I think this can be a nice gift to the person in honor of whom it's given, but I think it depends on the circumstances. If someone has a particular pet charity, I can see why donating to it could be a gift to the person -- maybe your sister Susie really doesn't need anything, and you don't have any great ideas for her (some of us are not blessed with a ton of creativity in that area!), but you know Susie really supports XYZ charity, and by giving money to that charity, you're giving Susie the gift of knowing that you know her interests and you're helping her at the same time. My elderly grandparents did that one year. They have plenty of stuff and are hard to buy for. So one year, they sent an email to everyone in the family, asking that nobody buy them anything, but could we instead each make a donation to the charity of our choice and let them know what we chose? They said that knowing what we chose to donate to would be a gift to them, knowing all the people who were helped. (We had just moved to this area, which is rich in amazing local produce/meat/dairy, and we chose to donate to a local food bank that provides the local farmers' bounty to families in need. I felt that would also be particularly meaningful to my grandparents, who grew up poor and sometimes hungry during the Depression.)

LoriD, thank you for mentioning Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas -- I had seen that a while ago and wanted to put it on our reading list for this year, but I had forgotten. I saw your post just in time to add a good used copy to an amazon order for other books, and I expect that my Hobbit-obsessed children will love it! My favorite children's Christmas book is Who Is Coming To Our House? A board book, yes; all of my toddlers have LOVED it, and I have read it many, many times. I love it because they love it but also because I love the deeper meaning that everyone has a special talent or gift that they can use for Jesus.

Thank you, everyone -- I love the great suggestions! Oh my goodness, Alte Veste -- he would probably love the Star Wars one! (The joy of being the third child -- you learn about everything earlier.) Then I see that there's a Batman one too; he LOVES Batman too! We have and love Biscuit and some of Mo Willems' books too; IDK why I didn't think to check Willems' list. Well now, I see that I have gone from no ideas to too many, LOL! Too bad I can't buy them all.

That is one of the suggestions that popped up on amazon -- I think I might get that one, since one of the brothers is Danny. :) Thank you; I hadn't heard of Flap Your Wings, and it sounds adorable! It sounds right up 5yo son's alley. :D

(((HUGS))) -- btdt. It's scary. In our case, it was up higher than the lungs, so albuterol didn't help; inhaled epinephrine is what ended up working.

I need a Christmas gift book suggestion for my 5yo son. He is juuuuuuuust on the cusp of being able to read; he is motivated and interested but is only just able to remember some of the sounds yet. I think full reading will be coming soon. What can I get him that will be enjoyable, maybe just a bit of a challenge, but not too much? I would have suggested Little Bear or Frog and Toad, but this is child #3; we have all of LB and F&T. Something along those lines, though -- a good classic.

Congratulations, Abigail Adams! I honored God today by loving on and caring for the five beautiful children He has graciously lent me in this season and by making dinner/doing laundry/washing dishes/managing bills/cleaning the hard water from the coffee maker for the husband He chose for me.

We had DD at DS1's birth and DD and DS1 at DS2's birth. We tried to have, and planned to have, all of the big kids at both DS3's birth and DS4's birth (after missing DS3's birth by just a minute, they really wanted to be at DS4's birth, but it was in the middle of the night, and we were debating about calling for an ambulance, when he arrived very quickly, and things were a bit scary anyway because he was presenting unusually, and well, it's just as well they weren't there for it, although I'm sorry they, and the video camera, missed it). DH nearly missed the last two births. *I* almost missed DS3's, and I was the one doing the work. ;) No mothers, sisters, etc. We don't even call anyone when I'm in labor; the first inkling anyone gets that anything is happening is when we call to say that the baby has arrived. (Well, we did call my parents with DS2, but only because they were staying nearby and had planned to stop by that morning; DH called them to tell them not to.)

My 8.5yo son is currently thriving with History Odyssey; even if you didn't want to do the whole program, the books are good. He's using Child's History of the World, the Usborne History Encyclopedia, and Story of the World. If those are too easy for your child, there're the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and Story of Mankind, which are what my 11yo is using in Level 2 of History Odyssey.

