I can do just about anything in the house. For awhile I was on a first name basis with a few guys from Lowes when we bought our house and the guys at the parts counter at Sears when every appliance in our house started going out. I can do just about anything except for big car repairs. I can do minor stuff like changing a tire, headlight, wiper blades etc. But anything more I either take it to the shop or have DH do it.

You can trade them in at a BabiesRus event for a 25% off coupon. They generally do a trade in event in Feb/March and then again in the fall.

I do most of my shopping through Amazon because of their customer service. Last year I had ordered a tool for DH and the day it was to be delivered I checked the tracking information and it said that it had traveled from a midwest shipping facility and was out for delivery in Pennsylvania. I live in Alabama :glare: I got on chat with amazon customer service and they immediately ordered another one with overnight shipping because we were leaving in 2 days for our Christmas trip to see family. They told me if the original one arrived to just call them to cancel the order or if the new one had already shipped to just refuse the package and have it returned. The original one ended up showing up late that evening on a last minute run by my mailman and amazon cancelled the 2nd order and gave me a trial to prime for my troubles :lol:

I understand too - We are in the process of doing the same thing. We are getting ready for a temporary move across the country. The only good thing is that we can leave stuff in our permanent house but I'm trying to leave as little as possible. So as we are packing I'm sorting into stuff to pack, trash, donate, or leave. We've already made 3 large drop offs at the donation center and the trash guys hate me. We haven't moved in 6 years so there was a lot of extra stuff around here.

I did that with my DS last year since he was ready for it but not ready for writing. The other thing I did was write letter and numbers on small dot sticker and let him peel and stick them for ETC and his math. I really liked using the stickers since it still worked fine motor skills peeling those stickers off the paper.

I have a 6 year old LG front loader that I hate with a passion. I can't even tell you the amount of time I have spent taking the thing apart. We have gone through 2 door seals -one molded so bad it had to be replaced, the 2nd I tried cleaning with a cleaner which caused it to shrink and start leaking, the current seal is horribly molded even though I dry it out after I'm done with laundry for the day and keep the door open at all times) , a couple of sensors, a water valve which leaked and rusted out the magnetic drive enough that it had to be replaced, it now throws random errors which I have read is a sign that the electronics are about to go out (WOO!) I will not buy another front loader!

Sadly the last good picture I got of my 4 together was this summer. Still trying to get a pick for the Christmas cards this year but haven't had enough kid wranglers around to get a good one.

Mine is light blue. All our other cars are dark blue. If I knew I could have found another minivan with everything that I wanted for the price I wanted and a different color I would have looked for another color. I searched for 4 months to find a van that had everything I wanted and in a price range that I could afford. I'd rather have the interior of the car be what I like since I'm going to be looking at that the most.

Thanks for all the information. We are moving out to Las Cruces during the week between Christmas and New Years. My husband was out there this week and managed to find a house to rent. It will be an adjustment for us but it's only temporary and we get to return to our home in October - I keep reminding myself that I can do anything for 9-10 months when it comes with making lots of extra $$$. I think the biggest adjustment will be the desert climate. We are used to small town living having lived in rural Kansas for part of our lives but we have never lived in a climate like NM.

If I'm doing a small amount and hand snapping it is just the stem end. If I'm cooking for a crowd then I will cut both ends with a knife. I do both ends because it's easier to trim both sides in a big bunch than to go looking for the few bad ends in a massive pile of beans.

The only things in our play kitchen that get a lot of use are the metal pans (because they make a ton of noise) the tea set from Green Toys, and the wooden cutting food and sandwich set from Melissa and Doug. My kids like to cut the food and they also like to put random pieces together and make up names for their creations.

BS in Biology - I had been planning on going to Vet school before I met my DH ;)

Did the doctor at L/D see a baby with a heartbeat or just a sac with what looked like a baby but didn't look for a heartbeat? Also were both of these internal u/s? I'd have a hard time thinking the in office u/s was correct if at 9 weeks the L/D doctor saw a baby but the tech didn't and just saw a sac with material. It would be hard for a baby to be in a sac one day and the next for them to see a sac but no baby. If she lost the baby the sac would have gone with it.

