Yes.

:iagree: This is totally something my daughter (who is going to be 6 in June) would do too! ;)

Thanks for the insight on how this is working out for you. I just ordered SOTW 1 with the AG for my rising 1st grader.

PLEASE don't simmer pumpkin puree. That seriously sounds like torture. I don't foresee us going vegan anytime soon, but we are doing okay on the vegetarian front. My daughter told my mom the other day "I'm a vegetarian now. I just eat chicken sometimes." :lol: My dh and I don't eat dairy, but the kids love yogurt and cheese and my dd insists on cow milk (which we get from a local dairy. She loves the glass container). Our fridge has every milk in the book right now --- rice, soy, almond, coconut, and cow. I haven't eliminated eggs (I'm baby stepping this whole process. We're using organic cage free in the interim), but here is a vegan egg substitute I've tried that I got at the health food store that worked well. For baking recipes, I sub in almond or rice milk instead of cow milk, and Earth Balance spread instead of butter. For breakfast here we eat cereal, bagels, oatmeal, pancakes, omelets, and scrambled eggs. Most mornings I eat oatmeal with some fruit on top. For lunch we eat either previous night leftovers, PB&J, hummus and pita with veggies and dip, or soup. We usually have some cut up fruit with it. For dinners I have been combing library books frantically for stuff that looks decent. We have had a few hits (e.g. my previous post on this thread) and a lot of misses. I made some chickpea crepes stuffed with rosemary veggies two nights ago that were quite frankly barely edible. My dh was kind and said "It tastes good if you put a lot of soy sauce on it." Needless to say, I won't be making that again. I think if we can just build up a repetoire of knock offs of stuff our families like, we might be in the money. :D I'll PM you if I find any other tasty recipes as I go along.

I used the old version of the Fuzzi Bunz hanging diaper pail for five years. Here's a link to their new one. My dh installed a kitchen sprayer on the side of our toilet. I would spray off any poop, shake out the insert into the bag, and then throw the diaper in. Then, when I was ready to laundry, I just turned the whole bag inside out into the washing machine and then threw the bag in with the diapers. It worked like a charm. I loved it. And no worries about having a wet plastic pail hanging around. I washed a load of diapers every other day though. I wouldn't let it go much longer or you would have some stink to contend with.

Eating Animals just turned our house veg too. I found a fantastic eggplant "meatball" recipe in the cookbook Totally Vegetarian. It was seriously so good that I didn't miss the meat at all. Another hit has been the meatless loaf recipe out of Linda McCartney's cookbook. We love shepherd's pie here and I successfully swapped lentils in the place of ground turkey and their were no complaints. I'm struggling to find recipes that aren't too hard that everyone will eat too. You're not alone.

My five year old just informed me she wants to be She-ra for Halloween (we checked out some old episodes on DVD from the library). I think it would be a fairly easy costume to make. You could just do like a short white dress with gold accents (you wouldn't want a 4 year old wearing that crazy costume anyway, right? ;)) with the crown and the sword---voila! And I'm sure you could find some stuff on eBay, but it's probably going to be pricey.

JCPenney. I just bought my daughter her flower girl dress there for my sister's wedding. The dresses there are appropriate, pretty high quality, and reasonably priced. After a coupon, we paid under $30 for a really expensive looking dress. Now's a good time to buy because all the Easter dresses are out.

:grouphug: Oh my goodness! Your poor friend. I'm so excited that the baby is okay, but how precarious is the situation with her health? I'm assuming she's still hospitalized?

:grouphug: I am so sorry...and now I feel stupid that I spent time locked in the bathroom crying yesterday because my daughter needs to see a pediatric dentist since she has two severely decayed teeth. Maybe I should be happy that she hasn't pulled them out. Eek! :tongue_smilie:

We do a lot of leftovers here too. If not leftovers, it's usually PB&J, grilled cheese, or hummus and pita with veggies and dip and a piece of fruit. There's usually yogurt mixed in there somewhere.

When my daughter was 2 she liked Gwen Stefani (the musician) who was going through a fashion phase of wearing black and white stripes. My daughter called her "Woo Hoo" (I think because her song "The Sweet Escape" has Akon in the background singing "woo hoo"). Anyway---this story is getting longer than I thought ;) --- she was with me in Victoria's Secret one day and suddenly she grabbed a pair of black white striped underwear and threw her arm up in the air and yelled, "Mommy, you need to buy these woo hoo panties!" I bought them. :D

The new Nancy Drew books aren't too bad. I'm in the same boat as you. My daughter LOVES Magic Treehouse and I'd like to find some other books that are similar. Unfortunately, she also really enjoys is the Fairy series by Daisy Meadows. There's nothing objectionable in them, but it's just the exact same plot with a different fairy every time. Can you believe this woman concocted a a book called "Mia the Bridesmaid Fairy"? :glare: I'm so relieved that she can now read those books to herself!

