This might sound odd but I've had good luck with long tees & tanks from the maternity section at Target and Motherhood Maternity. I wear XL and have a small chest too. Regular XL is often too big on my chest, but some maternity L/XL gives me the extra length without going up in the chest area.

We tried 100 EZ Lessons at 4 but we were both bored. My 5-year-old son LOVES games so I looked for something more fun. We are loving All About Reading 1. It is open-and-go and simple to use. We are on lesson 13 of 49 and he has made great leaps in blending/fluency. The workbook is mostly simple games, word-creating flip books, and some minor cut/paste and color stuff. The readers are lovely and much more interesting that your average phonics reader IMO because of the illustrations (realistic, detailed, pencil-drawn style). I also bought the optional Ziggy Zebra file folder games for extra play and he loves them too. He begs for lessons. Major hit here :)

I knew twins in college who were 4'10" (girl) and 6'3" (boy) so it can happen! Though it does seem odd to leap to twins. Sometimes it's not a specific matching look so much as an expression or speech pattern that makes siblings obvious.

I'm going to use MFW K with my 5 1/2 year old boy this fall. I love the themes/framework but I'm doing separate math & reading (RightStart & AAR) because of where he is at this point. Because I'm doing a separate reading program I'm skipping the MFW student sheets and doing the themes in whatever order works best for field trips/ hands on experiences here. Last week my mom watched my kids so I could do prep for MFW. I used One Note to organize my ideas, when through our books to find applicable ones, and organized/inventoried my craft supplies. I plan to look a few weeks ahead to have necessary items on hand. There are Pintrest boards and a thriving Facebook group that might help with ideas/motivation. I got an inexpensive computer based encyclopedia to streamline the Day 1 fact presentation part.

I had a friend in the CA desert with a fake lawn in back and it was actually really nice! They had a vacuum to clean up leaves, which was pretty funny. I joked they would need a ride-on vacuum if their yard were much larger ;)

I had a 7th grade English student who once turned in an essay test with no capitalization (all lowercase). She claimed to not know her capital letters, so I very neatly wrote out the alphabet for her in both capital and lc and told her to go fix her test. I very sweetly told her to keep that paper in her binder for reference. She never tried that again ;) My mom taught high school courses to two brothers (9 years apart) who wrote in all capitals, but they used larger capitals for the letters that should have been capitalized. Their mom was even an English teacher at our school. They were both quite bright and stubborn and after a while of trying to correct this the teachers decided it wasn't a hill to die on as it was perfectly legible. They used to claim they couldn't remember the lowercase letters too and I've always wondered if there was some truth to that. I was curious how they made it through elementary school written work because I've never seen that allowed in elementary.

Good idea! If you had little cardboard boxes and some cute fabric prints they could make houses or bedding boxes for the toys with markers, stickers, tape, etc. You could put some stuffing under a bit of fabric and glue/tape/staple in the box. With some fabric and pinking shears they could cut capes or bandanas or blankets for the toys. Or what about materials to make collars?

FYI Chocolate Lucky Charms with the marshmallows removed looks like cat food.

Photo booth with animal dress up accessories for silly photos. You could print out immediately and decorate frames for them. Decorate printable animal masks. Provide cheap t-shirts or tote bags and fabric paint and stencils or foam stamps.

Obstacle course that can be done by crawling like an animal. Loose balls/frisbees to just toss around or make some sort of target for them like a cardboard box with an open dog mouth. Parachute (or large bedsheet) to launch small stuffed animals or balls in the air.

Any chance you've just forgotten a trick to opening it? Ours requires you to push down on the lid down while unlocking. Good luck getting it open!

My sister and I used to sell Otter Pops (or similar) at garage sales. I haven't priced recently but they used to be about $0.10 each so we'd sell for $0.25.

I have about 30 of these http://m.target.com/p/room-essentials-melamine-square-dinner-plate/-/A-14782092#prodSlot=medium_1_16&term=square+plate (in red) that I use for parties as I discovered most of my parties involve the color red :). They are super sturdy, stack great, and are dishwasher safe. We use them for birthday parties and BBQs. I see they come in sets and other colors now:http://m.target.com/p/room-essentials-12-piece-square-dinnerware-set/-/A-14376296. We use the salad plates as dinner plates and have a few dinner plates for use as platters. IME Target always has a couple colors in stock.

My massive "ham hands" toddler was 22 lbs. at 4 months. He was off the charts for height and weight until age 5. At 5.5 he is often mistaken for a 7-year-old as he's 58 lbs, 48", and wearing size 8 clothes. He's bigger than all of his 6-7 year old buddies and was the youngest and biggest on his soccer team. At his 5-year checkup the dr. mentioned keeping an eye on his weight, but it wasn't really a concern yet. He is one of those kids who has always been more heavy than others who look like they're exactly the same size. His weight has been holding steady as he has grown in height and I suspect with his next spurt he's going to lose more of the little-kid chubbiness. Daddy hit 6 ft. at 13 years old, topped out at 6'3", and was of an appropriate weight. I'm not worried yet.

