It costs it here in PA. Gas is running a bit under $4 a gallon, and my minivan holds 26 gallons. I don't fill it completely full at once, unless I've got enough grocery store bonus points to get it down significantly. That happens about once every six weeks, and thankfully, that's enough to be the bulk of my driving. Other posters, I feel for you. We got salary decreases plus a whopping property tax increase (which mainly goes to the school district) plus the increased costs of food/gas/etc. Lousy.

Yep, I have mine, DH's, and DD's all memorized. Still working on the boys' numbers, but theirs are new.

Definitely Hugo and Inception. My children would vote for How To Train Your Dragon, Tangled, and The Adventures of TinTin. Also, we really enjoyed Shutter Island, though it was a little creepy.

I agree with both of these posts. In the future, I'd just make an effort to be there on time, even a minute early, maybe, just to show that you're making the effort.

We don't get that detailed breakdown. We do pay two separate rounds of property taxes. The smaller one goes to the county and local municipality. I don't mind that one. The larger (much larger) one goes to the school district. I mind that one very, very much. It's crazy and is a huge part of my mortgage payment. The schools are in the middle of the state's rankings, so not terrible but not spectactular either, and our administrators make a LOT more money than my husband does (and I can't imagine they work more hours than he does either).

I'm so sorry. Please do come back here to talk if you need. I found it was kind of strange being the aunt. . . My mom (the grandma) needed my shoulder to lean on, as did my younger sister, and I felt that for their sake, and my children's sake, I needed to be strong. Plus, it wasn't my baby. No matter how hard it was for me, it was nowhere near the same as it was for my brother and SIL. But it was hard. She's always missing from our family gatherings, and she isn't just "some other baby" -- she is my blood relative too. I cried a lot on my husband's shoulder. :grouphug: to your whole family.

I expect that my kids will do something to care for us, if they can. Maybe that means living with one of the kids; maybe that means one of the kids comes to our house a few times a week and helps us out. Or maybe it means they find a nice nursing home for us. I think we'll just have to look at all the possible options when it's time, but I expect that we'll care for our aging parents at some point, in some way, just like my ILs are caring for my GMIL, and I expect that our children will do the same for us if they can. (In return, I expect to be grateful for their care and will try to make it easy on them so that it's not too much of a chore for them.) I would love to have a house that could hold three generations, so that we could turn it over to one of the kids (and their children) and keep a small part of it for ourselves -- take care of us in our old age, and maintain the property, and in return, you'll have no rent/mortgage payment.

If you're in an area where ERIE has coverage, we've been very pleased with them for twelve years, for both home and auto.

I'm so sorry. Such a heartbreaking thing. Maybe not right now, but down the line, they may find this book comforting in realizing that they're not alone: http://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Still-Born-Stillbirth/dp/1442204125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350488779&sr=8-1&keywords=janel+atlas Ask how they're doing. Ask if they want to share anything about their baby's story. Be willing to listen if they want to talk. They're not going to forget; acknowledge that their baby is real and has left a hole in their hearts. My sister and I make a point to remember our brother's daughter's birthday and October 15, and I think that means a lot to our brother and SIL. Especially since they don't currently have other children, the rest of the world is not going to remember them on Mother's Day and Father's Day -- do that. They may not have had the chance to see their baby reach all the common milestones and events, but they will always be that child's parents. Also, if they do get pregnant again, validate whatever they need for reassurance. This was particularly difficult for me, as I tend to be very hands-off when it comes to testing and such during pregnancy, but with the subsequent pregnancies, my brother and SIL needed the extra reassurance that additional testing, etc. gave them. It was only my place to be excited and happy for them.

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

We do the reading and discussions, and the maps. My kids don't like to color, so we don't do the coloring pages. We do some of the projects; it depends on what they are. My kids aren't really into the "make a necklace/crown/article of clothing" sorts of projects, but they liked the sugar cube pyramids, and we're planning an African dinner for this week. They like food.

