Thanks for the update. From a selfish perspective, it's useful to me as I continually try to figure out my non-verbal dd with intractable seizures. I know that she has sleep issues and your posts are encouraging me to get her to a sleep specialist (after the holidays!). As you said, sleep affects so many other things. Hope you find a treatment or path that helps your dd.

My youngest was born a few days after Christmas. We still decorated that year, and when she hadn't arrived by Christmas we knew it would be any day. All of the decorations came down the 26th. It was just easier for me to have it all put away and know I wouldn't need to face it later. I would also recommend a good grocery trip to make sure you are well-stocked on everything. Check basic supplies like toilet paper and laundry detergent. Freezer meals would be great. Better yet, if you have friends or church family who can bring meals for a few nights, that might really help out. Hit the library before surgery. Return anything that's out and load up on some books or dvds that you would enjoy.

I usually put together lasagna the day before and just pop it in the oven. I do not want to be in the kitchen on Christmas day. Not sure what we'll do for Christmas Eve. We've been known to do KFC with some sides. The girls think that's a special treat. I'm tempted to do prime rib and yorkies (yorkshire pudding) which was the special dinner when I was a kid, but I'm afraid I would be the only one to eat it.

We chose LfC over LL. I have no familiarity with GSWL, but I can share a few things that tipped the decision for me. I would definitely print out samples of both and try to picture using them. Factors for us: 1) I like having a book and a dvd. I don't want to print anything myself. I do not want to find audio files on my computer. 2) LfC was described as more vocabulary, less writing. This fits my dd with an excellent memory (but slightly pencil-phobic) very well. 3) LfC focuses on Latin. No added culture or history lessons. Some folks would prefer a course with this info, but after doing some Prima Latina and Minimus, I really wanted to dive into the grammar and finally see the big picture. We cover the other stuff in history. 4) From the printed sample, I could see that LfC fit how my brain works. My dd learns a lot like I do, so picking what was easier for me has worked well for us. 5) My dds love the dvds. And since I'm learning alongside of them, it really helps me to see a Latin teacher explain the material. (Incidentally, that's not the part my dds like. They like watching the kids chant and they love the silly continuing stories at the end of the lessons in LfC A and B.)

We're in our 3rd year of R&S grammar. My dd can do many of the lessons independently, especially topics that we covered in R&S in previous years. We do lessons on new topics together and we go over the lessons that have to do with writing together. I think our first year we usually did it together. Now I have a good feel for what dd already knows and I can look at a lesson and see if she can handle it on her own or if we should do it together. It is not cumbersome for us--most days are 10-15 minutes. I assign a subset of the problems or we go through them orally when appropriate.

We did RSO Life last year with a 1st grader and a 4th grader. It was too light for the 4th grader. My impression was that it would be ideal for 2nd grade. My first grader did fine with it but got a little tired of writing--that's why I thought a 2nd grader would be the ideal age for it. It would not be my first choice for a 5th grader, but if you have not done any science before and just want something easy that will get done, it might work for you.

We're doing plates of cookies--pretty Christmas or winter holiday plate (haven't bought them yet) in a medium size that fits in a ziploc bag. And we're using the ziploc holiday bags. There are so many cookie recipes that I want to make this time of year, but I don't want our family eating 24 dozen cookies! So we'll give most of them away but have a dozen or so of each variety for us. Sugar cookies, the Hershey's kiss cookies, chocolate mint cookies, etc.

Okay, someone post a spiced nuts recipe please! We bought some in Williamsburg and I would love to learn how to make them. The ones I bought were "Wingnuts"--spicy peanuts that are supposed to be like buffalo wings.

I scrapbook, and each child has their own scrapbook with the story of their lives. Actually they're all in volume 2 now. On their birthday we get down their scrapbooks and read the whole thing. We all like that. They also choose a restaurant for dinner and pick their dessert. More often than not it is a homemade chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. Sometimes it is a Baskin Robbins cake. Dh prefers pie. For my birthday I usually choose a restaurant with great desserts.

