What about an outfit for the AG doll? If you buy from AG they are usually $20-25. If you sew, you could make quite a few doll clothes for $20, or for "free" if you shop your stash :). Add a pair of shoes (Michaels or eBay).

My dd's best friends are 12yo and spend hours playing with their AG dolls. I am much older than they are :) and still play with my AG dolls. I knit and sew clothes for my dolls and for my dds' dolls. So I don't think 8yo is at the end of the "playing with dolls" stage. It's a good age to receive an AG doll.

If you want to use non-dairy milk as a protein source, then soy milk would be the best choice. Fortified soy milk has calcium and vitamins added. I think plain tastes fine on cereal, and vanilla is good for drinking. Other types of milk (nut, oat, rice) do not have much protein. I have just been experimenting with these and so far I like hazelnut milk on cereal, and (heated) chocolate almond milk for drinking.

"Not for Kids Only" (Jerry Garcia & David Grisman) is quite good.

I am using Writing Strands 3 with my 5th grader. She will finish the last half of the book this year, and start WS 4 in early 2009 (I hope). My copy of WS 3 is an older spiral-bound edition and though it is supposedly written to the student, I get better results if I walk through the exercises with my dd. Some of the exercise goals are not immediately obvious, especially to a child. I have already bought the current edition of WS 4 and it definitely feels "updated" compared to the old edition of WS 3. I read somewhere that some levels have significant updates in the new editions. I like Writing Strands in the same way I like the Rod & Staff writing exercises. The child is taught the mechanics of writing, and given some suggestions as to what to write about, but she is free to develop her own style. So far I have not seen any dress-ups or restrictions that are in some other programs (by this I mean: each noun needs 2 adjectives, use only active verbs, use an adverb for each verb, etc.). Could you combine your children in one level of WS? Yes, I think so. You could start them both in level 3 and see how your 3rd grader does. Your 5th grader should be able to use level 3 successfully.

Hardwood floors in the dining room. New carpeting in the rest of the house. Add on a room with lots of bookcases -- a home library :) The carpeting really needs to be replaced, but the other things are dreams...

LC 1 can be done very time-efficiently. We watch the DVD on Monday (the first lesson is looooong; after that the lessons are about 20-30 minutes. And she does say "um" a lot!). I agree that it can be done without the DVDs but my dc like the novelty of someone other than Mom teaching. I watch the video with the dc, but if you're time crunched you could have your dc do this independently, or skip the DVDs. Then I spend 5 minutes drilling the vocabulary with flashcards. Tues, Wed, Thur: my older dd does the drill sheets (from the TM), one or two workbook exercises, and one puzzle (from the puzzle book) on her own each day. She spends about 10 minutes doing this. Also on Tues, Wed, Thurs: right after breakfast or lunch, we listen to and recite the prayer, song, and lesson from the audio CD. I put the prayer, song, and the week's lesson on a playlist on my iPod, and hook it up to speakers in the dining room. Makes it super easy for the listening/recitation period, which lasts 5 minutes. Then we drill flashcards for about 5 minutes. Friday is quiz day. Dd does the quiz on her own; it takes about 5 minutes.

Same here.

Our elderly cat no longer gets vaccinations. About 4 years ago, his vet said that because he was "geriatric" and indoor-only, he no longer needed to be vaccinated. Prior to that, he received his scheduled vaccines.

Sonlight revised their cores around that time. In 2002, Core 1 was revised to be "Two-Year Intro to World History, Part I" and Core 2 was "One-Year intro to World History" In 2003, Core 2 was revised to be "Two-Year Intro to World History, Part II" and Sonlight re-titled the old Core 2 as Core 1+2 to be the "One-Year Intro to World History" So it sounds like you used a 2002 or later Core 1 for part 1 of world history, and you've got a 2002 Core 2 which is not the Core 2 that would be part 2 of world history. You could just use the 2nd half of your core, which would be new material, but it would last for only half of a school year unless you slowed down the pace at which you are covering it, or add supplementary material. Sonlight's catalog shows what books are in Core 2 but are not in Core 1+2, which might help.

67 in the winter (furnace) We have no a/c so summer inside temps are high 70's to low 80's.

I agree with Peela. I am using Spelling Wisdom (2nd half of book 1) with my 5th grader who is a fairly natural speller. She intensely dislikes "spelling lists" and enjoys Spelling Wisdom. The way we use SW: My child copies the passage Monday morning, writes it from dictation on Tuesday morning. We repeat with a new passage Thursday and Friday. We don't do any of the "seeing the word in your mind" or or other word activities you mentioned. Spelling Wisdom isn't a forever choice. Try it and see if it works. You can always change or supplement if a different approach works better for your child.

We're reading "Star of Light" - we are Patricia St. John fans too!