DD was 4 months when she got her first teeth; at 10.5, she has had all of her adult teeth (except the wisdom teeth) for a while. My boys were later -- 6 months, 8 months, and 7 months. However, DS3 was actually born with a milk tooth; it disappeared, and he didn't get a real tooth until 7 months.

Do you have a sling or other carrier for him? That has been a lifesaver for me.

No shame! The one thing I've noticed about homeschooling moms is that we can not do it all. Most of us seem to have at least one area where they just compromise and let the guilt go. For some, it's using paper plates; for others, it's not cooking; for others, it's hiring a cleaning lady. If using disposable diapers takes a headache off of your plate, then I vote for doing it and not worrying about it.

At my 10yo DD's recent dental appointment, I inquired as to whether we should be looking for an orthodontic consult. The dentist wasn't all "absolutely, yes, do it NOW," but he said that yes, we could go ahead and get a consult to see what the orthodontist recommends. DD (who will be 11 in the spring) has all of her adult teeth, and the dentist said she has just a little bit of crowding. My thought is that she has all of the adult teeth but has not yet stopped growing. She has not hit a major growth spurt yet, and I understand that that tends to come with the full onset of puberty. I expect (based on other signs) that she has 3-4 years before she'll stop growing. So I'm wondering if she'll even need braces. If she's got just a tiny bit of crowding, is it possible that growing into an adult body will mean that the crowding straightens out? Even if it doesn't, is it better to do the braces soon, while she's still growing, or wait until she's fully grown? (I'm kind of thinking that it doesn't make sense to do them while she's still growing and changing, in case they move out of place again, but otoh, maybe it's easier to align the teeth if everything's not set.) ETA: This child has been an early teether. I'm expecting that wisdom teeth will show up fairly early in her; I'm guessing early teens? (I didn't get mine until my twenties.) So how would that affect braces? Would we want to wait until after the wisdom teeth came in to do the braces?

Ugh, those poor kids. The blind leading the blind, for sure. Bullying was one reason I chose to homeschool my children. There are many others. I think my oldest child would not have thrived in public school at all. Then I look at my second child -- he's kind of little for his age, very shy, very sweet. He was so not ready to deal with rough boys on the playground, and I think he'd be the teacher's pet sort of kid. I'm afraid kids would have picked on him mercilessly (to say nothing of meeting his academic needs). I was always glad I chose to keep DD home, but as I've looked at DS1, I've been awfully glad I had the option to keep him home as well.

Oh goodness, that is a lot on your plate -- :grouphug:. I would not worry about school. As long as you can meet whatever your state requires (and if it was me, I'd be doing a lot of educational videos and audiobooks to meet our 180 days), it's not the end of the world if you don't get as much accomplished this year as you had planned. I'd focus on bonding and chilling out, and let the educational stuff slide for a bit.

Yeah, I wouldn't see any medical provider who didn't let me in the room for regular exams. We go to a pediatric dental practice, and I would probably be fine with 10yo DD and 7yo DS1 going back by themselves if they wanted to, at this point, since we've been to this practice a lot. However, the key is "if they wanted to," not "the dentist won't allow me back." And it's actually not been an issue because they can see all three of my big kids at once, and there's no way I'm not going back with the preschooler (who actually probably would be fine without me; it's DS1 who wouldn't want to go back without me). Now, when DS1 had to have some oral surgery to remove a tooth, they didn't allow me in the operating room. They let me stay with him right up until they took him back, and then he was only away from me for a short time. They were really, really nice to him, though; it wasn't a pediatric place (different from our regular dentist), but they were amazing -- multiple people to attend to him during the surgery, the anesthesiologist came to talk to us beforehand, allowed him to bring a stuffed friend and a lightsaber with him, etc. However, I'm nice to my kids! I can't imagine not being nice to a scared child! If I were a dentist, I wouldn't want parents who were mean in the room either!

