We do about 20 a week with Phonics Road

You might take a look at Drama Kids. It's not a Christian organization, but our local Drama Kids teacher is a Christian, so it isn't hostile to Christianity. I think the teachers are all independent franchisees, but the organization has summer programs, and my kids have attended some. If you have a Drama Kids instructor local, he/she may be able to work something out for your group. My other suggestion would be to contact a Christian Youth Theater and see if they could do something for you. While my family has never been involved with CYT (because it is in downtown Houston and we are in the suburbs), I know plenty of people who are involved with it and only have wonderful things to say.

I'm not quite 5' also, and I find that J Jill fits well. Not sure if their clothes will be artsy enough, but they are well made and their petites are true petites.

They just released their algebra set: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=740325&item_code=WW&netp_id=1016681&event=ESRCG&view=details

I've only used 2 math curricula and I liked them both for different kids. I've used Horizons, and it works beautifully for my ds who catches on quickly and gets bored easily with pages of drill. Spiral works great for him. Math Mammoth is an amazing mastery curriculum and worked quite well for another ds who, while doing fine with Horizons, really wanted to master a topic before moving on. He really liked Math Mammoth.

Seeing that I have 5 kids, I do have some early birds. I voted that I wake up an hour before my kids, but my oldest dd is usually awake when I wake up. She stays in her room though. I only know she is awake because I see Facebook posts from her, or she texts me from upstairs :) She's like me and needs a little while by herself before the masses wake up.

Only raisins for me. It's a texture thing. I only eat cooked carrots and cooked tomatoes too. Can't stand the raw ones, unless they are mixed in with something else that has a different texture. Then sometimes they are OK. But I don't liked cooked raisins, and I do like grape juice. Go figure!

My only claim to fame is that I am related to Millard Fillmore. My grandmother's maiden name is Millard, as was his mother's, hence his first name.

Love this explanation of subtracting negatives from the Kiss My Math website: http://www.kissmymath.com/downloadable/Sparky-Subtracting-Negatives.pdf My younger dd hates math, but loved the book. It's got some really creative ways of explaining math concepts to pre-teen girls.

Don't go with SOS. I really wanted some computer-based courses for my oldest and bought some SOS subjects for him (language arts and history). They were horrible! We ditched it after about 6 weeks. They were boring, very surface-level, had big gaps in information, and he retained very little of it. I don't have any suggestions for you on what TO get as far as computer-based courses, just that I don't think SOS is a good choice.

Some stuff finished this week, and we finish TOG (our longest running subjects) in 3 weeks! We finish with a bang by taking the Stanford Achievement Test.

Kitchenaid Mixer with attachments pressure canner Lodge dutch oven 16" skillet with a lid and it's a tossup for the last item....I am a kitchen gadget junkie, and there are quite a few that I adore.

My kids loved this one:

Sherry's Berries does chocolate covered strawberries and some baked goods, but they are quite expensive IMO.

We use TOG, but used Wordsmith Craftsman this year for my high schoolers and Jump-In Writing for my middle schoolers this year. Both were good comprehensive writing programs. Next year, I plan on using the writing assignments in TOG, and referring back to the writing programs we used this year as needed. I will probably have my middles go through Wordsmith Craftsman when they hit 9th grade as well.

I still say that Houston is a viable option, even with it being Hobby Airport. There are some really nice places to live here (I would start looking at Pearland or Friendswood....Sugarland and Katy are a little further out, but nice as well. The real estate site for the Houston area is www.har.com). Yes, the weather is hot, but not any hotter than Dallas (I spent my first 28 years of life in Dallas) and as far as traffic goes, IMO Dallas is far worse. And COL is lower here, even lower than Dallas or Austin. We've looked at relocating to both, and there is NO WAY we could come close to the house we have here in either of those two cities. Although I'm not intimately familiar with other parts of Houston, I know that the homeschooling community is large all over the city and suburbs. My dd's basketball team has played other homeschooling teams all over the city and she also participated in the regional spelling bee in the south part of town (we are far up north).

Oh, and outside of Atlanta, Houston has one of the biggest markets for CFA in the nation. My dh is the owner/operator of one here in town :) I say Houston is your best bet!

double post

If it is Bush Intercontinental in Houston (not Hobby), which is really more in Humble/Kingwood/Atascocita, TX, we have a HUGE homeschooling community here. HUGE! Other than being hit in the summer, it's a GREAT place to live. Super low cost of living, even cheaper than other places in Texas. It's also a very family friendly and homeschooling friendly place.

I'll never forget having my homecoming pictures from high school in my dorm room (went to college out of Texas), and my roommates all saying. "What IS that thing on your dress?" Yep...it was a mum :)

In our last house (which was in a nice, suburban neighborhood), we lived across the street from an older couple whose grown sons lived with them when they weren't in jail. We would leave for church many a Sunday morning with the mom running barefoot down the street and a son yelling obscenities at her. There were forever cars pulling up in front of their house, stopping while someone came out to meet it, and then driving on (of course this stopped when both sons were in jail at the same time). One night, we heard shots fired about 8:00 pm. All the sudden, the street was flood with police cars and they started taping of the whole street (not particularly long street) with police tape. News helicopters and life flight started flying overhead. Apparently, the police went to serve a warrant on one of the sons and he pulled a gun on the officer. The officer shot him. As far as I know, he lived, but we moved shortly after so I don't know what became of him. I would like to hope that he's still in jail, but who knows.

We add grilled chicken, baby spinach, and tomatoes and call it a meal.

I used to eat Thousand Island dressing on salad. When I was pregnant with my first, I had "all-day" sickness, and a particularly bad bout right after eating a salad. I can't eat Thousand Island any more. I used to hate grape juice, but when I was pregnant with my 2nd, I got cravings for grape juice (with Ding Dongs). I love grape juice now.

I was a PS school mom for 9 years, and I never knew what I was missing! I love being a homeschool mom and totally relish the perks of not having to manage all of my kids in school.

Make sure you get the homeschool version. It has everything the regular version has plus a bunch of extras like worksheets, reviews, tests, and more. We've been really happy with the Spanish.