The less you rely on someone else preparing it, the less expensive everything gets. So eating at home is cheaper than eating out, and making it from scratch is cheaper than using prepared items from the store. But people mean different things when they say "from scratch". Buying a giant bag of dry beans that will last your family for years is going to be way less expensive than using canned beans. Buying a whole, raw chicken to cook and cut up yourself is going to be a lot cheaper than using precut or precooked chicken (and then you can use the carcass to make soup, too). A $20 bag of oats can provide a filling breakfast for a family of six for months. At my most food-frugal, I was buying 50 lb. bags of wheat and grinding it myself for bread. But of course that takes your time and effort in place of money, so YMMV. If you have a large freezer, you can do a lot of the basic prep all at once in large batches and then still have things more convenient for daily prep. You can also do things like stocking up on turkeys now while they're so cheap, and then using them throughout the year. (I use turkey in place of chicken in any recipe.)

I'm trying to rein in the food spending again; it has gotten away from me as I have been overwhelmed with trying to keep everything going while I've been sick these past few weeks. I'm shopping the goodwill auction website for some Christmas gifts that would be way out of budget elsewhere. I also found a couple of things that I had seen ads for much cheaper on ebay. Dh and I are going to pay off the last of the law school debt this month!

I want to second the poster upthread who suggested going and speaking with members of the different denominations about what they believe. I think it will be far more productive in helping you than talking to people about what they don't believe from other denominations. You're always going to get the clearest picture of understanding each church's doctrine by visiting that church, learning from them about their own understanding of their doctrine, and praying to the Lord for his guidance in helping you to know what is true or not from what you learn.

Our kids have seen the original three, plus 1 and 7 with some home editing (in 1 we skip the Qui Gon/Darth Maul death scene and in 7 the rathtars and murder scenes). These are the only PG-13 movies our kids have ever seen or will be seeing for a good long while, so I guess we made an exception for Star Wars, too. I'm hoping that 8 will be similar, and we'll be able to let them watch it with only a little editing. They won't be watching 2, 3, or Rogue 1 until their teens.

It was really painful when they put it in. The first time, they couldn't get it to stay. They had me come back a week later to try again. She said to expect the cramping and pain at the time to last up to a few hours. The pain lasted almost three days, the cramping for a week and a half. My periods were super heavy and less regular for quite some time; after about a year an a half they had evened out and gone down to heavier than they had been, but not so bad. All that said, it is the best form of birth control that I have ever tried (other than just having a breastfeeding baby).

Some family friends were investigated by CPS a few months ago because Dad, talking about his frustration with their 2-year-old's behavior, said, "Ugh! Sometimes I just want to strangle her!" I was present during the conversation, and it never occurred to me based on his manner of speech that it was anything other than hyperbole. But someone else called it in, and CPS showed up saying they had had a report about him strangling their daughter.

I also had the police called on me once. Ds5 had epic tantrums when he was younger. That day he had been having a major meltdown, screaming and hitting me and trying to follow me to continue the tantrum when I moved away. I told him that I'd talk to him about it when he could stop hitting and screaming, and I put him in his room. I held the door shut for almost 45 minutes while he screamed, hit, and kicked the door. Then we talked about it, made up, had a cuddle, and went on about our day. About an hour later an officer drove up asking about the baby who had been left crying for hours on end. I try to be glad of the knowledge that, should something actually happen to me here during the day sometime, we have neighbors within earshot ready to call in for help for my kids. But honestly, couldn't you just tap on the door to see if things are okay before calling the cops?

My mom, the most caring, loving, attentive mother in the world, had CPS called on her by the school health attendant. My brother had a scratch on his eye that mom was watching and did not believe was a problem. The health attendant said he needed to see a doctor. She did not think it was a problem, but had a friend who was a dr take a look at it when they were visiting, and the dr friend confirmed that she was right, it was nothing to worry about. Later at school, the health attendant called my brother into her office, and asked him if his mom had taken him to the docter' office. When he said no, she called CPS. My poor mom was so mortified to be investigated by CPS. The docter friend was livid; he called the school and complained that the nurse had way overstepped her mandate.

