Ohhh how sweet are you!!! When they get there you can ask them how long they have until their next appointment or when they have to leave. I'm thinking two hours of yard work would be pretty good. (If another LDS mom thinks that's too much/not enough, let me know. It's just a guess). They might ask if they can leave you with a word of prayer; if you are uncomfortable with that you can say so. Things to talk about: Where they are from, how long they have been out, how the phone call home went (missionaries are only allowed to call home on Christmas and Mother's Day, so they would have just talked to their families), if they did any college before coming out, if they're going to go to college when they get back, favorite Bible stories? Whatever you want. Having had lots of practice talking to strangers, I'm sure they'll be pretty good at finding things to talk about. The fact that they came right on January 1st makes me think they are excited to have a chance to serve! Thank you for your awesomeness!:D

Hello and welcome! First, take a deep breath; it'll all be ok. Second, have you read Well Trained Mind yet? I recommend it. Five in a Row seems to be a really popular and fun program for that age. I haven't used it myself, but would love to use it for my second when he's a little older. For reading, some of the most popular options on the board seem to be Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 EZ lessons, and Explode the Code. We used OPGTR and it's a very simple, straightforward program. We did lessons on the white board or chalkboard when it was too "boring." For handwriting, I like Handwriting Without Tears. The books themselves are fairly cheap. We already had a small chalkboard so we didn't need that and instead of buying the wooden blocks, we just used the pattern in the teacher's manual and I cut some out of foam. Also for handwriting, it's been recommended to have them color as it builds their hand muscles. We just got some dollar store coloring books and use those. For math, the most popular options on this board seem to be Math U See, Singapore, Math Mammoth and Miquon. I use Math U See because it goes all the way through high school and math at that level scares me, so I wanted some help. Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding is a good science program, it's got a lot of stuff kids would enjoy. Elemental Science and REAL Science Odyssey are other popular choices. Good luck and remember to have fun! (and not spend too much time researching)

If you don't have a laser printer yet, I would get one of those. Worth its weight in gold!

I must admit, Pharoah is the one who intrigues me the most in that story. To be the ruler over Egypt in a time of prosperity, yet he had the humility to believe and ACT on what Joseph was saying. Even in the fifth or sixth prosperous year he still believed. I'm sure it would have been very easy to start thinking, "Well it all seems good, I'm sure it will last awhile. That Joseph guy is full of bunk. Maybe we don't REALLY need to be storing all this grain."

Ruth and Naaman

Well my real name is Broomhilde and "Meggie" is the obvious nickname, so there ya go. Ok, I lied. I wanted a fun story. I've always hated the name "Megan"and when I was a senior in high school, I found out my mom had named me Megan so that she could use "Meggie" as a nickname. Apparently she had watched The Thornbirds shortly before I arrived. Since I liked meggie better than Megan, I started using it as a screen name.

Some of us consider "no internet and no game playing while you're supposed to be asleep" a good rule. Apparently, the OP does even if you don't.

I didn't like the TM either. But I did use the pattern in the book to make foam pieces (heck no I'm not spending $30 on wooden ones!) and we used those to form letters and then traced them. Then I just had him do the letters. Once we finished a section (like the frog jump ones, the magic c ones, etc) we'd go back to the beginning of the section and start over. I'd erase them and he got to practice them again. I did start making him trace the letters that the book has; it helps him make them more uniform when he does it on his own. Also, he doesn't do that great at fitting the letters correctly in the gray boxes. For example, the first line of the "W" goes to the middle so then he makes the rest of it squish in too tight. He does a much better job if he's writing on lined paper. Also, you might want to consider having her practice coloring everyday. I alternate with crayons and colored pencils. The crayons build the muscles better, the colored pencils teach control.

It's coming down tonight. As much as I hate to be so Scrooge-ish, it must because we need to completely rearrange the living room. We need to set up the play pen so baby girl has a safe place to crawl around and play when I can't keep an eye on her. The corner where we need to put it is how we access the under stairs storage and that's where all the decorations go, so I figure we might as well do it now. Hopefully next year it can stay out longer. I'm hoping the crawling baby and curious toddler will have outgrown their desires for pulling on the ornaments.