I know Angela blogged with photos for a while at http://www.satorismiles.com I'm planning on doing it this summer so I'll probably have some on my blog by June. ;)

We just converted to vegetarianism in our house. I suggest going to the library and checking out some vegetarian and vegan cookbooks with her to try out some recipes as a family. I found a keeper for vegetarian loaf (it's like meatloaf but without meat) in one of Linda McCartney's cookbooks. The best thing we've tried so far were meatballs (for spaghetti and meatballs) that were made with eggplant from the cookbook Totally Vegetarian. They even got the thumbs up from our 3 year old (and he's super picky!). Another cookbook that's good is The Occasional Vegetarian which has both vegetarian and meat dishes in it. Vegan Lunchbox is good for lunch menus. In the meantime to get more protein, encourage her to try eating hummus with pita and veggies as a snack. Nuts and nut butter also have protein so she could spread that on a rice cake or a bagel.

I've never hired a professional organizer before, but I think even if you do you'll be back where you are now if you don't work through your issues about why you have trouble letting stuff go. Why do you think that is? I would really think that one through before spending money on a pro. Would it be possible to get a friend who is gifted in simplifying/organizing/decluttering to keep you accountable to working on decluttering for a set period of time everyday? Or maybe you could get them to come to your house for a day to get you started? I don't know if you've seen it, but there are a group of us doing a 30 day simplification challenge for Lent. Here's a link to the first thread. I've also got the tag "simplicity" on all my blog posts about it. A link to my blog is in my signature.

We did it for one book club meeting when the book club's founder first moved from Michigan to Maryland. To be honest, it was a disaster. She had trouble hearing us depending on where the person talking was located in the room. Then everyone felt obligated then to try to talk really loud so she could hear better (which she really couldn't anyway), and she couldn't see everyone (we have about a dozen members and if we moved the laptop back further so she could see everyone that compounded her inability to hear). I don't think we'd do it again. It was really a pain in the butt.

I've actually never heard of those. Are they like bachelor and bachelorette parties? Showers are usually during the day and a little more refined---usually a lunch, brunch, or tea and you usually dress up a bit.

A bridal shower is a smaller party usually just for ladies (sometimes the guys go too) which is another opportunity to give the couple gifts in advance of the wedding.

It is so thin it won't make a difference. It's not like a fanny pack. I think the biggest it got was like a 1/2" thick. You're not putting anything big in it. Just your IDs and your money. After a while, I seriously didn't even think about it being on and we were on tour for 2 weeks. The only pain was when I had to get out money, but I tried to keep small amounts in my pockets so I wouldn't have to be going into it all the time. My dh carried his wallet too, but I had the traveler's cheques, big bills, and our passports.

Who says that?!?! Clearly, his mama never taught him any manners. You never say anything about a lady's age. :svengo:

When we went to Italy, I used a cheap belted wallet that went under my clothes at the waist---something along the lines of this. I was glad too because one of the women who was part of our tour had her pocket picked going into a church (A CHURCH!) in Florence. Go for under the shirt for sure. Keep all your valuables in that and then just carry whatever bag you want for everything else. Here's another one.

I think the amount of time you're supposed to be able to eat any leftover because of bacteria growth is 3-4 days from cooking. So I suppose you could eat it tomorrow, but that would be the absolute last day.

I don't see how you are going to host the shower anyway. You're 6 hours away? Were you planning on having it at a restaurant and you were paying the bill? I'm having my own sister wedding BS to deal with myself. My youngest sister is getting married in October. She asked our older sister to be her maid of honor, and me, our other sister, her best friend, and her fiance's cousin to be the other bridesmaids. Her best friend and I are the only bridesmaids that live in the town where everyone grew up and where they are having the wedding. Everyone else is 4+ hours away or out of state. To save everyone money (we're talking $40 per dress), I'm the one coordinating ordering all the dresses as a batch online. Everyone has had their measurements done and their money to me except my sisters. My one sister said she would get it to me for when we need place the order next week. My older sister (maid of honor) threw a fit on me last night about it because she doesn't have the money together. She's known about it for 6 months! I'm trying to be sympathetic, but I didn't appreciate being her punching bag. Then, it looks like I'm planning the whole shower too since I'm the only one here (it's being thrown by all the bridesmaids). Well, the only one here who is sort of organized. Sigh... :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Why can't weddings just be nice and happy? Why can't everyone just get along? Big big sigh...

Jackmormon This came up on a thread last night when someone asked if it was okay to put rum in their lemonade recipe. Apparently, it means someone of the LDS persuasion who does not follow the letter of the law regarding coffee, tea, and alcohol. Photos of jackrabbits followed from the confused. :lol: