Yikes! Good point.

Oh, Jennifer, that pic is just great! And the updated one -- such a lovely family! This one always makes me laugh so hard: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/crying-kids-joy-photo_n_2259565.html

I think I maybe should be embarrassed that I recognized several of the episodes, but I'm not. That was hilarious!

I would talk to your local agent, if you have one. Ours is really helpful and was able to help me determine whether a claim was worth filing or not. In thirteen years and three homes (but the same company), have used the insurance once -- when our septic pump fried in a big storm, and it was a fairly expensive repair, quite a bit more than our deductible. Even then, it was a little borderline, but money was very tight, and our agent said it would not our rates, and it does not seem to have done so, nor have they dropped us (we have ERIE, in PA). I probably would not use the insurance for countertops, unless you were talking needing to replace a very large and very expensive amount of countertops. Maybe for flooring, but it would really depend on how extensive it was and how expensive (I do not think our current kitchen flooring would be worth a claim).

Well, see, I dunno. My baby is three months, and we provide him with a constant stream of educational stimuli so that he has ample opportunity to strengthen his muscles and all five senses, learn new vocabulary, and work on his language skills. Very important, IMO, for future educational success to provide these stimuli at the earliest possible age. We found a great product online to assist us with this teaching. Of course, at our house, this product is a baby wrap. :). No apptivity necessary.

Yeah, okay, I wouldn't want them to watch that either. I was thinking more of war-type violence.

Violence and fighting bother me a lot less than sexual stuff too. My kids love the LOTR movies, but I won't let them watch Shrek yet. Adult innuendoes and heavy romance are much bigger hot buttons for me.

My UO: I don't get the bacon obsession. I actually don't really like bacon. I only occasionally like the very crispy parts but not the whole piece. I also refuse to touch scrapple. I also think Mountain Dew is disgusting. Also, I have never read or seen any Harry Potter, nor any Star Trek. And I have had enough of Star Wars too. Will it get me banned from this board if I confess that Johnny Depp isn't really my cup of tea?

At least Gettysburg is off the "must see THIS year" lists. 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg is over. The nice thing about being heavily pregnant last summer is that I didn't feel like I needed to venture out and deal with heavy traffic around the area.

I can imagine that. (Our list of vehicle problems is the same way!). But I am very glad that you share your wisdom and experience with us here!

It isn't strictly a gyno thing, but when I saw my family doctor a couple of months ago (and got the well woman part done during the visit), I discussed with her when she would want to start testing me for diabetes, since I have heavy family history of it. Also, I would discuss whatever protocols would be appropriate *for you* re: breast cancer, since family history might dictate different things. And at 45, I would also talk about what to expect re: menopause and talk about options for making that as pleasant as possible.

Hunter, could you please write a book? I love how all of your posts are chock full of good common sense, peppered with what sounds like a very interesting life experience. I am sure I am not the only one who nods frequently when reading your posts.

The mention of Johnny Depp made me think of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow movie with Depp and Christina Ricci, because it's a good mystery. So maybe that and the original story for one of the kids.

One of my toddlers thought it was "Angels We Have Heard Online."

Thank you! That is really helpful. I think I am going to go with the Galaxy.

Amazon has both on huge sale today, so I need to decide tonight. I have an iPad, so we are familiar with tablets, but we want to add a second one and are trying to decide between these two (Fire HD, not the HDX). We need Kindle reading capability, either on a Kindle or with the Kindle app. We need to be able to read PDFs easily, and annotating them with a stylus (on a Notability-type app) would be nice. We use Mango Language; I am not sure the Kindle Fire HD can do that. What about the Samsung Tab? The Samsung Tab 3 says it uses Android Jelly Bean 4.1 something -- is that going to do pretty much everything I might want? We don't do a ton of videos on tablets, if that matters.

Yep, it works fine if you miss a few of the experiments. You read the chapter, then do the review sheets (or not), and then there are two experiments (sometimes it's more of a project or demonstration than an experiment) per chapter. The experiments just reinforce the concepts from the chapter, but they're not strictly necessary. We've found them to be easy to do, generally. They use mostly household materials -- a couple of disposable diapers (actually, that was hilarious since we use cloth diapers and had to buy a few sposies), corn syrup, dish soap, ginger ale, alkaseltzer tablets, toothpicks, gumdrops. . . He lists them out by chapter at the beginning, so it's pretty easy to plan ahead. I would say they are not at all complicated, and they're fun to watch. Most take just a couple of minutes of prep work for me, if that. I did make up a little lab report template for my kids to fill in with the materials used, procedure, hypothesis, result, etc., but we don't do those for every experiment. I think the experiments do add something to the understanding of the concepts, but I also don't think you will lack in learning the material if you don't get to them, if that makes sense. (I do recommend reviewing the vocabulary words, like at breakfast or something, because that does seem to help my kids remember the words better, thus giving them some reference points for the info.)