Alison--I would just start at lesson 1 with the new materials. No need to try to do what has already been changed up quite a bit. I will look it over this weekend. At a quick glance, I'm excited about what *I* am going to learn from the topoi stuff. I'm guessing we will start at the beginning, but not repeat things we have already done. We will start on Monday, maybe by first a quick review of what we did with lesson 1 last time, then try the topoi stuff (days 3 & 4). I need to print it out and read it carefully--I'm one of those old-school, need it on paper kind of people.

I usually wait until January, but I always buy over a long period of time because I have a monthly budget. That's how the money trickles in. I am planning to buy some stuff in December if I find it on sale. I think I'll place a CAP order for sure (Art of Argument and Greek are 20% off, not sure if Latin is too). And if MCT wants to run an end-of-year sale (please oh please) I'll place that order too.

From an engineering perspective: I am someone who was able to get an engineering degree (i.e. had enough math skills), but my skills aren't strong enough to excel at it. Dh is one of those really smart guys who excels at it. He really should be an engineer. I got my master's in education after the engineering degree. I've been able to use both of my degrees. Teaching doesn't pay as well and is more stressful than engineering, but it does fit my interests and talents better. I would only advise someone to go into engineering if they are like dh and can do it well. And love it. Frankly, many many engineering jobs are going overseas. He works in what was once an American company that is now a multinational company. They have locations all over the world. They have been shrinking their American workforce for years, but still hire engineers in other countries. Dh and his local peers who still have jobs are really the best at what they do. They solve problems that the cheaper engineers overseas can't. For now they have some job security in being able to do that. But many good people with good skills have been laid off from his company. Also with engineering, you don't have as much freedom as to where to live. If you are in high-tech, you will probably be working for one of these large multinational companies. There is no owning your own business or (depending on your specialty) working for a small company. It is frustrating that our country is not making an effort to keep these skills in America. The decisions are getting made by companies who have a financial incentive (at least in the short term) in moving these jobs overseas. Doing the very difficult college work that is required to get an engineering degree is no longer a guarantee that you will have safe secure job opportunities when you graduate.

Planning to home school k-8 here. I think that middle school is probably the most important, simply because that is when they can get most messed up in school! Around here we have great elementary schools and our high schools are strong with honors and AP classes. Middle schools do not offer much to high performing kids. But they do offer lots of potential problems! I think it's better to start off at home so that kids will love home schooling and not see it as something that takes them away from their friends. So ideally, try to home school k-8. But if that entire range isn't possible, I would go for home schooling the upper end of that range. I'm thinking I want my kids learning how to get along in the world before they go off to college, so since our high schools are fine, I expect to put them in school at that point.

Do call CAP. Explain that you own the old one and would like to upgrade to the new one and find out how much they would charge you for it. Might be the cheapest easiest way to get it. They're nice folks.

We love to pick up some books on CD at the library. We don't have a DVD player, but we all like to listen to the CDs--helps the driver too! Kiddos have their own water bottles (sippy cups at your kids' ages) with water in them. Have other snacks available--some stuff they don't normally get to eat. My dh made laminated maps of the route we travel down to CA which we do every year. Your kids are a little young, but you could do kind of a hand-made simple map that shows major milestones along the way. For us, it's a route we know quite well, so we know where we stop for an In-n-Out burger, or the Costco station where we get gas. If you know your route well, you can put some simple landmarks on the map that they can be looking for. My kids can spend a whole car trip just drawing pictures! One year I got them wire-bound sketch books (not too big) and crayola twistables colored pencils so they don't have to be sharpened. They did some great drawings on the road. My girls each have a small Lands End tote bag. They pack the bags themselves when it's road trip time. They put in their drawing stuff, a book to read, a small doll with some changes of clothes, and maybe a stuffed animal. They do a great job keeping themselves entertained.

