I do about 20 minutes or less with my 5 year old per day. It varies from day to day what we work on. Our main focus is teaching her to read so we usually do a lesson from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise. This generally takes 10-15 minutes. If she's interested and we have time, we'll also do one page of writing practice in her workbook (we have Getty Dubay A) or play a Rightstart math game (she loves Go to the Dump, which teaches addition facts for the sum of 10). At this point, I would start working with the 7 year old first since from your post he seems to need the most help. Start slow and see what time of day works best for you and him to work for a short period. Maybe before school might work? Good luck and welcome to the boards.

I have negative feelings about certain words and phrases from my corporate days. The first time I heard someone say, "He totally through me under the bus!", I said, "WHAT?!?!?" I also have issues with -robust (as in "This situation requires a robust response.") -vis a vis (my former boss tried to fit this phrase into every conversation as much as possible) -quite frankly (another big boss favorite. He opened every sentence with "Quite frankly..." when he wasn't being frank at all. :tongue_smilie:) -seriously, actually, truthfully, honestly (this drives me crazy. So you're saying that normally you're not serious or honest with me?) And finally the word durable. I had a manager who used this word as an adjective to describe himself frequently, as in "I'm durable." Really?:confused: When he first started saying it, I thought he said, "I'm adorable." I don't know if that was more or less disturbing.

At our house it just seemed to magically happen overnight so I'm not much help in terms of analyzing what happened developmentally. One day she was sounding out every word, and the next she wasn't. We're working through OPGTR and we're at around lesson 125 and she started reading more fluently when we were around 110. She was around 5 years and 4 months when it happened. Seriously though, I think each child is going to be unique with this. She still freaks out a bit when confronted with multisyllabic words. I just view it as a lifelong journey that we're all in together. I'm still encountering new words at 34 :001_smile:

If you feel she has the skills to read and just lacks fluency, I would have her choose some books she is interested in to read to you. If they are her choices, she'll probably be more motivated and you'll get to see first hand what skill level she's at. You can build from there by encouraging her to read more and more and add books closer to grade level as time goes on. If you think she needs phonics instruction to help her, I can't say enough good things about The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise. We're only half way through and my daughter is reading 1st and 2nd grade level books to me fluently. You could always skip over the parts you know she knows and it's scripted so no prep work for you.

My closet is predominantly red and black. Red is my favorite color so anyone who buys me clothes as a gift always buys red (or there's always my MIL who every single Christmas buys me a shirt with horizontal stripes. :001_huh: Yes, every single Christmas.). I'm trying to branch out in the color department with my shirts. If you were to check the tags of my clothes, 90% of them would be from the Gap or Ann Taylor Loft. I tend to wear a bright colored plain tee with jeans or black slacks topped off with a chunky necklace and fun shoes (I love my leopard print flats). And I agree about white---if I'm wearing a white shirt, something is going to happen. Like the year I was making cranberry orange relish with the meat grinder attachment of my Kitchen Aid and somehow there was a relish explosion right on my white shirt.

Life isn't perfect, but most people don't want to put their woes in a Christmas letter so they just write the positive. I usually try to keep ours upbeat but humorous. Even though I spent half the year with horrible health issues, I didn't mention them. The passage I wrote about myself this year was: "I’m just busy being super mom (ha ha) by being a homeroom mother at Red’s school, volunteering for the neighborhood association, baking cookies, chauffeuring children, doing laundry, cooking dinner, and collapsing on the sofa with a book (or more recently Dancing with the Stars---why didn’t Kyle win?) at the end of another crazy day." So I called myself super mom...because I am. :tongue_smilie:

We shot up from $3/gal to $3.20 in the last week for regular. I'm just outside Detroit.

We'll be finishing soon too and I was wondering what to do after as well. Looking forward to hearing any other suggestions offered...:bigear:

After you get the undergarments, I would first pick a neutral color that you like. (my personal fave is black, but brown, camel or navy are cool too) and then get your main items in that color. I would get 1-2 pairs of pants that can be dressed up or down, a skirt, a dress, and a jacket in your main color. Then add to that 1-2 pairs of jeans plus as many shirts in colors that make you feel good that you can find after that. Don't forget some socks and a pair of hose in your main color! If you have some money leftover, buy a scarf or a couple of necklaces that coordinate with your new shirts to tie everything together. I love how accessories just make an outfit. Oh- and check the tags to make sure everything is machine washable so you don't get stuck in the dry cleaning trap. Yay! I wish I could shop with you :001_smile:

I hear you. My circumstances are decidedly different, but made the decision to send my older child to ps this summer. Here's a link to my blog entry about it. Just remember like the previous poster said--- your decision can be changed at any time to suit what's best for your child and your family. You are a good parent. :grouphug:

Two of my closest friends actually don't use paper towels. They use washcloths or rags for everything. I haven't brought myself to do it yet, but they seemed to manage just fine. When one of them was pregnant, I offered to clean her house. I said "Where's your paper towels?" and she promptly led me to a laundry basket full of rags. I guess that's a way to get your paper towel expense down to $0.

