I'm sorry. I must be losing it. I thought that the first name was supposed to be Wayne and she was going to change it to Landen and wanted a middle name to go with that! :lol: Okay---well if that's the case, I'm all for one syllable middle names if you've got a first name with more than one syllable. How about James or Joel?

How about Wayne? :001_smile: That's what happened with my younger sister. Her husband was set on naming their son Richard after himself and his father. My sister loved the name Finn. The verdict ---- Finn Richard...and all parties were happy (mostly ;))

Can't wait to read your review. I've got that on my list of books to read...but maybe not after I read your review. ;)

:iagree: Although it doesn't seem like it, 2 1/2 is still pretty young. Every kid is different. My 3 1/2 year old son (after us struggling with him on and off for over a year) finally just decided on his own to use the potty 3 weeks ago. He's been dry ever since. I know it's hard to be patient. I've been there. :grouphug:

I bought a couple of nature field guides from RR that were "bargain" last year. The only damage was a couple of bent corners on the cover. Not a big deal at all.

My daughter LOVES the Rightstart card games. She would play "Go to the Dump" all day. She actually asks to get out the cards! And I say it over and over and over on this board, but The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading is amazing! Just amazing! We are at lesson 182 out of 231 now and she's reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level at age 5. I know one curriculum doesn't fit all, but it was so effective for us and inexpensive that when asked I feel compelled to tell everyone about it. :D

Just read that milk works as a tenderizer (also honey---who knew?). So I guess if you're making wheat bread the milk would make it softer.

I had never heard of the Diva Cup before. I don't want to get graphic' date=' but is it just as effective as the disposable way or a lot of work? That's amazing! When it warms up, I think I'll give line drying indoors a shot. I'm kind of afraid to do outdoors because of all the outdoor allergies in our household. ;)

The powdered milk turns the water in the mixture into milk. To be honest, I don't know what would happen if you didn't use it. Probably nothing. I've been using the master recipe from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes book in my KA and it's turned out fine. The recipe is: 3 c. lukewarm water 1 1/2 T. yeast 1 1/2 T. coarse salt 6 1/2 c. all purpose flour I throw all that in the mixer until it's mixed. Then you're supposed to let it sit on the counter covered for 2 hours. Then you can put it in the fridge until you're ready to use it. If you try to use it right away, flour your hands---it is wet! Although they don't do it in the book, I put half of the recipe in a greased loaf pan because I like bread to be easy to cut for sandwiches (in the book you rip off a chunk and bake it like that) and let it rise. Then, bake at 450 for 30 minutes with 1 c. of water in the broiler pan in the oven with it. Yum... I've changed the proportion and used 2 cups of wheat flour instead of the white and that's good too, but of course the kids love the white best. ;)

I've been gradually working on this (and blogging about it) since the beginning of the year. 1. We turned down the thermostat. We've saved $30 so far. 2. We gave up paper towels...except for cat puke clean up. :tongue_smilie: 3. I made my own foaming hand soap using this suggestion. And it works! 4. I don't know if it's saving money, but I've been baking bread (and making pizza dough) using the master recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and everyone loves it! 5. We ditched the cable TV and went to phone and Internet only. We're checking out more movies from the library and it's working out fine. As long as we get PBS dh and the kids are happy! :001_smile: 6. The kids are wearing all hand me downs (thank goodness for friends!) with the exception of underwear and socks. 7. I go shopping less. This has been the biggest saver for us so far. The more I can stay out of the stores, the less impulse purchases can be made ;), and the more we save. I've been spending some of the money we're saving on basic emergency prep. I'm still working away on getting 72 hour kits together for the cars. Next stop --- a 50 gallon barrel for emergency water storage in the basement! The rest of the cash is going towards a Disney World trip we're planning for October 2012.

I finished up The Forgotten Garden (my review is here). I really enjoyed it. Granted, it did clock in at nearly 600 pages, but it perked me up a little in all the Michigan snow. I also finished A Reliable Wife (my review is here) and I don't know if you could pay me to read it again. The reviews on Amazon range from "A Book of Complex Emotions" (5 stars) to "I put it in the trash" (1 star). If I didn't have to read it for my book club meeting on Wednesday, it may have landed in my trash!:tongue_smilie: I have never seen a book where the opinions are so evenly split between "It's great!" and "It stinks!" This week I'm STILL (yes still...sigh) reading Jane Eyre. I also just started Speaking of Faith in an effort to combat my delusion that set in after reading The God Delusion.