At this point, my three younger boys are all wearing a lot of clothing that was worn by an older brother. They don't seem to mind. They do get new stuff sometimes (MIL is amazing at finding bargains), but so far, we are able to spin hand-me-downs so that they are impressed -- "you're big enough now to fit into this favorite shirt of your big brother's" -- so they think they're part of a special club. :) But that goes with a lot of things in a large family, spinning things just right. I am very good, I think, at pre-emptively saying just the thing to put a positive mindset on everything. Duplicate toy given to someone? "Oh, look, now you and litte brother can play at the same time without him trying to take your toy." Middle child gets sandwiched between two big kids who can do a lot more than he can and two babies who need a lot from me? "YOU are the only child who gets to choose whether you get to be big or little!"

Especially with the additional info you posted, I would probably bring him. My DH and I have been together since I was 14 and he 16. I did go on vacation with them a couple of times, for short trips, and a couple of times they took me along when they went to visit him at college (which, looking back on it, was incredibly gracious of them, but I suppose it beat having him moping for the weekend if they hadn't brought me). I always shared a room with his sister, his only sibling; she's four years younger than I am. I think we were good about not ignoring her; I don't really remember spending a lot of time alone, just the two of us, anyway, when we were on trips. I do, however, remember a lot of family time -- doing touristy stuff near his college, going fishing as a family, exploring museums and small towns, lots of good conversation and laughter over meals, etc. (At the same time, they are still very young; I don't think I went away with DH and his family until we'd been dating several years. He was very disappointed that he couldn't bring me along when they went on vacation spring break of his senior year of high school, but in retrospect, his mom probably appreciated one last vacation with him, and anyway, five years later, he took me there for our honeymoon. ;) ) It sounds like your family is a lot the same as my family or my ILs, and it sounds like this young man fits in well and gets along with all of you, without being possessive of your DD. I think it would be okay to bring him once and see how it goes. In the event that they do stay together, you'll have built a good foundation with him, but if not, it does sound like he and she are very friends, and she wants to bring Johnny this time, same as she wanted to bring Susie last time. There just happens to be a romantic component to this relationship in addition to the friendship. Since there's not a precedent for it being a family-only trip, I think it would be fine to bring him.

I don't know. I'm about there myself; my littlest baby is just outgrowing the newborn clothes, which are mostly neutral, so all five have worn them. I should get rid of a lot, and I'm just not ready to do it. What I do find easier to separate out are the bigger kid clothes -- it's unlikely that we'll have another daughter, and even if we do, we'd be talking about at least 13 years' difference between DD and the new girl, so I'm finding it easier to get rid of her bigger kid clothes. It helps that some stuff gets passed down to a younger cousin; that cousin is the second of two girls, so she gets hand-me-downs from her big sister, but she seems to love getting stuff from DD (which makes sense -- it's new, and big sister hasn't worn it; big sister is tall and is DD's size, which is why DD doesn't hand down to her anymore). So we get to see pics of cousin wearing stuff that was DD's, and that makes us smile. But the baby girl clothes -- well, I'm not quite ready to decide for sure that they won't be worn again. My sister is getting married soon, though, so if she has a girl in a couple of years, it will probably bring me a lot of joy to give some of our favorite outfits (actually, some of them *she* bought for our DD) to her. OP, perhaps there is a close friend or relative who would appreciate the clothes, and then you could see them being enjoyed?

History Odyssey is working *fantastically* for us -- Level 2 for the 11yo and Level 1 for the 8yo. Kingfisher and Story of Mankind for the 11yo and SOTW, Usborne, and Child's History of the World for the 8yo. The best part? With me out of the equation (they read to themselves), the two of them discuss the topics with each other, and there's no competition, just "hey, that's cool, I just read about that too."

Honestly? We are using an old globe that my ILs had. It still has the USSR on it, but the geographical features haven't changed. I just tell the kids, "these countries used to be combined into one big country called X" or whatever, and they shrug and move on. We have an older world atlas too, but our wall maps (world and US) are both pretty new, only a few years old. So far, nothing's been a problem.

