For The Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay Home Education by Charlotte Mason Emma by Jane Austen on my Nook (which stays in my nightstand so the kids don't mess with it :tongue_smilie: )

Thanks so much for the info!!! I had remembered reading something before about the hair care and wanted to make sure before I did something to ruin the dolls. :P

I agree with you, that does seem odd. We live in a similar type of neighborhood, shortly after we moved here the boys were playing in our fenced backyard, I had the door open and heard an adult male voice. I ran to the door and there was a police officer on the other side of the fence talking to the boys, he had parked across the street. My boys were too young to know they shouldn't talk to strangers (2 and 3 yrs old). The officer looked up and saw me, apologized for alarming me and started talking to me about how nicely behaved they were, playing so nicely together and we just had a general conversation about kids and parenting. The officer gave the boys some "police badge" stickers, told them to mind their mommy and said goodbye. It still gave me the heebie jeebies a little for a police officer to randomly stop and get out of his car to talk to small children, dh thought it a bit odd too. Made me glad we have a 6 ft fence.

Dh and I took the kids to one of the Goodwills in our area and we found a set of Bitty Baby Twins along with a ton of outfits for half what it costs for just the dolls. Yay!! We've been wanting to get dd (she'll be 3 in Aug.) an American Girl doll but it's far outside our budget. To get all the clothes was awesome. :001_smile: DD is in love with her new babies. The dolls are in excellent shape, just a small pen mark on one leg, I'm sure I can get it off. I felt a little sad cause someone obviously spent a LOT of money on these dolls and clothes (the clothes sets are complete with no stains or rips or anything) just to end up at Goodwill. With the cost of outfits and the dolls there was easily $500 + worth. If I could have bought all 5 bags of extra clothes along with the dolls it would've been $90 + tax. We bought just the dolls (which came with 5 outfits each) and one extra bag of clothes. We're going to check back next paycheck and see if the other bags of clothes are still there. :D The question I have is simply is there anything I need to know about proper care for American Girl dolls? Anything special about caring for the hair? The hair on the dolls is in good shape, not matted but not smooth, what can I do to smooth it down and not ruin the hair?

When my grandmother's health was failing, my mom went to see her and grandma made sure my mother took me some specific items she wanted me to have for me and my dd; a few pieces of special jewelry and her sewing box. Grandma knew none of the other granddaughters would want it and didn't want it to end up in the garbage, she wanted me to have it. She knew I would treasure it and use it. While I'm happy to have it, it made me sad that nobody else wanted it and she knew it. My grandma had reason to make sure I would get it, my mom's family is not really known to treasure special gifts like that. When my great-grandmother passed, she had left her old sewing machine to my grandma and my mother. You can imagine the horror when my grandma went to get it and it had been thrown onto a burn pile with a bunch of other trash. My grandma confronted one of her brothers about it and his response? "We didn't think anyone wanted it, it was just a piece of junk". It's sad that some people don't treasure family heirlooms and memories.

I've made the same mistake myself. The wonderful lady who owns the local homeschool bookstore and I were chatting and I swear she had that perfect baby belly going. I honestly thought she was my age (mid 30s) and asked her "I hope this isn't too personal but are you expecting?" She laughed and said no it was just the style of shirt she was wearing. I apologized big time, she told me not to worry as she'd been asked that all day. If anything, she said she was deeply flattered that anyone thought she was still young enough to have more babies (she's in her late 40s, I can only hope I look as good as she does when I'm her age).

We had this happen to us, our car had broken down and we had to replace it before we could unload the broken car. We had it sitting next to the car, no for sale sign and dh hadn't gotten around to listing it in the paper or anything, in fact my dad was going to just haul it his house and pull any parts he might want (they had the exact same make, model, year) and then haul it to the junkyard. You couldn't tell from looking at it that anything was wrong with it. A man knocked on our door one day and asked if we were selling it. Freaked me out a little, but I took his phone number and told him I'd have dh call him. I watched the man the whole time to make sure he did leave. Low and behold, he just happened to really like the make and model of our broken car and was serious about buying it, even though it needed major engine work. Nothing special about our car, it was just a typical family car. I have also had people stop by when I was working in the yard ask if the wood we have stacked in our backyard was for sale.

No he didn't, that's why I was caught off guard by the bruising. I've never seen it before, only when he was sick last month. I'm keeping a close eye on it because this is something I am concerned about. Our family has a lot of food allergies and food intollerances. So far with our 9yo he's the only one doesn't seem to have any issues but I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. :tongue_smilie:

:lol: I would've told my kids the same exact thing. We can be evil together I guess. :D Most likely he is doing something without realizing it. He has high-functioning autism so it's probably what the issue is. It does very much look like he either hit himself in the mouth or pinched on his lips, I just don't recall seeing him do anything that would cause the weird bruising, but who knows with kids. Thanks for the input!!!