I believe that it is closer to the Las Cruces side of the Range which is why my DH suggested that area. Just noticed that you are in Huntsville - We are on the north end of town :D No humidity and no mosquitoes sounds heavenly even if it comes with a desert landscape ;) I have done that and found a large Mom's group and a yahoo group for homeschoolers. We would definitely be most likely to live near LC where there is more shopping etc than the smaller areas around WSMR. The extra drive onto the range wouldn't be that big of a deal considering DH was going to be driving 3 hours a day to get to/from the Range outside of Salt Lake City.

Thank you all for the information. Cheryl - Thank you for all that you posted. I agree that people need an honest answer about living in different places. If I wanted just a rosy picture of the city I would look on any realtor's or city website ;) If you really want to know what it's like you have to ask the people who live there.

For the last 6 months my husband's company has been telling us that we can take a temporary move to Salt Lake City. We were all excited about moving up there but now they are saying they may not have a spot for him. Instead he could work at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. I know nothing of the area around White Sands. My husband has been out there for a quick trip but that was before we had kids so he wasn't looking at it from that perspective. So if anyone is in either of those areas please tell me the good and the bad about living in the area. I know homeschool regulations are easy. I'm mainly looking for if it is a good/safe area to have kids.

Watching my 4 kids have a blast playing in a huge pile of leaves! They were even nice enough to let the 1 year old have a few turns running into the pile without me having to ask.

Breakfast was pancakes and pears Lunch - Should get cooking... chicken and veggie quesadillas Housekeeping - Laundry, laundry and more laundry. We had a round of food poisoning the other day so I'm still catching up on cleaning all the sheets, towels and rags used to clean up the mess. Plus all the bathrooms need a good scrub down. 1 adult and 3 small kids with food poisoning does a number on a house :( School - Kept to a bare minimum since DS is still in a fog from lack of sleep

I have a houseful of kids still recovering from food poisoning. Took yesterday off school and today did some reading and math with my oldest and called it quits when his brain wasn't connecting to do even the simplest of problems. Now I'm letting them all play computer games while I start lunch.

I'm in a funk too. We are doing the bare minimum everyday but other than that there has been a lot of playing. Kids haven't been behaving well lately so we are taking time to work on stopping the large amount of fighting that is taking over my house. Plus I just haven't had the time, energy, or motivation to do anything but the bare minimum. Thankfully we school year round and are ahead of schedule on the basics so we can take more time this spring to catch up on history and science.

What I have is listed in my Sig What we are actually using most of the time on a weekly basis OPGTR/ETC/AAS2 Singapore 2B FLL Copywork from a book we are reading Science/History/Art are done when we have time and he wants to. The problem is with 3 other little ones around the house there is hardly time to do them. The good thing is that we school year round so I know we will eventually get to them. Right now he has a ball playing pretend with his 4 y.o sister so I let them play and run around outside as much as possible and get the rest of it in when we can.

Buying premade stuff was going to be my suggestions as well. My mom has recently gone gluten free and she has already said that she will purchase pre-made sides for herself from her favorite store. That way I don't have to try to read every label as I'm preparing dinner for everyone else who isn't eating gluten free.

I found the frequent washing (every other/every third day) to keep the pollen or whatever is bothering her out of her hair helped. The tea tree oil shampoo also really cut down on the inflammation in her skin. Then I just mix about 6 drops of TTO to a couple ounces of water and spray it on her a couple of times a day. Between the benadryl to knock out the itching and the TTO to clear up her skin it gets better quickly. Poor thing still has a naked rear and will most of the winter while her hair slowly grows back, but at least she isn't chewing herself raw.

My poor dog has seasonal allergies and if you don't stop the itch cycle she will create massive hot spots on her backside. What works for her is to give her Benadryl as soon as we notice her itching and then to wash her in a good tea tree oil shampoo, If the skin is already irritated then we spray those areas down twice a day with a tea tree oil spray until the redness goes away. Poor thing had her initial reaction this year while we were at Disney earlier this month and the girl taking care of her didn't notice her chewing until it was too late. The poor dog has a naked rear end from all the hair she lost from the horrible hot spots she created.

We do ours with a number card and a picture card on them. My DS likes to know what is coming next so having the picture cards gives him a visual schedule of what's to come. He does some of his work pretty independently so when he is done with a box he takes down the picture card and puts up a check mark card. When he is finished all his boxes have check marks on them and he can see that everything was completed. This way kept us from having another piece to stick the number cards onto like the original workbox system did. I have enough clutter in our school area that I didn't need another thing to keep track of in order to go through our boxes. My blog in my sig has a quick post about our workboxes.