My boy is just a bit older than yours and I don't expect much in the way of writing yet. I dont want to burn him out before he's technically even Kindergarten age! I have to remind myself that one of the reasons I'm homeschooling is so that he won't have an impatient teacher forcing one-size-fits-all on him :) He writes single letters and numbers happily and gets more pencil practice since he enjoys dot-to-dots, mazes, stencils, and tracing so I'm sticking with that for now.

Around here most of the gymnastics studios have an open play time for kids. Ours has a foam pit, trampolines, bars, climbing wall, tumble track, and more for the kids to use. That might be a no commitment way to get him active and spark an interest in tumbling/gymnastics. When we go to our gym's Saturday morning play time there are classes in progress too.

She said it in context of "the girls didn't tattle he told his parents himself" and I pointed her to the police report saying the girls did report the first time (4-5 incidents) and that tattling was an inappropriate word choice with negative connotations. She argued she didn't mean it that way and I should stop being the grammar police. I told her words matter. SMH.

I may be losing a FB "friend" over this and I'm totally OK with that. In the past I persuaded her to stop posting ridiculous articles without fact-checking (after linking to Snopes 6 times). Now she's wanting to just drop it after I responded after an inflammatory rant and 3 links. I've put my position out there calmly and a couple of her followers found it helpful so hopefully some good was done. She hasn't resorted to name-calling beyond "grammar police"* and "highschool" yet so we'll see ;) *I objected to her statement that it was NOT molestation but fondling and her use of tattling vs telling regarding what the girls did.

Page 22. http://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/bombshell-duggar-police-report-jim-bob-duggar-didn-t-report-son-josh-s-alleged-sex-offenses-for-more-than-a-year-5890 . I believe it is assumed to be the 4-year-old because she was sitting on his lap while he read a picture book so that makes the most sense.

When I'm in a dark mood and contemplating all the bad things that could happen in life, I consider the possibility that my child might commit a serious crime some day, either while still a child/teen or as an adult. Obviously I don't know for sure how I would react in the moment, but it's something I've considered and thought on a bit. I see parents defend their guilty offspring who've committed major crimes and am sickened. I would be devastated if my child committed a major crime, but I cannot fathom hiding it or excusing it. I think I would cry and yell and pray and maybe puke and call the police. Even if I were worried that my offspring would be "hardened" or "corrupted" or treated "too harshly" or "unfairly" or that the legal system is unjust I feel I would have a moral obligation to report many crimes. Has anyone else thought about this? Are there lesser crimes for which you would not call? Where do you draw the line? Would you report pot smoking, robbery, illegal gun possession, animal abuse, battery of siblings/parents/SO, illegal drugs, molestation, r*ape, statutory r*ape, murder, kidnapping, terrorism, arson, underage drinking, anything else? Does anyone want to dialogue about this?

I bet the pirate costume is Melissa and Doug. They have a great quality line of costumes and I've seen them at Barnes and Noble.

The fact that they started the show AFTER makes me crazy. Anyone know how big the time gap was? They intentionally used that show as a national platform for righteous Christian family life. Since they themselves see their family as an example to be followed, they should be held to the biblical qualifications for an elder/pastor. Your own house needs to be in order. Your own kids need to be in control. Yes, we all sin and need to repent, apologize, and continue living but some things really disqualify you from leading, especially if you aren't honest about it! An elder at one of my churches stepped down after his teenaged daughter revealed that her older (now adult and out of the home) brothers had molested her for years. No one told him he had to step down and work on his family. That was clear. It was horrifying and heartbreaking and embarrassing and devastating but he took immediate steps.

I'd like to think that Josh, or any teenaged molester, could truly repent and turn his/her life around and not continue in it. But to expect that to happen immediately just on his say-so is crazy. People are sorry for getting caught immediately--that doesn't mean they are truly repentant and if very little time has passed there is no chance to demonstrate that a change has been made! And I suspect the girls were quick to "forgive" if it was expected of them, avoided family conflict, and helped them not have to think/talk about how they'd been sexually "sullied". It is horribly unfair to expect someone who's been abused to "get over" or "forgive" on anyone else's timetable. I seriously doubt that all 4 girls were ready for him to be back in their home. Even if they said they were, girls that young really can't be expected to know what's appropriate when they've been treated that way. They must have been so confused and felt pressured to "forgive" or "move on". No parent can save their child from every unknown threat, but once the threat is clear they'd d*mn well better get their child proper help and put protections in place to stop it happening again. If my daughter's abuser were allowed to continue being around her by my husband or anyone else, I'd take her and leave.

Oh no! Those are his? I loved them as a kid and picked up my own copy at a garage sale a few years ago. I have not read them since I was 10 or so. I'm sad to hear they're trash because I remember thinking the concept was cool :(

I have a treasure box with random things I've collected over the past 20 years of AWANA, babysitting, Sunday School, and middle school teaching. I just started using it with DS and he is THRILLED! For now I'm just using it for reading incentives. Each time he reads a story to me he puts a sticker on a sheet of paper taped to our homeschool cupboard. We number them and he gets to pick a prize every 5. I circle each 5th number to get in some skip counting too :) He went from reluctantly reading 1-2 in a day to reading 7 yesterday because he wanted a pencil AND a top :). At some point I'll probably up the requirement to 10. I'm thinking about using it for some other behaviors I'd like to encourage but I haven't sorted it out yet.