We first noticed this on ds last month when our family all got sick with bronchitis/pneumonia. His entire upper lip up to his nose has a reddish color to it, streaky lines and tiny little reddish purple dots. The pediatrician said she wasn't sure what it was, that it looked like maybe he bumped it or something and to keep an eye on it. It did go away when his bronchitis cleared up. Today I noticed the same exact bruising in the exact same area again, but he's not sick now. He says it doesn't hurt or bother him at all but it looks terrible. With all of you knowledgable ladies with your vast array of experience, I'm hoping maybe someone might have some idea what this might be. :001_smile: If it doesn't clear up in the next couple days I may make an appointment with the dr again.

Little House books (I still have my set from when I was younger) Ramona series The Secret Garden Island Of The Blue Dolphin Black Beauty Anne of Green Gables series Encyclopedia Brown Diary of Anne Frank Sweet Valley High series Louis Lamour books (my 8th grade English/history teacher was a big western fan and I got hooked) Emily Dickinson poetry Edgar Allen Poe poetry I'm sure I'll remember more later.

Every church I've attended gave a shower regardless of whether the mother/family was a member or not. Also every church I've attended has had the rule of giving a full party for the 1st baby or if it's a different gender from previous sibling(s) or if it's the first child the parent(s) have had since attending the church (i.e. our dd was our third but the first child we had expected since going to our current church so we were given the big party). But all other children are celebrated, the church has a "table shower" where a table is set out special and decorated in the foyer and gifts can be left there for the new baby. On another note, sometimes showers are given after baby arrives and sometimes before, it all depending on the church's schedule and when it can accomodate the party. When we were expecting dd the lady in the church that organized the baby showers let me know that they would have to wait til after baby was born as there were just too many events going on at the time to do anything before baby came, she didn't want me to think they'd forgotten which stunned me and touched me since I didn't expect anyone to do anything as dd was our third child.

Not a bit.

I had the joy of trying on some clothes and finding them way too big. :D I haven't seen the scale go down much so didn't think I was getting anywhere. It's just the thing I needed to give me motivation to step it up and keep working towards my goal (I have 100 lbs to lose).

We have teens that volunteer as aides in our nursery and I enjoy having them there. We have rules (i.e. Have to be 13, cannot be left alone with the children, cannot change diapers, cannot pickup or carry around babies, etc). We have a ratio of 2 adults/1 teen. Most of us use the opportunity to teach the teens proper childcare, there are a couple adults that have to be warned about spending too much time yakking and leaving the teen to watch the kids.

With my younger son, they kept telling me to expect a huge baby, between 9 and 10 lbs. I wasn't sure when I had conceived as we weren't officially trying and I didn't expect to get pg so quickly (went through infertility with our oldest, our second was conceived the month after I stopped taking the pill), but the OB refused to consider that I might be farther along than he thought. I started going into labor 8 weeks before I was due and they started to panic, put me on bedrest and medication. 5 weeks of that plus mulitiple trips in and out of L&D and my body was going to have the baby whether they liked it or not so they let me go ahead and have him. He was 7lbs, 14 oz. OB's response: well, I guess maybe you were farther along than we thought. ;) He also said he could have probably let me have the baby sooner and he would've been okay. On another note, a friend of mine was being told that her baby was going to be huge according to measurements. The OB was so worried that she induced my friend at 37weeks and told her to be prepared for an enourmous baby (estimated baby would be around 9.5 lbs). Imagine the OB's suprise when the baby barely weighed 7 lbs. I had figured all along that he was smaller than they were figuring, in fact I guessed his weight right on the button.

We have a terrific mailman, he's one of those rare postal workers that loves his job and knows all the names of his customers on his route. We live in the city so he has a walking route, if the packages are small he carries them with him. If he can't fit it in the box, he will knock on the door or set it on the porch (he knows we don't mind and will get it shortly). If the package is too big to carry, he comes back at the end of his route with the truck and delivers. It's been a crapshoot with the substitues, some are great and some are awful. One did the thing of refusing to deliver the package at all and left a note. The package was a thin workbook I ordered that should have been no problem delivering, would've easily fit in the mailbox. The folks at the post office were even puzzled with why he refused to deliver it and apologized for the inconvenience of me having to come down to get it. The worst I've heard of is a friend of mine in Iowa's mailman. He refuses to bring packages to the door, instead he gets out of his truck and launches them across the yard towards the door. I kid you not! She has stood on her porch and watched him do it, he just smiles and goes on his way. She has complained many times, but nothing is ever done about it. You can just imagine how many things she has had broken, she never buys anything w/o insurance now.