We have a diner here; it serves very good, homestyle sort of food (like meatloaf and mashed potatoes), and it has really yummy desserts. There was one in my college town that was a 50's style diner, and it was fun. The best diner I've ever eaten at was a little place in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey. Fifteen years ago, DH and I were newlyweds by a couple of weeks, en route from Boston (where we had been finding an apartment for us and a job for me while DH was going to go to school) to visit friends in central PA before heading to our parents' hometown to pack up all of our stuff. Of course, it was a Sunday afternoon, and of course, our car's alternator died suddenly, leaving us stranded for the night, in mid-August. (Those of you who know me IRL, I hear you laughing -- this is only the tip of our vehicle troubles iceberg.) Fortunately, there was a decent motel in the town, but the only two places to eat that were open on Sunday afternoon, according to the lady at the motel, were a diner and an inn. We figured we could at least have a nice dinner at the inn, rather than a greasy diner, so we walked the mile or so down to it -- only to find that "inn" was a euphemism for "bar with topless dancers." So we walked back in the other direction to the diner -- only to find that it was actually quite nice. Not greasy. I remember the food being very, very good -- not fancy, but filling and delicious. Something like seven courses of food -- we ate until we were stuffed -- for a few dollars each. Pleasant atmosphere, great service. All in all, far from the least pleasant meals I've ever eaten.

My children don't like Jim Weiss's voice very much, so the SOTW audiobooks were not hits, unfortunately. But other audiobooks we have enjoyed have included the Little House books read by Cherry Jones, various things from Librivox read by Kara Shallenberg, the Ralph S. Mouse series read by B. D. Wong, the Henry Huggins series read by Neil Patrick Harris, The Cricket in Times Square, a couple of the Little Britches books, and several of Rick Riordan's books. My children also very much like the Classics for Children productions -- Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Mr. Bach Comes to Call, etc. -- and the (very silly but effective) Beethoven's Wig CDs.

South-central PA here, and there are a lot of Christian homeschoolers around here. In my immediate area, there doesn't seem to be an unschooler group, but there may be some in the busier counties. Nope, curriculum discussion isn't at all taboo; in fact, it comes up often. There seems to be a variety of curricula in my particular group; some people use online charter schools, some use very conservative Christian materials, some are unschoolish, and some of us are eclectic (like myself). It isn't at all uncommon for people to say, "here, I brought that book/curriculum/other material we were talking about last time so you can see it." We do an annual portfolio share, where we invite current and prospective homeschoolers to view portfolios we've put together to comply with the law, and this year, we're hoping to add a curriculum component to that, so that when someone says, "oooh, I like how this looks in your portfolio," the portfolio owner can say, "here's what we used for it, and here's how it broke down for us." It isn't uncommon for my local friends to share cool stuff they've found via FB.

I voted "large family, wash daily." We have seven in our family and use cloth diapers and cloth in the kitchen as well. I do a load pretty much every day during the week and often one on Saturday as well; some days there are two loads, especially if I need to wash diapers too. My requirement is that I only start a load if I can have it washed and dried by 3:30 pm. My 5yo collects the dirty laundry from around the house every morning and brings it to the laundry room, so I can start it. If I have enough of a load waiting at night, I often set it up, add the detergent, and leave a note for DH to start it when he comes down in the morning, which is usually an hour or more before I do, so the first load is already ready to go into the dryer/out on the line. Folding, well, if I stay on top of it, I have a load or two to fold at 3:30, and then everyone helps to put it away. If I get busy and don't stay on top of it, it piles up quickly.

My 8yo completely agrees with you. I frequently get comments from him when he's reading that are like, "Boy, this is dumb. Why'd they spell it that way?" This is the best thread!

In that situation, I might consider cyber-schooling. That way, he could still be at home, but it would be no planning on your part.

