I agree. If she's innocent, then her life is pretty much destroyed now. If she's guilty, then all of this is just a DISTRACTION from LOOKING FOR THE BOY!!! Reading the comments to some of these recent articles, and there's people saying "There's something the police aren't telling us about this step-mom, we the public deserve to know!" NO YOU DON'T! If you want to be involved in the investigation then *look for the boy!!!* Don't go digging through court papers and such to try and do a "trial by media". That is NOT justice and it does NOTHING to help this little boy! Leave the investigating to the police! Wow, maybe I should tell you all how I *really* feel. :tongue_smilie:

I voted that I "love" exercise, and I REALLY REALLY do! I've been working out on a regular basis since 2002 and it is something that I truely enjoy and miss it when I'm sick or too heavily pregnant to do it (although I was at Curves the day before my second was born! My third pregnancy was harder and I had to stop working out the last month. That was *hard*!) Why do I love it? I love seeing the changes in my body. I've been doing Jillian Micheal's workouts, and I now have killer thighs from all those lunges! Tae Bo helped get my sagging back-end back into the air. Yoga has helped increase my flexibility and balance. Strength training has given me killer arms and shoulders and more defined back muscles. I enjoy the challenge and the sense accomplishment that doing something hard (like exercise) brings is something that carries me through my entire day.

We're the same denomination, and I agree. (duh :tongue_smilie:) I LOVE the way everyone in an LDS congregation is expected to pitch in. Practically everyone has a Calling of some sort to help minister to the congregation (of course some people don't serve, and nobody is forced to). The Bishop (similar to a Pastor, except he doesn't preach regularly) has many many people he can delegate the work to. He's still pretty busy, but not so much that he has to quit his day job. And he's only doing it for 5 years and then we're given fresh leadership. I love the different backgrounds my various Bishops have come from: a retired cop, a chiropractor, a lawyer, a school teacher... all have added SO much to their congregations from their various abilities and willingness to serve. Blessings from Heaven is the *best* payment, IMO. :D

Thank you for the advice so far. I know I'm totally overthinking this, but I'm a planner at heart. I don't do "on the fly" very well. :lol:

How do you work "read-alouds" into your homeschooling day? (I'm thinking of chapter books like the "Little House" books and Charlotte's Web) Do you just do one chapter a day, or however many chapters your child will sit through? Do you just pick books from a list, or do you try to read books that tie into the history period you're studying, or whatever book WWE is using selections from. Also, is it a part of your formal learning time (like between the math lesson and science), or do you do it as a bedtime story or when Dad gets home? This seems like such a simple thing and yet it's got me stumped. :tongue_smilie:

I'm still a bit overweight, but feel that I'm fit. I'm 169 now, but even when I was in the 180's I was able to do a complete, 50 minute Jillian Michael's DVD without taking a break. When I started doing 30 Day Shred I was able to handle Level 1 with no problem, whereas I heard other women my size (on a weightloss message board I'm on) complain about how many times they had to stop to catch their breath. I'm still 15 pounds above "normal" weight for someone my age and height (5'6"), but I consider myself "in shape" because I have endurance, and I have strength. Being skinny but quickly worn-out by physical activity isn't "fit" IMO (barring medical issues, of course). I work out 6 days a week, for anywhere from 30-60 minutes, at fairly high intensity (Jillian Michael's intensity :lol: )

That's where I got mine from as well.

www.everydayfoodstorage.net is an *awesome* blog with great recipes for using your food storage, as well as tips and tricks on how to build an appropriate food storage for your family. She has a recipe for whole wheat pancakes that *only needs a blender* (no wheat grinder!) and is super yummy!

My family is big on preparedness. Nearly every one in my family has a 3 or 6 or 12 month supply of emergency food and water (DH and I currently have 6 months squeezed into our house). The key thing to remember when doing this is *make sure you'll use it and know HOW to use it*. There's no point having cans of wheat kernals and beans if you have no clue how to use them. I have a wheat grinder I use regularly to make cracked wheat for cereals and flour for breads (and know how to make my own bread). I know how to soften dried beans to make them edible. We have some freeze-dried fruits and veggies that are the type of fruits and veggies we eat reguarly (apples, carrots, onions) and I use them on a semi-regular basis so that I'm used to using them in recipes. We also have powdered milk, and other shorter shelf-life items like jarred salsa, pasta sauce, canned chicken and tuna, boxes of pasta, cake mixes, and cereal. If you rotate it (i.e. use it before it expires) and only buy things that your family will actually USE in an emergency, then it can be a great thing. Also, don't forget 72 hour kits that can literally be a life-saver in the event of an emergency evacuation! Each member of my family has a backpack with emergency food, water, clothes, and other necessities in the event of a natural disaster that requires us to leave our home in a hurry. I personally find great peace of mind in our emergency food storage. Not only because of what natural diasters might come our way, but with the economy the way it is, what a huge stress-relief it would be to be able to stretch our savings by eating our food storage instead of spending more money at the grocery store! My two cents. ;)

I just spent the last two hours sitting on our porch swing, eating ice-cold watermelon, while my littles ran through the sprinklers, with the sound of lawn mowers humming in the distance. Heaven.

