Hi, Daisy. We're missionaries. If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM or e-mail me.

Great ideas, ladies. Thanks so much. :001_smile:

Yes, I'd assume that there was a good reason for the recipe being provided. And unless I had a good reason for using my own recipe, I would just go ahead and use theirs. If I did use my own recipe, I'd clear it with the organizers first, making sure that it wasn't a food allergy issue. And I'd also bake ahead and warm at the retreat.

I have the perfect solution. Put them in a box, tape it up, and ship it to me! Then I can stuff my face with them. That's one thing I so miss from the States - Oreos and milk. They're available here, but they're so expensive I just can't bring myself to buy them. With all this talk of Oreos here, I may have to indulge, just this once.

The 10yo and 12yo are with dh, and I seriously doubt I could convince the 6yo or 4yo to do it.;) I think the older boys would want far more than 20c per mouse, too. You're getting a real bargain!

LOL. I'm actually better than dh at dealing with killing spiders and bugs, including giant cockroaches when we lived in Florida. But I don't do mice.

Oh, don't even get me started. We are missionaries. Our sending church has a private school. Somehow we got on their e-mail, mailing list and we used to get all kinds of notifications for fundraisers. Hellooooo! We can hardly afford to buy homeschool material and we're expected to go to the auction and pay hundreds of dollars for the chance to golf with a pro. So that the spoiled kids at the school can have more stuff, more supplies, more opportunities that my kids don't have. I don't think so. I have no idea how we got on their mailing list, but eventually they gave up on us and we no longer get the e-mails. Fortunately, since everyone in our family knows that we have no money, we don't get hit up for fundraisers. Living 3000 miles away helps too. :001_smile: You certainly have my sympathy, though. Maybe you can just let them know that you don't participate in school fundraisers. Make it a blanket rule and eventually they'll stop asking.

We've been living overseas for 8 years and I'm really running out of ideas for Christmas presents to send back to family in the US. We only send a few gifts - my parents, my brother, dh's brother, my cousin and her dc. Any ideas? Things that are lightweight, easy to mail, sturdy enough to not break in transit, and not very expensive.

LOL we don't have any assets for me to access. I could deal with the bank accounts, and we don't own stock. So I think I'd be fine.

I know, in Kate's centipede post, I promised not to complain about mice anymore. So I'm not complaining. I'm just asking what you would do in this situation. If dh were away until Tuesday, and there were a mouse, dead, in a trap in the storage area that's adjacent to your bedroom, what would you do?

This is my rule, too. About the only regular household chore I can depend on dh for is washing dinner dishes. Other than that, he's really hit or miss, more miss. But I have to agree, that if dh ever said something like that, I'd be:glare::willy_nilly:. He always admits that he should help around the house more; he just doesn't do it. :grouphug:, Colleen.

Praying for your ds right now. :grouphug:

Obviously, no. And, unfortunately it's not a picture of my garden either. I just love wildflowers.:001_smile:

Right now we're just doing Latin, though we've done a bit of Sign Language in the past. I'm also hoping to introduce Spanish soon, whenever I can afford a curriculum.

I think with 100ez lessons, you either love it or you hate it. It really didn't agree with my ds. For some kids it just clicks with them. OPG is better IMO because I think any kid could use it and learn to read.

I never thought of it that way. I never really pee in the dark. Hmmm.

After trying MANY I ended up settling on the Lipton onion soup mix recipe on their web site. It's by far the best I've had. I did alter it once when I didn't have onion soup mix and substituted ranch dressing mix. That was really good too.

:lol: That's funny. I don't think I want to show it to my dh. He'll expect me to accept it as truth. ;) I do agree with this one, though... 1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down. I've never understood why women expect men to put the seat down. We have hands.

Yea! I just got my avatar, too. Love your picture. :001_smile:

Yes, our bookshelves are braced. Good reminder, though. Thanks.

Thanks, everyone. But, no, Amy, it's not my garden. I just love wildflowers so I did a google image search. I do have a lot of beautiful flowers in my garden, but they're mixed in with lots of overgrown weeds. My garden is a bit of a mess, really. So I just imagine that I live in a field of wildflowers. :001_smile:

I chose option 1 because we've been homeschooling exclusively the past year. In the past we've outsourced swim lessons and ballet, but those are after school activities that are full of public schooled kids. So I didn't think those counted as outsourced extracurriculars, like a half-day homeschool sports program or something like that. My ideal world, though, would have a 'school' where I could send dc one day a week for pe/sports, music, art, and drama. Not a co-op where I would have to help, because I want one day a week to do my grocery shopping, errands, etc. And, in my ideal world, it would be paid for by the state because they are all things that the state pays for in ps anyway. I know, don't hold my breath, right?

Thanks to PameliaSue, I'm now the wildflower lady. What do you think? Thanks, PameliaSue. You're my new favorite computer guru. :001_smile::001_smile::001_smile::001_smile:

:lol:

This is what drives me crazy. My dad doesn't sit on the arm of the chair, but plenty of other people do in our house. And they sit on the kitchen table, and they lean the dining room chairs back, balancing on the back two legs. These are all things I tell my dc not to do. Then a guest comes in and does it. I've started telling some of them to 'get off my table' or 'all legs on the floor, please.' I try to get away with it with some of the younger guys who come in. But of course I wouldn't dare to try it with the older folks. Aaargh! Where did these people learn their manners? Sorry, vent over.