My 2yo doesn't stay in bed. His room is almost empty now because we moved the toys to the play room so we just put a door knob thing on the inside so he can't get out, installed a dim bulb so he can look at books and eventually he falls asleep. My 3yo doesn't stay in bed either and shares a room with his older brother who is 6. I have the 6yo lay on the couch for 30-45 minutes reading while 3yo falls asleep or they go crazy in their room together. I have the 3yo's room set up the same way - no toys, dim light, lots of books. I do leave the doors open at first but if they decide to run into each others' rooms I shut the doors and the reading light goes off. My 3yo can remove the door knob covers so if he decides to run out of his room I end up sitting in the hallway reading. Some nights I give up and take one or two of them to bed with me because I'm so tired I can't do it anymore. I've tried not giving them naps, making sure they have plenty of outside play, moving bedtime forward and back, but there just seem to be days when they can't get to sleep.

Is anyone here a member of the message board who would be willing to give me a referral? Pretty please? :)

Thank you for posting this list. I love Amish fiction and am looking forward to reading these! I enjoyed reading Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) a little while back. It was a fast, easy read with nothing bad or even sad. A nice happy book! I wish I could find more books like it. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls was good in a totally different way. Other than that I've been reading lots of non-fiction, healthy eating books which are enjoyable to me but I wouldn't consider them fun reads :)

That's a beautiful quilt! I voted but I'm not sure how to see what place you are in. Good luck!

I thought I had a link to the Dancing Bears site in my bookmarks but I guess I don't. It seems like they had a bunch of free online content and the author was finishing up the higher levels of it if I'm thinking of the right program. I've searched the forums but can't seem to find the link anywhere - could someone post a link please? Thank you!

Wow, thank you! That book was originally $39 marked down to $29 - to get it for free is awesome!

:iagree: This is what I have to do too or I find little specks of food all over everything because it didn't get rinsed away in the dishwasher. I've had it cleaned and serviced but I guess because it's an Energy Star it doesn't use enough water to really get all the "stuff" out after it cleans the dishes. I often feel that I am wasting time and might as well just wash the dishes. I also have to use the really expensive dish soap along with Lemi-Shine or I get hard water build up.

Oh! That's encouraging! How do you get the things in there without listing times? When I go into LP Schedules and enter a new item, it forces me to enter a time even when I try doing "custom" I don't know how to put a screen shot on here but what I see is here http://c722268.r68.cf2.rackcdn.com/PlusUserManual.pdf - the top 2 images on page 107

Thanks for the replies. I'll give both of the different ways a try and see what works for us. I'm the same way, Dorinda. We can't seem to stay on track with a schedule that has times. As long as we get through the workboxes I feel good. In fact, as long as we make it through 90% of the workboxes I've set up I'm fine.

We just put my dad in a home specifically for Alzheimer's patients. He seems happy to be there even though he doesn't know what's going on most of the time. You may want to start looking a homes now, they are SO very different in what they offer. We feel very blessed to have found the one we did. I'd highly recommend reading the book Still Alice for some insight on what your mother is going through. :grouphug:

Yes, for example, I want them to do math every day, spelling M-Th, Latin Tu-Th, etc. but not at any specific time (we use workboxes and I switch the order of subjects every day). I'd like to be able to see daily schedule in calendar format. After I get the subjects listed on the days I'd like them done, I want the assignments to be filled in from what I've entered in the assignments tab so I can print the daily plan. Basically I want to use LP Schedules but I don't want to have to specify a time. Hopefully that's a little more clear, I'm having a hard time explaining it :)

Is there a way to put a schedule into a weekly calendar format without using the clock times in HST+? In other words, using LP Schedule calendar but having things set as "all day events" rather than say, math at 8:00 a.m., science at 8:30 a.m., and so on. I know I can use the weekly planner but I do so much better with a graphical representation when I use the calendar instead of a list like weekly planner gives. I did post my question over on the HST forum but haven't gotten an answer and would really like to get going on my planning so I'm hoping someone here has an answer :)

:lurk5: I have the same problem.

This is pretty much what we do too. I've used the game links a couple times but going through the links to find things I think DS will like is usually more work than what I have time for. We supplement with Dreambox (not necessary but he enjoys it) and with LOF just for fun.