When we're home alone, we do pot roast in the crock pot, because I'm so lazy I don't want to spend all day slaving away in the kitchen like I do on Thanksgiving. When we go visit my mom, she does BBQ beef brisket

I started using a one shoulder back pack as a diaper bag so that I have both hands free. it really helped a lot. I would also recommend one of the backpack/kiddie leashes to keep him safe. I know a lot of people are against them, but to me safety comes first if you can't always hold his hand.

I agree with the above, but would like to add that you should tell her she can talk to you whenever she wants and will get no judgment from you. If I were you, I'd also check on her every night after she goes to bed.

This was Dec 2004. I can't get over how young DH looked. He was 23, I was 20.

Thanks guys!:001_smile:

See and here's another topic where IT. JUST. DEPENDS!!!! It depends on the kid, it depends on the parent, it depends on lots of other factors. There is no one size fits all. Pigby slept in the carseat the first few weeks of life. It tricked him into thinking he was being held. The same trick did not work for Digby. Actually, nothing worked for Digby. Baby girl never needed such help. After about two weeks old, I would just lay her down and she'd go to sleep on her own :001_huh: Why couldn't every kid be like that?! Well, at least til she was six months old and now we're dealing with this again. Pigby could handle crying it out. Digby could not. Baby girl sometimes can and sometimes cannot. It just depends. And I don't fault a desperate parent for trying. Sometimes you have to try lots of things to find something that works.

laser printer?

Something similar happened to me last night. Baby girl doesn't have many issues (that I know of) except the eczema and her's isn't too terrible. But the first time she got up last night, I was so out of it. Brain fog, couldn't think, falling over while walking to get her. The next time she woke up, I rolled over to get her, but the next thing I remember is waking up and she was asleep. I think sometimes the body can only take so much before it shuts down on you. :grouphug: You're not a bad mother.

Do you have any favorite sites for getting scripture coloring pages? Or even a book I could get from Deseret or Seagull Book? Thanks.

I have no advice, just :grouphug: Hoping you get some good advice from the real homeschoolers here :001_smile:. Could you maybe take a break from school for Christmas and use that time to figure out a new method?

Whoa, are you saying what I think you're saying? I can't stop giggling now.:lol:

Other. I haven't figured it out yet. Some of the other threads on being a SAHM have me seriously depressed because DH is in a dead end job making barely enough for us to survive, no insurance, no retirement, certainly no house. I'm thinking I need to go back to school, but I'm not sure which one or what I should do. Growing up, I had always wanted to be a SAHM, but I am so very bad at it, I think DH might be a better SAHD. It's just very frustrating for me at the moment.

Well, I certainly hope not!:lol: He's making me go to bed early, which seems to be the best we can do right now. I'm still tired, dizzy, headache and all, but I have noticed it helps me get up when the boys do and not be so awful. If I take naps, then I can't fall asleep at night, which makes me sleep in and not get up when the boys do, which turns into a perpetual cycle of tiredness. Maybe once she's eating more during the day I'll try sleeping on the couch downstairs and let him deal with it.

double post.

He maybe could on the weekends, but he's such a heavy sleeper and I'm used to waking up when the kids cry. It would take me five minutes of shaking and telling him to wake up. And then he might not even be very conscious. Since she's in the same room as us, I'd probably be awake the whole time anyway.

I am not good at distinguishing my children's cries. The only ones I can tell are the "I'm in pain" cries. Other than that, they all sound the same. Maybe that's why she's waking up so much. At six months, she got a cold and was waking up. I'd go get her and comfort her and feed her. I'm not an uncaring monster either; I know that when I am sick I am absolutely miserable at night. I was trying to help her. And now here we are four months later, still waking 3-5 times a night and she's not sick. I do not believe she's trying to manipulate me. It's possible that it's just a habit by now. I do not believe she's being sinful. I do not believe any infant is sinful. My religion does not do infant baptisms because we don't believe that infants are sinful. Never, ever have I heard that infants are sinful. If someone tried to convince me that they are, I'd run the other way. In my case right now, I can't see that there's anything wrong with her. She could maybe use more calories during the day. I can try other methods to try and get her to fall back asleep once she's night weaned. But I know it is taking it's toll on me. I have a constant headache, I get dizzy and lightheaded frequently, and I'm snappish and grumpy. That's after four months. With Digby it went on for 12 months and I went crazy. I can't afford to go crazy again. I won't put my children through it again. I think poor Pigby probably suffered more from that than he did the few times he cried it out.