How much of this is much ado about nothing? Or much ado about not much? My dd is in a wheelchair and has a ton of meds we have to carry on with us. We are not easy to get through airport security. We have always been treated with respect. My observation is that female TSA agents check female passengers. It would be very easy to drum up a lot of fear about lascivious male TSA agents patting down our daughters, but that just hasn't been the case with what I have seen. In the airports we have been in, if anyone needs to touch my daughter they always go out of their way to have a female agent do it. They tell me what they need to do or check and I am also able to hold her while they check her chair. They also speed us along, sometimes to the front of the line but usually to a side line to get us through as quickly as can be done. Are these horror stories based on your own experience or people you actually know? Seems like just a lot of hype to put fear into people when the reality that we have experienced has been far different. Not saying the security system is fun or perfect, but I don't think it is a den of evil either.

There is a newer DVD. I bought my bundle package from them just a month or so before the new DVD came out and they nicely sent me the new one when I asked about it. I do like the new format better. It has Dr. Perrin's whiteboard lessons like LFC A, which are very helpful to me as the teacher. And it has a silly continuing story (Supra Vir) at the end of some lessons like LFC A did--my dds liked that. There is just one older version at this point for LFC C. No whiteboard lessons, but their dog does have puppies and you get to see them. My dds like that. I also find that we only use the DVD once a week because the chanting isn't so much a separate segment at the beginning like it is in the updated DVDs. For LFC A and B, we would watch just the chant several times a week.

I am very pleased with MCT's Paragraph Town. I like his focus on academic writing. I think dd is really catching on to it also--I like what I'm seeing in her writing and I look forward to continuing on with Essay Voyage. We are also beta testing SWB's 5th grade book in progress. When she has new material to test, we take a break from Paragraph Town and turn to that. I'm learning a lot from it. We also do the writing assignments in R&S 5. My intentions have been to do some writing across the curriculum also, but it has been kind of hit and miss. Since I have to actually plan it, it tends to get dropped when life gets busy (as it inevitably does).

We're really enjoying Town level MCT with my 10 yo. For my younger dd, I think that the FLL 1/2 and WWE 1/2 that she will have completed by the end of this year will be good preparation for Island level MCT next year in 3rd. She already sits in on a lot of the stuff her sister and I do--I'm sure she could handle Island now. But I don't really want to push it too early, as I don't want to hit Town level before 4th grade.

Some random books I found at our used bookstore: Finn Family Moomintroll (which I heard of here) Peter Pan (the original) How to Train Your Dragon (we have to read the book before we see the movie) Warriors by Erin Hunter (we got a kitten this summer--seems like it would be fun) Youngest's birthday is a few days after Christmas. Found a Complete Book of the Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker that I think she will like. The girls are getting kits to make little fairies for Christmas, and the pictures in this book are so beautiful--I think it will give dds more ideas on how to create their own fairies.

The two that I will make for sure: The Andes Mint cookies (recipe from here a couple of years ago) Sugar cookies--an old C&H recipe with lemon juice in them. I roll them in white decorating sugar.

:iagree: We use Singapore and Horizons. Long division in 3A has been the hardest topic in our 5 years of home schooling. We took an extra week to practice the algorithm and then dd was fine. I also think that Horizons pushes algebraic equations too early. And I'm a former high school math teacher. You could spend a lot of time and effort trying to teach the concepts now and totally frustrate your 3rd grader. Or you can wait until your child is in the logic stage when it will be so much easier for them and they will learn it with ease. I think pushing it early will make many kids decide that they hate math or aren't good at it. And there is no reason why these skills need to be pushed down to 3rd grade--middle school is fine. We do some simple equations, but I usually cross out anything that takes more than one step to solve.

I don't typically skip whole lessons, but sometimes I'll skip some sections of a lesson that I think are more repetition than we need. And anything that says repeat 3 times, well we usually don't. We're not trying to finish at a faster rate than our current pace, so I don't feel a need to skip lessons entirely. If a lesson has a lot of review we have an easy day of it. Oh and I do usually skip copywork and dictation since we're doing WWE.

Wonderful! Praying that all goes well Monday and that the chemo wipes out all traces of cancer.

I've always liked The Light at Tern Rock. I think it was on the Sonlight K list when dd was 5, and we re-read it most years. I also like Max Lucado's The Crippled Lamb, but probably largely because I have a crippled lamb (disabled dd). That one always makes me cry.