You're right of course that it's not just the phones. The phones do not cause kids' poor decisions that lead to bad consequences; they just open their choices for far more wide-reaching and long-lasting consequences, or for others to blackmail and exploit them with their childish indiscretion, or lure them into addictive behavior.

She enjoys Riordan. We've allowed her to read some of his and not others. (I couldn't tell you which ones; dh is the one who has read them before and felt that some of them had elements she wasn't ready for yet.)

Thanks for the great suggestions!

Looking for a book for my dd8 for Christmas. She adores D'aulaire's Greek Myths and Norse Myths. Can someone recommend something similar, kid-oriented but pretty detailed, for another mythology? Maybe Egyptian? Thanks.

Dh has met so many teens through his work as a D.A. whose lives have been destroyed, starting out with smart phones. It is just so common and so tragic. The parents usually think they are supervising things closely enough, but are not really able to keep up with all of the ways that things can get through. We will not be allowing our kids to have smart phones before adulthood. We'll probably do some kind of dumb phone for our teens, but frankly I've got some hesitancy about not just internet access and apps, but anything with a camera in it.

We have six people in a 900 sq. ft. house. We generally do all of our living and schooling in one room. Our daily-use homeschool supplies are kept in a 2x4 cubby Kallax Ikea shelf, to which I added two of the drawer inserts. These each make one cubby into two drawers, so each kid has a drawer. Our kitchen and living room are really just two ends of the same room, and this is in the kitchen half, near the kitchen table where we do most of our work requiring a writing surface. I also found some short and wide stacking shelf unit things from Goodwill, and instead of stacking them I placed them end-to-end on the floor against the "living room" wall next to the dining table, below the wall where we use the projector (takes up way less space than having a tv). I'm thinking it would be a good idea to get a roll-down projector screen (we currently just use the wall) so I can put maps behind it for school. These long, low units add extra storage for homeschooling books and papers and also seating without taking up much space. On the wall across from that one is the couch where we do a lot of our schooling. I keep some sturdy little folding tv trays in the coat closet by the door, and often pull those out when someone needs a separate workspace. The other wall has a bookshelf in the corner with doors on the bottom shelves, which contain the preschooler's school-time toys and manipulatives, and the printer and music books at the top. It also has the piano, and I have mounted hangars for most of the rest of the instruments on that wall (haven't figured out what to do with the cello yet, though). I store the big whiteboard for AAR between the piano and the wall. At first I had a problem with it scraping the wall as it was slid in and out, and with little letter tiles getting knocked off and lost behind the piano, but I fixed both problems by gluing a long strip of flannel folded over the top edge of the whiteboard. I also have a few boxes of curriculum not currently in use stashed under my sewing desk in my bedroom, and a few more things saved on the bookshelf in the bedroom.

I think that telling kids they cannot dress up as characters they admire because of those characters' race is likely to encourage exactly the opposite effect desired: people who see race as a barrier, who most easily sympathize with and identify primarily with others who look like them, and who judge on appearance before character. I want my children to want to be characters of strength and interest and good qualities, regardless of their race or ethnicity. I want them to see someone do something awesome, and say, "I want to be just like her!" without a second's hesitation that maybe they are just too different to be like her. I want them to immerse themselves in rich, imaginary adventures where they get to try out being people they admire with different strengths, different situations, different experiences. If my kid wants to emulate their hero who comes from a different culture or race or background, more power to them.

Thank you, Lori!

Is either girl an earlier riser than the other? My ds5 is an early riser, often coming and crawling into bed with dh and I around 6 or 6:30 in the morning. So I decided to take advantage of it. I set his phonics and math books and pencils beside my bed at night, and when he crawls in with me, I ask if he feels like doing some. Probably about half of his total Kindergarten work is completed cuddled up with me before anyone else gets up in the mornings.

