I use a recipe that I found on Pinterest that says it's the recipe that is used at the Be Our Guest restaurant at WDW. It is fantastic. It has chicken broth and heavy whipping cream. You cook bacon and then cook the veggies (carrots, onions, celery) in the bacon grease. It is wonderful. I only make it once or twice a year!

Not very exciting, but it's easy and my kids eat it- you brown a lb of ground beef, add a can of tomato sauce, 2 cups shredded cheese, and a big bag of mixed frozen veggies. Put that in a 9x13 pan, cover with frozen tater tots and cook until the tater tots are done.

I would just like to add my .02 as someone who takes antidepressants. There is/was no major trauma in my life. The first time the thought of suicide occurred to me, I was in the 6th grade. Now, I did not have a perfect home life- but there was no abuse or anything. The first time I was treated for depression was during college. I had friends, I was doing well in my classes, I had a boyfriend, everything was roses- until I couldn't drag myself out of bed anymore. I had to call my parents, they came and took me home. I got on meds, and went back to school the next year. There was nothing bad in my life at all. Since then, I have had times that are worse than others. I'll be fine for awhile and then not so much. I've learned to pay attention to the early signs that I need to change/get back on my meds. These times have no correlation to what is going on in my life at the time.

I not only suck at lunch, I suck at the other meals too.

Oh, please. People on anti-depressants are not looking to be happy all the time. Literally, we are just trying to not feel like killing ourselves.

I really hope the drama cools down by 5th grade. I'm really glad there are other 3rd graders that cry over one sentence. It is NOT beyond his ability. Sometimes when he has the choice between writing two things, he will count the letters and choose the shortest one. I've tried not giving him an audience, but if he's in his room, he just plays. If I leave, he plays. I usually sit there and play on my phone while ignoring him until he gets it done. Anyway, I'm glad there is hope!

So glad I am not alone!!!! I laughed out loud reading these!

I would just like to tell you that my 3rd grader is pretending his pencil is red hot and screams every time he touches it. He has also thrown himself on the floor and claimed he would rather be bitten by a great white shark than do grammar. This is a child who can read Harry Potter but when he is asked to write a single sentence, claims he can't spell "they". I promise you all- you are doing better than I am!

I totally understand in-laws that give gifts that you don't want! But if it makes you feel any better, we have subscribed to that before and it really does come with most everything. They do assume you have a few things like water! And they can do a lot on their own. O course, if I was you, I would tell my spouse "hey, this is from your parents- you deal with it"!

It will take you much longer than it will take anyone else. You will worry about what gets packed with what, organizing, purging, etc. Movers will just put everything in a box. Even the trash can. We paid a flat rate. They were done in less than one day (but that was when we only had one kid and a smaller house)

I don't know. We set aside $1000/year, but don't include extracurriculars in that. But the extracurriculars are things we'd do if the kids were in school or not. Swim lessons, little league, etc. They would do that regardless, so I don't count it as homeschooling expense.

We have two healthcare "systems" where I live. My GP belongs to one and my OB/GYN belongs to another. It seems impossible to get them to communicate with each other. But if it is an appointment within the system, they know everything. Honestly, I would prefer if they could all pull things up easily. It would have really simplified a lot. (I had to have some tests on my heart during my last pregnancy- getting my cardiologist reports to my OB/GYN required several phone calls/visits) When we were applying for our mortgage, somebody (I don't remember if it was insurance or credit report or what) pulled up a bunch of information about dh. Only it wasn't about dh- it was about his brother! They had previous addresses listed- both correct ones and addresses where his brother had lived. It was weird.

My kids are little, but I have a good relationship with my parents. It's not super close because we live far away, but we see them several times a year and there aren't any conflicts or anything ( in fact, my mom was just here to visit for a week- the biggest problem is that no one wants to make a decision, everyone wants everyone else to be happy, no one will just say, what. They. Want.!) My parents are superclose with my sister- she lives 6 blocks from them and my mom babysits a few hours a day. Their relationship with my brother is fine. Their relationship with my mom's parents is good and was also pretty good with my dad's parents who are gone now. His mom was a little passive-aggressive, but nothing major. On dh's side- we have decent relationships with his parents. They are definitely there for us if we need them. Just a couple weeks ago, they drove an hour at night to pick up my older kids and keep them overnight while I had the youngest at the ER and didn't know when we would be released. Dh was out of town on a business trip. But they do have drama. They are very easily offended and have ridiculous expectations. But it certainly is not as bad as a lot of people describe. ETA: I should add that I had a very tumultuous relationship with my parents as a teen. At the time, I would never have guessed that we would ever get along. I didn't find a full-time job immediately after college and had to move home. They really changed the way they treated me. They didn't try to micromanage me at all- even though I did do a few things they were not happy with, they kept their mouths shut about it. Not that I was doing anything horrible- I was substitute teaching almost every day and working at the library nights/weekends. So, I was busy and productive.