I'd make these, because who doesn't love brownies? But they're still cookies. They're easy but so, so good.

My boys' speech therapist (who is amazing) said that they should be 75% intelligible to strangers by about age four. I don't think I'd worry about a 2yo with trouble with those sounds quite yet; my own 2yo doesn't say all of the sounds quite correctly all of the time (although he is clearer than my 8yo and 5yo were at 2 -- and they did end up in speech therapy for a little while, starting at 7 and 4, respectively). I would go by whatever the developmental checklists say (our therapist gave me a little booklet with what to expect at each age, so I'd know whether to bring the two younger boys in or not, and I'm sure similar lists are online), but honestly, I don't think it hurt at all that we didn't take our older boys in as early as we possibly could have. I think being a little older was actually good (necessary, even) for DS1, because younger, he would have been very shy and reluctant, plus being older helped him to know that practicing was important. And DS2 just thought it was awesome because he got to go like his big brother, LOL. (He may actually go back in a year or two; she has him caught up to what's normal for his age, and she says that if certain sounds don't come in in a couple of years, we can bring him back in, but she thinks they will. His was a phonological thing more than actually being able to say the sounds -- he'd say them correctly but in the wrong places, like "tat" for "cat," even though he could say the hard "c" just fine if you asked him. Otoh, DS1 couldn't say certain sounds properly anyway.) Kids are so funny, though -- one of mine said, "foon and fork," and another said "soon and sork." :)

Even if you give them to the children, that doesn't mean they can have unlimited access to them. You can still say, "No, we're not going to play iPad right now, but we can do X, Y, or Z." I bought my children a Lego Star Wars video game last Christmas and gave it to them (they don't labor under any delusions that it's actually MY game), but just because it's theirs doesn't mean they get to play it whenever they want, for however long they want; I still control their access. If you think the iPads could be useful at times with your children (and I do find that our iPad IS useful for the littles occasionally and in certain circumstances), then give them, but do keep passwords on them and do limit the times the children can use them. Yeah, you might have to deal with some whining for a bit, but stand your ground and keep giving them other options for activities.

I absolutely cannot stand snakes AT ALL, so I wouldn't have allowed the first one. However, we do have a gecko (per DD's request about eight years ago, at the age of four, when she got crazy interested in them), and in a similar situation, I could see allowing a second one. So yeah, I'd probably let your daughter adopt the animal, and I'd assume that if/when the time came, you'd be able to find a new home for the critters.

We're using his Chemistry this year for 3rd and 6th, so I think it would work for 4th and 2nd. I find that the review sheets (there are three per lesson; we only do one, occasionally two if one of them is a short answer page) are very easy for my 6th grader, but the information is meaty and exposing her to a lot of solid concepts and vocabulary. My 3rd grader does well with the review sheets too, but he goes back and looks through/rereads the chapters to fill them out, after I read the chapters aloud (he's not really an auditory learner but likes listening to me read). So yes, I think it would work for your kids, but I would expect that the 2nd grader may need a fair amount of help/open-book learning. The experiments (we haven't done all of them but have done several) have been big hits with all of my kids, even the 2 and 5yo's!

Maaaaaaaybe. I would have to do a lot of work to put together history and science for my oldest (7th next year), but maybe I could do it. I think the way I am planning to do it is better for her, though. I'm just now at the point where I'm starting to reuse stuff for my younger kids that I got for DD.

Yeah, I'm not in favor of it. DH drives 45 miles each way to work, five days a week, and even in a car that gets 30mpg or more, that still adds up. It would seriously impact us financially to pay more for gas. (In fact, when gas hits around $4 here, we ARE impacted; if it costs more for DH's commute, we cut back on outside activities that we do as a family -- we don't do a lot of them anyway, but when gas is high, we cut down on things like trips to state parks.) (And no, don't tell me to move closer to DH's work. We'd pay more for a house down there than we do in commuting costs, which is why we live all the way up here.) Otoh, if gas was that high, DH would have a good case to lobby his employer for working at home, which would be nice (and very doable, via the internet).

I would bring whatever I wanted to drink, plus some to share. We aren't really wine drinkers, but DH enjoys craft beer, so he'd probably bring a couple of bottles for him and several more to share with anyone who would like some. Not being much of an alcohol drinker, I might bring some nice root beer from a local place that makes their own. But otherwise, no, I wouldn't bring something if a host specifically said not to. ETA: re hostess gift -- I suppose it would depend on the situation. If it were say, SIL hosting the annual get-together, where we all rotate around, then I probably wouldn't bring a specific hostess gift, because the assumption would be that I'd be taking my turn hosting sometime in the near future. Or for friends that we know very well, I'd probably just stick to drinks, and in either case, I'd offer to clean up or serve or whatever else I could do to help. For the OP's situation, a small treat for the hostess to enjoy later does sound like a nice gesture.