When we did Ancients last year, we used SOTW as our main book. I read it aloud to the kids; it was easy but enjoyable for the 5th grader, right on target for the 2nd grader, and maybe a bit above but enjoyable for the 4yo. I reinforced the material with read aloud novels, but also by assigning the 5th grader longer/harder/more in depth books to read, and by using a lot of picture books for the younger kids (though the 5th grader sometime followed along with those too). My rule for the littles for reading aloud is that they are welcome to join us or not, no pressure either way -- but if they choose to join us, they also choose to sit quietly and respectfully. Generally, they choose to join us, but occasionally they would rather play elsewhere, and I am totally okay with that. If you require written work, you can have the older kids do more formal outlines or solid paragraph summaries, while the younger ones draw a picture, or dictate or write a couple of sentences. Youngers can do coloring pages too, if they like those. I printed supplemental worksheets and gave them out as appropriate -- sometimes just to the oldest child, sometimes to the two oldest. I am in a portfolio state, so we do need some samples of work, but I am also somewhat of an unschooler/relaxed teacher for the lower grades, so I wasn't too worried about output for my 2nd grader. Both older children did the mapwork. This year, we are using History Odyssey, Early Modern -- Level 2 for my 6th grader, Level 1 for my 3rd grader -- and I am seriously in love. I love that they are more independent, that they can do their work without needing to wait for me to read it to them, and I love that they're learning to take notes and pick out important points. I also love that they are discussing the topics with each other. It wasn't a terribly cheap program -- I had to buy two programs plus four books (although one I already had, and one I bought the small portion that we needed instead of the entire Encyclopedia at once), but I bought the PDF versions, so I can reuse them, and I do think they will end up being economical in the long run (and that also means that I already have most of what they will need for next year's history as well). The only downside is that I'm not learning along with them, and Early Modern isn't my strong point. But check out HO; they will give you several weeks' worth of lessons as a sample. For US history, the Prairie Primer might work well for a large family. We like it and would use it more, except that my oldest child went through a serious phase (like, a two or three year phase) from about 7-10, where she was crazy interested in anything early American, so she already knows much of the history and crafts that are in the PP, and I thought she needed more in the way of analysis, hence HO.

I'm looking for videos or documentaries to supplement our Early Modern history studies (with History Odyssey), particularly ones that hit non-America areas, and ones that are good for 3rd-6th grade but not too gory. Any suggestions are welcome.

Oh gosh, that is awful! Poor kids! Our oldest is anaphylactically allergic to bee stings; I do hope none of your kids has a bad reaction!

Ugh. I am sorry they treated you so poorly, Jean. I've had my own issues with the Sears repairmen, although thankfully it's been a few years. First was when my fridge stopped working. It was only a year old and had the extended warranty, so I called for a repair. I was told it would be six days before they could get someone out to look at it, and then it would be another week for the part to arrive. They said that they could authorize a rental and would cover the cost of the rental -- but not until they had someone out to look at it. I was newly pregnant with baby #3, and telling the hormonal woman that she would be fridge-less for a a week was a bad idea. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and lo and behold, the supervisor managed to say, "We'll have someone out to your house tomorrow." Yes, that's a good plan. When the guy arrived, it turned out to be a very simple repair; I had not realized that our particular fridge would shut itself down if there was some sort of short or something, as our old fridge hadn't done that. (We hadn't had a big storm or anything, so I don't know what happened.) All the guy had to do was unplug it, wait five or ten minutes, and plug it back in. I'm quite surprised they didn't advise me to do that, over the phone. However, I live in an old farmhouse on a country lot, and when the guy pulled into my yard to turn his truck around, it got STUCK in the early spring mud. Yep, stuck in my yard. He couldn't get it out and had to get a tow. 10 minutes for the repair job, an hour to wait for the tow. I'm pretty sure that counts as a bad day at work.

Yes, I noticed this as well. I have an iPad with the Kindle reader, and I have one of the very basic Kindles, and I frequently use amazon for both of them. I buy some print and e-books from them, and I'm a little surprised that I didn't get a promotional coupon; I would have thought they would have wanted to encourage me to switch to a Kindle for all of my e-reading, or upgrade my basic Kindle to a Kindle Fire. I *have* been looking into a second tablet for the kids to use, and being offered a $60 off coupon *would* have tipped me into buying a Fire instead of holding out for something else. Maybe I should send them a message and tell them that. I don't like the secretive way of determining who is eligible either. If it were an offer for people who didn't own any Kindle products at all, or one for the basic Kindle owners, or whatever, I have no problem with that, but they should state the clear criteria.