You might want to look around Pinterest for some do-it- yourself ideas. I've seen some really cool storage bed ideas. One of these days, I'm going to get around to doing it, so that we can eliminate the dressers in the kids rooms.

I think when we are talking about the wealthy, we are talking about the .01 or even .001 percent. It's a very, very small group of people.

I'm doing the Pandia Press Chemistry with my 3rd grader this year. We are enjoying it. It has lots of experiments/demonstrations, short explanations, doesn't use stuff that is difficult to find. I probably wouldn't use it with a 1st grader- at least not my 1st grader! I have a Ker that doesn't hang around for the bookwork, but does show up to toast marshmallows and make slime!

I like zoos where the animals have lots of room- but you can still see them. There is a zoo near us where you practically need binoculars to see the animals! I don't want the animals to have less space, but it would be nice if there were more vantage points to view the animals.

I don't expect that of my children, and I am pretty sure my parents don't expect that of us- since I know they bought nursing home insurance!

Not an idea to get her to sleep, but if you are desperate to get yourself some sleep, can you put her in between you in bed and give her a phone or tablet to watch some show on? We have had to do that when traveling- our 1 year old slept all day in the car and was up all night in the hotel. Putting Daniel Tiger on my phone and having him watch it in between us was the only way we were getting any sleep. (We had been driving seperate cars, so neither of us had had any kind of break at all). It's not an ideal solution, but if you are literally sick from not sleeping, you gotta do what you gotta do!

The coolest idea I ever heard for a house was on these boards awhile back- a heated driveway! I admit, I would LOVE that- but doing it would require tearing out our perfectly nice driveway. Anyway, it's solar powered and there's heating elements under the driveway, so when it snows, it just melts away. That would add significantly to my quality of life. Of course, we don't have an attached garage. There is a long drive up the side of the house and the garage is in the back. Really, the space we have, we cannot add an attached garage- so every single time we get in and out of the car, there is snow on everyone's shoes. Yuck.

I am not one of those organized people. At. All. But, I did think of one idea, depending on the ages of your kids- assign them each a raised bed to garden in. Use it as a school assignment. Have them research how to do it, what they want to grow, how best to fertilize, etc. This will work best for kids old enough to be kindof independent, but young enough to have their time taken up by important high school subjects. Assigning a day a week for each kid to make dinner would also help. It would be teaching them life skills and giving you a bit of a break. You said you had all boys left? Their future wives will thank you if they know their way around a kitchen! If there are outdoor projects that could get knocked out in a weekend, have everyone work together to get it done. Order pizza as both incentive (think painting party) and quick food that you don't have to take time to prepare.

We're not really big into gifts, but I do like an excuse to buy chocolate- so we did buy our kids some chocolate and some for my mom who is visiting for the week and babysat for us a couple nights! I bought myself some chocolate while I was at it. If I manage to get to the store tomorrow, I will buy more chocolate. Hmmm, I am noticing a common denominator here! Seriously though- everyone should pay attention to what their partner likes/doesn't like and behave accordingly. I would be irritated if dh bought me flowers (on any occasion) because it would mean that he did not pay attention to what I want. I don't want flowers. I do want books. And to not have to make dinner. I don't care that it happens on a certain day. I do feel badly for some people who posted on fb that they were disappointed on V-Day.

I do believe that one of the pluses of having my kids at home is that they can sleep. However, they don't. They don't go to sleep for a long time (we go to bed at 8) and then they get up by 6. My first 2 kids gave up naps almost to the day of their 2nd birthday. If I put them down for a nap, they would be up until 2 or 3 am. If they went to sleep at all- usually they would just play in their bed for an hour or so until I gave up and got them out! My youngest isn't quite 2 yet and he's already starting the "if I take a nap, I'm not going to bed" thing. My oldest, and worst sleeper, is an emotional mess most of the time. But I cannot figure out how to get him to sleep more. I have tried melatonin and it does make him go to sleep faster- perhaps one hour instead of three. But then he is up super early. This morning I found him awake at 4:30 because I was sick and got up to get some medicine from the kitchen. I walked by his room and could hear him playing beyblades. If anyone has suggestions- I would love to hear them! Yesterday he timed himself as he jumped continuously on the trampoline for 1 hour. If that doesn't wear him out, what will?!?!?!

I don't recommend this method- but we've had one illness after another- and just when you're sure everyone is clear, you end up in the ER most of the night with a baby who can't breathe because of croup. Anyway, we're not burned out of school- schoolwork would be a welcome diversion!

There are a couple of places that have music loud enough to bug me. Our church has a sign that sys the music is played t. Sfe decibel. They must have had more than a few complaints! I was out to eat with a friend the other night and this guy sitting behind me was playing a video on his phone, but he put the phone up by his ear- which was too close to my ear! I wasn't very happy about that.