I've taken Vitron-C for anemia before, during pregnancy, and seriously, within a week of starting it during one pregnancy, I felt amazingly better -- shortness of breath went away, and I felt normal third trimester tired, not "can't drag myself across the floor" tired.

I'm considering getting an e-reader for my DD next spring when she turns 11. These are my questions. -I want e-ink to be gentler on her eyes. I have a cheapie e-reader that is great for PDFs for knitting patterns, which is why I got it, but I would not want DD reading on it for hours on end. -Do any of them play a few games? -I do not have amazon prime and do not want to buy books. I have a couple of excellent library systems at my disposal, but I'm curious -- for those who use the library e-books, have you found there to be a decent selection of tween/teen/juvenile fiction? If I were to spring for amazon prime, would I then have a lot of options available for her? -What about the free library in Philadelphia? I have a card for there; do they have e-books? -I want it to be able to do epub files as well, maybe even pdf. -What about color? Does the cheaper Kindle have color, in addition to the e-ink? (I'm thinking not, but I couldn't tell.) -Do any of them do mp3s, so DD could listen to audio books (she has both speakers for an mp3 player and earbuds)? Our libraries have lots of those, and she likes audio books more than reading. I thought about getting her a Sansa mp3 player, since she likes mine a lot, but if I could spend a little more and get an e-reader to encourage her to read, that would be even better. -I don't need 3G; Wifi is fine (and preferable, even). It would even be fine to hook it up to the computer to download stuff to it (which is what I do with my e-reader). I have an E-matic e-reader, and if it wasn't for the screen, I'd just get one of those for DD. I'm sure I'm asking for the moon and will need to buy one of the more expensive Kindles or Nooks or whatever, right? :)

I'm so sorry for so many losses -- :grouphug:. We lit a candle today for so many people, but especially for my brother and SIL, whose second baby was born still at 36w in 2006, due to a cord accident.

I try not to schedule too much for mornings, but sometimes it doesn't work out not to. I schedule work for four days a week. So co-op is the fifth day some weeks; other weeks, the fifth day is for science, music, art, or catching up, or for park day with our co-op friends. All of those things count as school days, though. We currently have speech therapy for two of our children one morning a week, and since that's every week, I can't just skip school those days. That's also our library and grocery shopping day, so it's a full day, with a 30-minute drive each way. So everyone has a clipboard and a backpack, and I will bring work for them to do in the car or while waiting for a sibling at speech. (While my preschooler is working with the speech therapist, I have time to do history with my older two.) They can also work on stuff at the library; while some of them play/read, I can work with others individually. We also listen to good literature (well, currently, they're on an Encyclopedia Brown kick -- we'll call that logic instead of literature) or music in the car. It's not a day we'll do art or history projects, but plenty gets done that is useful in advancing through our curricula. This week, we have no speech, but we have an appointment and a field trip that will take us out of the house two days, so I planned a lightish week of stuff that can be done while traveling. And really, we school year-round so that we can take breaks when needed. It's not the end of the world if we don't do bookwork one day. We never have trouble getting our 180 days in.

Also, depending on your area, if you already have a chest freezer and a friend who hunts, you might ask the friend to share some meat with you. Sometimes hunters enjoy hunting and can legally get more deer than their family can actually use, so they might donate it to someone else who can use it.

I agree with you about the spaghetti sauce. Unless I grow the tomatoes myself, I'm pretty happy with the brand of jarred sauce I buy; it's not got anything weird in it, including HFCS, and it's cheap. One of our grocery stores has bagged salad mixes with "this goes well with X, Y, and Z ingredients, plus Q dressing with the recipe on the back," so I buy those when they're on sale, and I've found some good varieties. We also eat a lot of homemade Caesar salad, and it travels pretty decently. Chickpeas go well in a salad and add some protein. Re: the beans. I guess it's probably a little cheaper if you buy dried ones in bulk. If you're just buying a bag or two at a time, the canned ones probably aren't that much more expensive.

Coconut oil here!