I would actually think long and hard about it. When you say the neighborhood of house #1 is "less than desirable", what exactly does that mean? We struggled with the same problem the last time we moved. We had a 30 minute commute at our previous house which got to be a major drag, especially during the winter and when gas prices would peak. Think about how much more money you'll be spending if gas gets close to $5 per gallon at house #2! When we moved to our current location, we ended up settling less than 5 minutes from my dh's office. He starts work in the morning at 8AM. He leaves at 755! He comes home for lunch everyday except on days he has lunch meetings and the kids love it! We definitely could have lived in a more exclusive neighborhood with newer houses (ours is one of the newest and it was built in 1966), but the one we live in is perfectly adequate and safe with a good mix of families, seniors and singles. The school district is kind of middle of the road so most families opt for private school. Is the price difference enough where you could make house #1 "gorgeous" like #2 and still come out ahead if you did some improvements?

I adore her movie "What's Up Doc?" with Ryan O'Neal. It is absolutely hysterical!

You lucky lucky girl! Have a great time! :D

I have had this problem more than once with my daughter. First of all, get on the same page with your dh. If you guys agree that this time has already been handled, talk to her about what's going to happen if she does it again. My daughter has written with both marker and crayon on a little bit of everything in our house over the last 3 years. Each time I made her help me clean it off and then she was placed on "marker (or crayon) ban" for a couple of days.

I did run away from home and it helped. Okay---not that far away. Over Labor Day weekend last year, I stayed in my old room at my mom and dad's house for the weekend. We live in the same city so I was 5 minutes away if there was an emergency but my dh never called. I cooked meals with my mom, I hung out with my younger sister (who was one week away from moving to Wisconsin to be closer to her fiance), I watched old movies, and cross stitched for hours. I seriously could have stayed there another week, but a couple of days was enough to get my head screwed back on straight and gave me enough time and perspective to get back in there with the kids and function. Luckily, my parents and husband were both supportive of me taking that time. My younger sister who has a 4 year old and a 2 year old is going to see a therapist right now to talk through her issues with being a mom and she's only 29. It's not the age or our hormones. It's just the expectation that we have to do it all, all the time, 24 hours a day. It's exhausting.

Unbelievable! Good for you for putting down your foot! Luckily, most of the parents in our neighborhood are very involved with what's going on with the kids because there aren't any fences. We only have one family that has always let their kids kind of run wild and now that they're older it isn't so much of a problem. The one incident that sticks out in my mind is the younger daughter from the aforementioned family had her birthday party on the same day as my daughter one year. We were having a family only party, while they invited all the neighborhood kids. About midway through our party, she showed up at our house. No one from her party even realized she was missing! After about 20 minutes of her hanging out at our house, I finally walked her back home to her party. I probably should have done it right away, but I was kind of busy hosting my own party and kept thinking that someone is going to notice that the birthday girl is gone from her own party, right? I took her back and apparently no one had even noticed she was gone. :confused:

:iagree: I seriously wouldn't worry about the skull and crossbones. Our cat Oliver has had a skull and crossbones collar for years because my daughter since age 3 has liked pirates. :D Our other car Pumpkin has a nice acceptable pink collar.:tongue_smilie:

Amen, my sister. :001_smile:

I agree that the whole scenario is just bizarre. Isn't one no enough?!?!? Then, even after you explain, she says she's not happy with you!??! Just weird!

:iagree: I think if you offer to host a shower, you are the hostess! You provide the food and favors for the guests UNLESS you are really close with everyone who is invited to the shower and call them all in advance to see if they can help with the cooking. The part about this whole thing that screams bad taste is that it was done in writing. If the hostess and the OP were close friends and she CALLED and asked if she wouldn't mind bringing a dish to the shower that would be an entirely different scenario.

I just started reading them with my 5 year old and we read The Magician's Nephew first and now are reading The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. I think that reading them in order will make so much more sense to her. She connected right away that the witch from The Magician's Nephew was the same witch in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, even though it wasn't specifically spelled out and even with the period of time being different. I'm guessing that other people read them in the order Lewis wrote them?

They should be fine, but you might be a bit gassy from eating them after. I read recently that after 6 hours of soaking, they start fermenting a bit.

I haven't been there, but one of our friends who used to fly for Cape Air has been to all the islands in the Caribbean and opted to get married in St. John because it was his favorite island. I can't think of a more glowing recommendation than that! Just remember to get your passports if you're not going to a U.S. location. My husband and I just went on our first alone vacation and actually just stayed at a very nice QUIET resort --- the golf location (not the beach location) of the Westin in Hollywood, FL. We don't even golf! All we wanted was peace, quiet, a pool, and no kids. We got a great deal on Hotwire and the location was gorgeous and everything we were looking for. Hope your holiday is grand no matter where you choose!

My blog is in my signature. We're afterschooling right now, but I have kept a running list of our K read alouds on the blog. I do a lot of posting about reading (I'm doing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge) and what I'm sewing and quilting. I'm also in the midst of prepping our family for an emergency so I'm blogging about that too. This summer we're planning on doing a lot of activities from the Story of the World Ancients AG so I'm sure I'll be posting a lot about that when the time comes.