Nope. Her vision has tested above average, and learning issues have never seemed likely. She is a really bright kid who is ahead of her age group in every subject except spelling, and is now up to grade level there. She has dealt with major perfectionism issues, but we have made a ton of headway in teaching her to deal with that over the years. But she has always had issues with change. As a baby, she slept like a dream for 12 hours a night if she went to sleep at the same time in the same place with the same routine she was used to. If we were half an hour late starting her bedtime routine, or couldn't find the right book, etc, she would be up for hours screaming before we could finally get her down.

The past two days, I have given her half an hour of my undivided attention for math right after breakfast, and then sent her off to do other things for an hour or two. Later, she's done another 15 or 20 minutes with our former level of independence--me there and available to help if needed, but dividing my attention among other siblings at the same time. I told her that if she worked diligently for that time, then she was done, no matter how far she had gotten. It has gone way better! I am still dealing with attitude at other times, but math has not been the focus point of it. I appreciate your comments and advice, but just a note: this child develops attitude issues every single time we take a break from school, in direct proportion to the length of the break. I have sworn off summer vacations because of her in the past, but I was so burned out by the end of last school year that I took one anyway for my own sanity. So I knew to expect this, but it has been her worst transition back ever.

Okay, maybe I am expecting too much. I'll try this week shortening my expectations and seeing if I can keep her on task in shorter bursts.

I aim for around 45 minutes to an hour worth of work, which used to be around 5 pages if none of them were especially challenging. Since starting up again after taking a break in the summer, though, she can spend over an hour on one page. She does somewhat better if I sit with her the whole time and do not divide my attention at all (only working at about half of her prior pace, instead of a quarter), but I have four children. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to expect the same degree of independence as she had as a second grader--I would start her off, explain the concepts, go over the first question or two with her, and then have her work in the same room while I work with a younger sibling and am available to help if she needs it.

I am dealing with some major attitude issues with dd1 right now. I would prefer to just have her work for a set length of time on math each day, but if I give her a time limit, she will work very slowly so she doesn't have to do much. Her math is taking FOREVER since we started the school year, and dh thinks maybe I am assigning too much work per day. So I'm wondering what other moms think is reasonable for a given length of time. How long would you expect a page of math to take your third grader on average? Or how many pages would you expect your student to reasonably finish in an hour? For a kid using Singapore math 4 intensive practice and challenging word problems, who is bright in math.

I totally agree that purity balls are super creepy, with their sexualization of innocent little girls, and that all of those fancy-romantic-date trappings would make a daddy-daughter dance have some creepy overtones, too. But, a simple, fun, age-appropriate daddy daughter dance for little girls to spend time doing something fun with dad? That's just sweet. I remember going to one with my dad as a kid, and being very impressed with how good my friend and her dad were at doing the twist.

Does any kind of dancing with partners and a lead feel that way to you? Like, swing dancing? My siblings and I were really into swing dancing when we were young. When my brothers were littler, the girls would lead because it worked better, but once they reached their teens and knew the basics, they would usually lead because they were then bigger and stronger, so it worked better to do the fun spinning/flipping moves with the bigger person leading. I have always assumed that was why men traditionally lead in partner dances.

Why? Does all dancing have some kind of romantic connotation in your mind? How do people in your extended family learn to dance? I thought most people learned whatever basics of dancing they know by doing it for fun at home with their family. Starting with the crazy whirling and bouncing of little kids having fun with Mom and Dad, gradually morphing into , "Hey, Mom, how do you do ____?" as they get to the age where they care about what they look like when they dance. I'm the third girl in a row in my family, so we had a little bit of the March sisters issue going on. "I'm sorry, Meg always makes me lead. It's a shame you don't know the lady's part!" Of course, I taught my little brother just as my older sisters taught me, and there was nothing weird about it in the slightest. In my mind, dancing on it's own doesn't have a romantic connotation.