I switched my boys from HWOT to GDI and have not needed the GDI TM at all. There may be some good information in it but I've never felt like we were missing anything.

Oh good, I didn't know I could set the starting lesson. I guess I need to get on the parent section and read more :) Thanks!

I'm using HOP and OPGTR along with a little ETC plus I just bought Reading Made Easy so I say yes, you can use them together :D. I'm using these with a very young beginning reader so I wanted to take some time to get through them and reinforce everything. You'll find that you will finish HOP and only be a little ways through OPGTR so you can just continue on with that.

I'm just hoping they don't tell me I can't use the code because I did something I wasn't supposed to do (stacking the codes). I'd really hate to have to make a new account and have DS start over again, we just went through that with Dreambox so I hope the Reading Eggs support people can help me.

Those look wonderful!! I think I'll do something like that too. Right now I just have things in binders but I'd like to go through the binders at the end of the year and thin them out a bit. It's hard to tell from the pictures on Amazon, does your ProClick binder do spiral bindings or does it use the plastic comb bindings?

Thanks for the info! I just bought one the other day on Half Off Depot (also $37) but you can only buy one so I'll use Mamapedia for the other one I'd like to get. Plus the 10% off makes it an even better deal! Right now I'm trying to get our account figured out. I was one of the people who used the stacked codes for an extended trial and now when I try to put in the code that I actually paid for it tells me I've used too many codes this year. I've emailed them and I certainly hope they get this figured out and I didn't just lose $37. I'm going to wait until they do before I purchase the second subscription.

I'm an avid reader and want all my kids to love to read too. I know how important read-aloud time is and we generally read together at least twice a day. No matter what time of day it is, as soon as I start reading I start yawning lol. Then I begin falling asleep as I desperately try to finish the book we are in the middle of. Sometimes one of the kids will say "Mom you aren't making any sense" because I start mixing up the words or something because I get so sleepy. Usually I can at least make it through 2 or 3 picture books before I am totally out of it. I want so badly to read chapter books to my kids but there doesn't seem like there is any chance of that happening. I think I get enough sleep and I seem to be able to read my own books in my head without getting sleepy as soon as I start. I'm not sure what else to do except maybe try drinking a cup of caffeinated tea before we sit down to read. Does anyone else have this problem?

I'm so glad your little guy is ok!! I really appreciate the warning. I have a 2 and 4 yo who love to run outside when they aren't supposed to. We installed door alarms so at least I know when they go out and now that they know I come after them immediately and they get in trouble they don't do it anymore. However, I will definitely be locking the van doors from now on just in case they do get out, I never even thought about something like that happening.

Prayers! I had an episode of bleeding around 8 or 9 weeks with my 6yo son that involved clots and everything. It turned out to be a subchorionic bleed (from behind the placenta) that just needed to heal and everything turned out fine. Hugs - bleeding during pregnancy is scary even if it is common.

I think you'll find it's vegetarianism/veganism much easier than eating meat once you get used to it. We are vegan and if I don't feel like cooking we'll usually do: - jarred sauce with ww pasta. - beans from the freezer on top of corn tortillas warmed in a dry skillet with vegan cheese sauce on top - oatmeal - stir fry with frozen veggies - rice (pre-made) with frozen veggies in the microwave with my favorite teriyaki sauce mixed in <-- this one is super easy and the kids love it - if I know ahead of time I won't have time to cook in the afternoon then I'll make the Honey Baked Lentils recipe I found on here and set my oven to do a time-delay bake so it's ready when we are. - DH will stop by Taco Bell and get a bunch of bean burritos fresco style (no cheese) I keep on hand: - prepared rice (always keep this on hand in the fridge, we go through the stuff like water) - many types of beans (I soak the dried beans in the crockpot and then freeze in can-size servings so when a recipe calls for a can it's easy to grab) - vegan cheese sauce (home made) - bags of frozen veggie mix (especially the broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix) - my fake meat mixes (I make ahead of time bags full of hot dog mix, rib mix, and black bean burger mix so all I have to do is add the liquid, mix, and cook) - I've tried to keep prepared, homemade veggie burgers on hand but they disappear quickly so I generally need to make them

I am fascinated by looking at other families' homeschool rooms/homes/areas. I found a few videos on YouTube of people who shared theirs. Does anyone have links to any videos they could share? Thanks!