Print out pictures of little meerkats (about 2 inches high) on card stock. Cut them out and tape them onto toothpicks or bamboo skewers, and stick them into a sheet cake. :D

UPS just delivered it to my door. :D

I had my boys when I was 28 and 32.

My machine is very quiet. And sleeping with the mask on is much more comfortable than with all the wires they use for the sleep study. There are quite a variety of masks too. If your hubby needs one, he should have the opportunity to try on a variety of styles to see which he prefers. :001_smile:

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea a little over a year ago. Before I got my CPAP machine I was so exhausted and had a lot of memory problems too. Thankfully, I never dosed off while driving. But our homeschooling definitely suffered. Every time I sat down to read to my kids, I would fall asleep. And I didn't even realize just how tired I was, or just how much my memory and cognition were being impacted, until I actually started getting a good night's sleep. I second the recommendation to get a sleep study, to anyone having similar symptoms. I'm sorry I waited as long as I did.

Ha ha ha I'm in the same boat. The majority of the kids activities occur between 3:00 and 7:30pm. I can't cook if I'm not home.

My kids are in 7th and 3rd and we are doing school four days a week because of outside activities. So far (5 weeks down) it is working out well. Both boys will finish their math and science curriculums only working four days a week. Some language arts and history may spill over into summer. But we don't like to take a full three months off anyways. Too much ground is lost. With a first grader, I absolutely would only school four days and not worry about it. And some weeks I would only school three days so we could go on field trips. :001_smile:

I was recovering from a c-section, and was very hormonal and sleep deprived. When the first plane hit, we received a call because my husband is a newspaper editor and he was home on paternity leave. We parked our preschooler in front of Blues Clues in the other room, and were watching when the second plane hit. Then we knew it was an attack and not an accident. Dh went to work and we didn't see him for three days. My parents came and stayed with the boys and I. Since I was nursing round the clock, and the tragedy was being covered round the clock, I watched story after story about young widows who were pregnant or had young children and I cried and cried and cried.

Definitely Dyson!

Now that I own high thread count sheets, I will never go back. Mine are a mismatched set from the outlet mall. I LOVE them. Sleeping well is very important to me, and I definitely sleep better on these sheets. We also have a set of Lands End flannel sheets that we received as a Christmas gift. Those are wonderful too.

Christopher Lloyd :D Charles Lloyd Elliott Lloyd

They actually told us the pools won't be heated until October.:confused: I'm hoping that is because the water is still warm enough in September that they don't need to be heated. The ocean will still be fairly warm then, right?

Thanks for the tip. I'll take a look at this one. :D

Thanks for all the great info so far. The specific resort we are looking at, The Sea Watch, doesn't have indoor pools in September. Apparently their outdoor pools become indoor pools in November, when they put up glass walls. But they can't do that before November because of hurricanes. So that is why I am asking about swimming in outdoor pools. :001_smile:

Can you swim in outdoor pools at Myrtle Beach at the end of September? We are considering a spur-of-the-moment vacation, and I need a quick answer, so I came to the Hive. ;) If it will be too cold for swimming, we will choose to go somewhere else. Thanks so much for your help!

Dh's commute is 10-15 minutes. We firmly believe life is too short to spend it stuck in traffic. :001_smile:

You have listed many good reasons for her to be in this class. I would have her stick with it.

I was just thinking the same thing - that after 7 years of homeschooling I should have this down pat by now, but I'm doing a last minute rethink on ds7's history and science. I was trying some new things this year, but am now wishing I had just stuck with what I used for ds12. I don't like the new curricula as well as I thought I would.

We just hosted my son's 8th birthday party over the weekend. We had cake and games in the backyard. There were 11 guests, but they represented five families, so there were five presents. The kids all seemed to have a great time, and my son had a blast. A friend of mine lives in an affluent suburb of Chicago. The parties there are truly outrageous - just like the one the original poster described. If my friend tried to host a party like I did, just simple games in the backyard with no inflatables or hired performers, I think her guests would complain, and the parents would be annoyed. There is a lot of pressure to keep up with the Joneses where she lives.

A friend of our family who recently suffered for weeks with excrutiating pain, was finally diagnosed with a staph infection. He had surgery to remove an abcess. He had no visible wound, and so the doctors didn't think to look for an infection. Maybe your dad picked up some kind of infection when his pacemaker was replaced?

Me too. I was surprised by how upset I was when she died. But I was a new mom, and the thought of someone who adored her children so much, not being around to raise them, really hit home with me. And when I think about watching her boys walk behind her casket, it still brings tears to my eyes.

A king-size bed, with pretty new sheets and a comforter. :001_smile:

I did do this, only I went more than 12 hours away. We left the kids in Chicago with my inlaws, and we went to Seattle. Both of my boys had anaphylactic food allergies, and one was too young to know what was, and was not, safe for him to eat. But we went and had a great time. The reason this worked was because my MIL was hyper-vigilant about food and knew what the kids could safely have. I double checked ingredient labels for her before we left. She knew the signs of a reaction, and how to use an epi-pen. She was well prepared. The kids had a great week. We had a great week. I would do it again. Really, I think it all comes down to your MIL and how well she deals with their allergies. I second the recommendations to board the dog, and prepare and freeze some meals ahead.

Teaching Textbooks and Writing With Ease. :001_smile:

I did decide to buy a supply kit, but went with this one from Tobin's Lab: http://www.tobinslab.com/product/AM-7KIT It seemed like the best value for the money. Thanks to everyone who weighed in on this thread! :D