is easier and looks better. :)