I use it to make cranberry-orange relish for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I use it to make ground chicken too occasionally.

I got some awesome jewelry and one of those Ninja food processors from my dh, but the funniest gift (and thus, my favorite) was a set of those trackers that you put on stuff so they beep when you hit the clicker after you've lost them. My 3 year old son loses his blanket everyday and then cries until I find it. I've been teasing dh for a month that I wanted a set of those so I could attach one to his blanket. Now I have one---yay! I laughed so hard. :lol:

That sounds AWESOME!!! Can you post photos of the steampunk Christmas? Please? Not today of course----you'll be sewing your brains out! :tongue_smilie:

I think I'd rather have my family do some extra seasoning than verbally complain about the food to me. I know they're just kids, but after spending a lot of time cooking a meal it just slays me when my daughter sits down at the table, just looks at the meal and says, "That looks yuck, Mom." And yes, we're still working on the manners...

Chop them up and make an artichoke heart/Kalamata olive pasta. I had the cookbook The Occasional Vegetarian out from the library recently and there was a recipe in there that had those ingredients. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of the others...I have foggy Christmas brain.

I was 22 and he was 25 when we started dating. We got engaged 5 months later, and were married 1 1/2 years after that.

:iagree: I was getting ready to hear something about how you had a fantastic girls only weekend with your friends. :tongue_smilie: :grouphug: I hope you're able to find a common ground with your son. I personally am dreading the teenage years with two...since I used to be one.

There have been so many over the 12 years we've been together and 10 years of marriage. Thanks so much for this thread---you really made me appreciate my husband today :001_smile: I guess one of my top picks was the first Christmas we were dating my husband bought me tickets to the New Year's Eve Aerosmith concert in Boston. Just the tickets would have been enough, but then he went on to surprise me with transportation to dinner and the concert in a limo! I had never been in one before so it was a pretty big deal at the time. He's been surprising me ever since --- I found my engagement ring inside a plastic egg hidden in an ice cream sundae, he's taken me on a hot air balloon ride, and I know as soon as I post this I'm going to think of something else he did over the years that I forgot to write. Cheers to great husbands! Merry Christmas to all!

I knew a girl in elementary school named Joy too who was the biggest bully! That girl was mean to everyone. On the other hand, my middle name is Joy and when I was in college all my roommates had the middle name Joy too. It was a complete coincidence, but everyone used to tease us about living in the Suite full of Joy :001_smile: I then went on to give my daughter the middle name Joy too. She just asked me the other day why her middle name wasn't Sweet or Honey instead.

Is your hubby a small? :lol: The electric car thing seems to have everyone who finds out about it intrigued. I'll let the hive know when he gets it out of the garage. Hopefully by summer?

We have both a kitchen and a dining room. Both tables are oblong. There are four of us at most meals. In the kitchen, my husband sits on one side with my daughter and my son sits on the opposite side with me. This just makes it easier so each kid has a grown up to help them cut their food, etc. In the dining room, my son always sits at the head of the table that's closest to the kitchen because it's easier to get him in and out if need be because the space around the table is kind of tight in the dining room. The table is wide too so we tend to all congregate at one end instead of spreading out. When I was growing up, my parents or grandparents always sat at the heads of their tables. I don't know if we'll ever do that though because I think it would feel like we were sitting very far apart from each other.

First off--- Cat, can I be your husband? Pretty please? Just for this Christmas? ;) My hubby is getting 4 shirts that my daughter picked out. One is pink---yes, I kept the receipt. He also asked for a weather station from Hammacher Schlemmer, which apparently was popular because it's now sold out. Good thing I have mine. I feel like I should get him more stuff, but he's building an electric car in our garage right now and has been buying a lot of stuff for that so he told me that that can count as part of his Christmas gift.

We started OPGTR when my daughter was 4 years 9 months. She pushed back on doing it and didn't really seem to get it until around 5 years 3 months. Now we're about midway through the book (I think lesson #125 out of #231) and she's flying. What I ended up doing was only doing a lesson out of there (which takes about 10-15 minutes) once or twice a week or some weeks not at all during that 6 month period and rewarding her with a sticker for doing it. She didn't forget anything and when it clicked---it CLICKED. Just be patient and it will come.

I have a couple that stand out --- 1. The year I got holiday placemats from my older sister --- the exact same placemats I got her for Christmas the previous year...and we live in different states and no, she does not have the store I bought them at. 2. My first year spending Christmas with my husband's family. My big family does the "rip fest" (his words not mine. We just all dive in and we figure out who got what from who after the dust settles), while his family takes turns opening and everyone else watches. My family puts several small but nice gifts in each person's stocking, e.g. a leather wallet, a bracelet, etc. His family does toiletry items. It was kind of a stunner after he pulled out the new Eddie Bauer hat and gloves I got him, and I got a container of floss, some toothpaste, a trial size container of tissues and some pantyhose. 3. Last year my 4 year old got up in the middle of the night and opened most of her gifts. My mother in law, who was sleeping in her bed with her, snored through it! Luckily, she didn't open anyone else's gifts, but I was bummed because I missed out on her opening the gift she really wanted.