This is a hot topic at our house. Dh thinks we use too much water. According to the recent $$$ bill, we use 195 gallons a day (12716 gallons = 17 CCF for a 2 month period, so 6358 gallons per month). That is $98 per month for water/sewer combined ($36 for water and $62 for sewer). Our monthly water/sewer bill is higher than our monthly gas & electric bills combined. We are a family of 4. Two low-flow toilets, a front-loading HE washer, energy star dishwasher less than 2 years old. We don't use a water softener or other water treatment. We have a tiny yard so we don't have to water the lawn -- occasionally we water selected yard plants during the summer, and we do water some outdoor potted plants. In order to reduce our water use, dh bought low flow showerheads with a with a flow adjustment valve. When dc and I shower, we now turn off the water using the flow adjustment valve while shampooing, soaping, etc. Dh takes 3 min showers so he's never contributed to our big water bill. Also, I'm trying to do larger loads of laundry less frequently. Unfortunately, due to the small size of our laundry closet, we weren't able to buy a large capacity HE washer, so I can fit only about 5 days' worth of whites, darks, etc. into each load. I was doing laundry every 3-4 days, but stretching it out an extra day or two might make a difference. I don't know. We implemented our (hopefully) water saving choices at the beginning of September. Dh will check the meter later this month, at the halfway point of the billing cycle, to see if we have noticeably lowered our water use. I sure hope our next bill will be lower!

Just don't let them near the security alarm panel... especially if you don't know the code to turn the siren off. Yes, dh used to hold little dd up so she could push the buttons (the security system was put in when our house was built, but we never arranged to have it activated with a security company) and she pushed whatever button to set the siren off... at night... we didn't have a code to turn it off. The company phone number on the panel was disconnected. Imagine me frantically pushing every combination I could think of to silence the thing! Six years later, the panel still needs to be "reset" but I don't want to push any buttons on it.

The King Tut exhibit. My kids are so jealous that I got to see it when I was their age. The Egyptian pyramids. We are reading about these right now and our whole family wishes we could visit them.

I sat with my 7yo when she first started piano lessons. I don't sit next to her anymore when she practices. Sometimes she will ask me to listen to her practice, especially if it is a song she likes... and then she wants me to sing along (I don't sing well, but it doesn't bother her).

I second this recommendation! I loved this trilogy (well, the first two books anyway... the third one wasn't quite on par) when I read it in late high school.

Wow everybody, thank you! I forgot to say that goat milk is out too. I am going to start with almond I think...

Per allergy testing results, I am supposed to cut out dairy and soy. What kind of "milk" (rice? almond? hemp? something else?) works well for cooking, and is plain better than flavored in this case? What about for drinking? There are so many choices... if anyone can give their preferences, even down to the brand name, I'd appreciate it!

The Swallows and Amazons books were big bedtime reading hits here.

Dry them first, if you plan to put them in page protectors. We didn't dry our leaves and they ended up getting moldy inside the page protectors. Same thing happened with our dissected flowers. The dc were sad to have to throw away all their hard work.

Trig here too. I took math analysis my junior year at school B (they taught trig combined with calculus in senior year). Transferred to school C and took calculus my senior year (they taught trig combined with math analysis during junior year). Ancient history -- never learned one bit about it until I started hs'ing my dc. Somehow in moving between 3 high schools, I studied medieval through modern history twice, but missed ancient entirely.

I have seen both, so will try to compare. Ray's first book is for first & second grades. It covers addition, subtraction, multiplication, division basics, along with money, measurement, weights. A sample lesson would be a list of facts: 1 and 4 are 5 4 and 1 are 5 etc. Then some simple story problems. The second Ray's book is for 3rd & 4th grades. It covers larger numbers, fractions, mixed numbers, ratio, percentage. The Ray's books don't have answers in the books themselves; I think there is a key you can buy. The books are reprints (maybe revised a bit?) from 1870's books. They contain some interesting tables in the back, such as a table of apothecaries weight -- 20 grains make 1 scruple, and 3 scruples make 1 dram. Then there are exercises to do with this information. Strayer-Upton's first book is for 3rd & 4th grades. I haven't seen the upper grade books but each covers a 2-grade span. It is a reprint of a 1934 text, and has answers in the back. It is much more similar to a "typical" school book. It covers the 4 operations, time, calendar, measures, money, averages, fractions, etc. There are a lot of story problems (some that are extra challenging) and a strong focus on drill and knowing math facts. JMO, but if I were to choose between Strayer-Upton and Ray's I would choose Strayer-Upton. It's more modern, kid friendly, has some teaching helps, and the font is bigger and clearer (Ray's is pretty antiquated). HTH!

I schedule 4 R&S grammar lessons a week. We have 2 mornings with activities, so we skip R&S on one of those days.