Done that one too. :lol: It's interesting what seemingly mundane topics can get people from all sorts of backgrounds so riled up! (has there been a thread here on whether it's appropriate to put babies in bikinis yet?:tongue_smilie:)

How funny! There's a different parenting message board I've been a member of for years, and THE BIGGEST THREAD in the history of the board (and it's about an 8-year history!) was debating the Great Shopping-Cart Question. :lol: Sometimes, if a thread starts to get heated, this will pop up right in the middle. :lol:

Well, one HUGE bit of "science" in the books that is now outdated is the "neanderthals can't talk" bit. I guess back when she wrote the book neanderthal remains that had been studied were missing key bones that would make verbal speech possible, but after the first book was published other remains were found that *did* have the bone, so the neanderthals very likely *could* have had a verbal language. That spoils the whole "they're just animals because they can't even talk!" part of the series.

Just got back from seeing this with my almost-4-year-old. SO wish I'd had a tissue.

Well we survived Week 1. :lol: (doing four days a week to start) We did Scripture study, math, reading and art "formally", and handwritting was covered in the writting required for the scripture study and math. I LOVE the book I got for the scripture study. LOVE Math Mammoth which we did 3 out of the 4 days. Math U See is hit and miss. I'm not sure if DD is in Primer or Alpha (are there tests where I can see where she is?) and the blocks are proving to be a bit of a distraction. I'm thinking I may only bring it out to introduce something new, then use Math Mammoth for practicing the new skill. LOVE OPG for reading. I bought it after giving up on figuring out where to start my DD out in 100EZ Lessons since she already reads some. I enjoy the chapter divisions and how it tells you *exactly* what each lesson is going to teach the child. And the letters aren't all wonky. :lol: And then art was just painting paper plates (made a sheep mask) and paper bag puppets. I bought a set of books called "Look what you can make with..." that has crafts for paper bags, cardboard tubes, plastic soda bottles, egg cartons, and a bunch of other around-the-house type stuff. She flips through them each night to pick out what she wants to do each day. It's her favorite part of homeschool, so I've made it the last thing we do for the day as an incentive to get her to sit still for the other stuff. :tongue_smilie: Next week I'll be adding in grammer (FLL) and maybe spelling (AAS). The teaching part has been a snap thus far, but I'm still figuring out how to store and keep track of everything. And I also need to work on prepping DD's work more than 5 minutes before I want her to start working on it. :tongue_smilie: Overall though, it's been easier than I thought it was going to be. :)

Thank you for all the encouragement. :D We went ahead and did the scripture study part. Went much easier than I imagined! I let her pick out the art project she wanted to do today last night (making a dinosaur out of paper plates) and I didn't realize we didn't have any paint, so we'll have to make a trip to the store to get some, and she's getting impatient. :lol: I didn't realize anyone actually read it. :lol: Yes, Saturday was GORGEOUS!!

In about 2 hours I'll be starting my first day of homeschooling my 1st grader. I am nervous. as. heck. and we're not even doing a full-load! Just Scriptures, Math, Reading, Art, and P.E. (P.E. being a trip to the park) At least she's excited though. She's been asking all morning when homeschool starts! Breeeeeath! Breeeeeath! :tongue_smilie:

YES! All those plank raises for the abs! And the superman pose. LOVE that one. I have the small of my back, er, back. :lol:

30DS *is* hard on the knees, so I modify the lunges so that I'm doing them stationary (just dropping up and down, not bringing my feet back to center. I find this way to actually be much more effective for me). Her No More Trouble Zones is *awesome*. I may have to try the Blast Fat Boost Metabolism one. I actually *really* like her workouts because they're actually HARD, and she pushes me past the point I would normally push myself to (I'm bad at challenging myself). I've been working out for several years though, and I think most fitness videos are geared more towards the "Okay, I'm sick of being a couch potato!" crowd.

This has been an interesting thread to read. :) I am an LDS Christian (aka Mormon), and we, too, reject the "once saved, always saved" notion of Protestant sects. "Enduring to the end" is an oft-quoted Scripture. One analogy I've heard often is that of a man drowning in the ocean, to whom Christ throws a rope. The man can choose to grab onto the rope, or not. If he grabs onto it he can swim along as the Savior pulls him in, allowing himself to become stronger and draw closer to Christ more quickly, or he can fight and kick, or even let go at any time. At the end, when he's pulled to shore, even if he swam quickly along the rope while the Savior pulled, it was still the Savior who saved him. He didn't save himself. It was Christ who provided the rope - the means - for Salvation, and pulled him to shore because he was too weak to ever hope to do it all on his own; and it's our own doing - letting go of the rope - that will prevent us from reaching His presense.

Everytime I see this thread title I get a song running through my head... "We're men! We're manly men!" :lol:

Healthy Cooking magazine (from the makers of Taste of Home) is a favorite of mine. I used to have Cooking Light, but they use a lot of expensive ingredients (like fresh herbs, expensive cuts of meat, etc.) that I found most of the recipes to be outside of our budget, not to mention time! (lots of multi-step recipes) Healthy Cooking recipes are simple, use everyday ingredients, and are much easier on the pocketbook and are less time-consuming than Cooking Light, IMO.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2010/05/drem-big-gjrads.html Thought her little homeschooling quip in today's post was cute. :D

I've noticed this too! And I haven't even "officially" started homeschooling yet. Even our thoughts on vacation planning have changed. The more historical sites there are to hit the better! :lol:

I'm afraid this Summer is going to be like the Summer we had two years ago where there were *3 days* of 80/90 degree temps with crystal blue skies, and then 60's and 70's and rain all the rest of the time. I keep checking the 10-day forecast on weather.com in the hopes of seeing a stretch of little tiny suns, instead of rain, rain, and rain.