Shoot, my brother was babysitting some of the neighborhood kids at 13 and having to change diapers, never thought a thing of it and the cool part was because of that he's one of those rare men that has never minded changing his own kids' diapers, he's even changed my kids' diapers. My almost 3yo dd loves nothing more than to walk out into the living room where everyone is gathered, throw open her towel and yell "ta da"! LOL! If she had her way, she'd be naked 24/7. Her older brothers were the same way at that age. While I respect other's feelings on things like this, that response to the situation was not okay. How hard is it to quietly walk over to the person changing the diaper and say something like "it might be more comfortable for everyone if you took her into the bathroom/bedroom and dressed her". OP, I think you handled it well.

I always leave it blank, never had a problem and never been asked. One time dh asked and they laughed and said it was a generic form they used that just had that on there and not to worry about filling it out as they don't use ssn for anything. Our kids are on Medicaid and I don't give out that info for them, never had an issue. They have their own patient ID number with the state. It even said when we got their new cards not to give out their ssn for anything as it wasn't needed. Only once have I ever had any experience with collections using an ssn to verify identity and that was to confirm that dh was not the person they were looking for (they asked me to tell them my dh's, I told them absolutely not that they could tell me the one that was on file and I would confirm or deny it to be dh, the thing that was scary is they did that w/o having any idea who I was and what I might do with that info). The more your or your family member's ssn is floating out there, the more likely it is for that number to fall into the wrong hands and be used for identity theft. That's why the SSA tells you to never, ever give that number to anyone unless you absolutely have too, question the reason why to anyone who demands/requests it and to find alternatives (i.e. patient id number, etc).

Yes, he's doing the Primer level right now. I decided to start from the beginning to get him used to the new way of doing things and to give him something he could do pretty easily and have a sense of accomplishement rather than jumping into the harder stuff right off the bat. It's the only math I've done with him that he gets excited when it's time to get his workbook. :001_smile: It makes my heart so light to see him enjoying a subject!

I have an 11yo son w/DS, this is our 2nd year homeschooling him and we're still working out the kinks. An all-in-one curriculum doesn't work for him, he has different skill levels with different subjects. I tried out Heart of Dakota with him the first year, we had to quit a few months in, he just struggled so much. I switched to Rod and Staff preschool books and he did great! He loved his books and he cruised through them. But, going to the grade 1 R&S didn't work so well, he was very lost. I've found Math U See to be a wonderful blessing, ds doesn't fight me on doing his math at all now, he really enjoys it. I'm not sure if it's the blocks or the short lessons or how they are written, he just does really well with it. Even though he doesn't get phonics, we are still working on them using Explode The Code. He enjoys it so we keep working at it. We are doing more sight reading. We are seriously considering doing Your Baby Can Read. In the meantime, Dick and Jane books have worked pretty well for him. Handwriting w/o Tears is the only writing program that has worked well for him. I sorta skip the instructions they give for writing the letters and just come up with my own, lol! Their instructions confuse me, too. Ds really enjoys educational videos and anything with music, I've gotten a few of the Rock N' Learn videos and he likes them a lot. I borrowed a Preschool Prep video from the library and ds REALLY like it, he was still singing the songs after we returned it. We're going to try to get some for home. As for science/history/etc, he does the same lessons his brother does, I just tweak them to his level. I'm reading through the book that Shifra mentioned. There is also a book on teaching math (though it was geared more for classroom teaching). Woodbine House publishers have a large selection of books covering everything from fine motor skills to reading.

We use the basement, we have a huge room that is big enough we have it all seperated into a library section with comfy chairs; space for my desk and the kids' desks; and arts and crafts area. I have bookshelves and a large organizing cabinet that seperates the desk area from the arts/crafts area. It gets really cold during the winter, too cold to be in the basement even with heaters so we move upstairs to the living room. I have baskets and crates to keep all their books and supplies in, we slide them under the coffee table.

A binding machine.

Because the public school special ed program here was basically teaching our special needs kids to be stupid and useless and dependant on everyone. With the exception of one amazing teacher, the others weren't interested in teaching our sons. Along with that was the urging we felt from God.:001_smile:

Yes, you can stream Netflix on PS3. :001_smile: