People, please, the answer is 42! The answer is always 42. :D

No, I didn't get a lot of love as a child. Hugs only happened when a family member we hadn't seen in a long time arrived and then again when they left. To this day I still feel weird giving hugs if it's not my husband or kids (who I hug every single day.) I think she was going to help my aunt with a new baby. Which as an adult, I understand. But when I was really young we belonged to a church that banned birthday celebrations. Having a special dinner was pretty much it, and not even that happened. And yes, I was very emotional fragile because I came from an abusive situation when I was 4, and my father's parents who raised me were not very affectionate. (They did love me, in their own way.) On my 5th birthday I had learned from school that birthdays were special and that you were suppose to get presents, cake, and have a party. On my 5th birthday all the local family members came to the house and had a special meal and activities. I thought it was suppose to be my birthday party, but I couldn't understand why no one was giving me any attention or even saying "happy birthday." Turns out it was Mother's day, not a party for me. I'm not sharing this to get sympathy. My point is simply that kids hold on to things, often silently. If you've got a great relationship with your kids, and you do what you can to make it up to the child when you get back, and they're not too young, it probably wouldn't be such a problem.

You have to post pictures when you're done!

I'll never forget the time my Granny (legal guardian/mom stand in) was away for my birthday. I was young and it made me feel really sad and feel like I wasn't special enough/celebrated. My friend's husband grew up not being celebrated on his birthday and he most of the time doesn't show up at his daughters' birthday parties (he has the same birthday as his 6 year old daughter.) Even though the youngest is 2, someday she's going to look back and say "why wasn't Dad there?" Or maybe she'll be used to it and not think anything of it. :( I voted it is never okay to miss it (except for work/military/extreme family emergency.)

:lurk5:

:iagree: :hurray:

:iagree: This is what I was going to suggest. Ds5.5 and I take turns, one person making a copy, then the other. We also do it with wood building blocks, copying more 3D structures. It's a lot of fun. :001_smile:

:lol: Good luck with that. I just saw your new signature, congrats on the new one to come!

Thank you! I have a lot of fun doing it. :D

:D I would say 43.

You certainly don't have to do the activities. But they are a lot of fun. :D I don't do every single activity, though. I've been blogging about our SOTW 1 activities if you're interested. We're on chapter nine.

Our intention is to homeschool all the way through high school.

Let us know what you think of AWANAs! :001_smile:

You can push the "Print Screen" button (to the left of the F buttons) and then Ctrl-C. Then open paint and do Ctrl-V and you'll have a screen shot that you can save as a jpeg.

I don't really think CA standards are exactly what you should be aspiring to. :glare: (I live in CA, and did elementary and high school in CA public schools.)

Dh and ds5.5 love watching on youtube. Dh says they are clean and do not use bad language.

And it probably was available before the internet, too. I guess we're just more sensitive about it now. I'm going to see if I can make a quick announcement at church (it's a small church) on Sunday. I don't use our first names on my blog, although if you searched my posts on here you could probably find it. Agh. I really hate the idea that I could be ruining the plan of someone trying to do something nice. :(

I searched the artist's name but there was no one listed locally. I called my in-laws and I called my best friend, and it wasn't them. Other than people at church, I don't know anyone else irl in the area. I posted a question about it on Facebook.

Ack! I just Googled myself and found my name and address and phone number and a MAP with my address on a website! (Free People Search/White Pages.) :willy_nilly::banghead: And I had just today re-checked my security settings on Facebook.

I hope it's just that. Right now I'v eliminated everyone I see on a regular basis other than church members.

No note in the bushes, although I did find someone's trash. :glare: I asked my next door neighbor but she didn't think it was for her. Our apartments are confusing, I was thinking about putting a sign on my door asking if someone else was expecting it. It was signed with a name on the back (I'm assuming it's the artist's) and I don't recognize it. The only thing I can think of is maybe someone in our church did it finding our address from the directory.

Oh, boy. I was hoping it was just me thinking it was weird. I don't think DS would mention the theme to anyone. :confused:

Dh thinks I'm overreacting. May I have some Hive wisdom/perspective, please? A small/medium painting showed up at our door this afternoon/evening. To my knowledge no one knocked or rang the doorbell. Dh discovered it when he came home. There is no note, it wasn't wrapped, just an uncovered canvas painting. It is nice looking, obviously made by an adult, signed with a name I don't know and dated 2010. It is a painting of a spaceship in space, which would go with the theme we have in the boys' bedroom. But no one we know who knows that's the theme in the boys' bedroom would leave it anonymously. Dh thinks it's just a nice gift from someone trying to do a nice thing without taking credit. He thought that maybe someone walking by our house could tell the theme by looking in the window (2nd floor with a Japanese maple in front of the window.) I went outside and I couldn't see anything. He thinks it could be a complete coincidence that the painting matches the boys' room (which is possible as it's a pretty common boy's room theme.) But there's a little paranoid voice in me that's afraid someone tracked me down off the internet after seeing my post about our planets wall stickers. :leaving: I thought I had been really careful, but this has freaked me out a little bit. Am I being silly? :001_unsure: Update: Thank you, everyone, for replying. I am going to put freaking out on hold until I've talked with people at our church.

:lol::lol:

:(:crying: I'm convinced my kids would not do well in public school, and I am so grateful dh is adamantly against it, too.