We have no crib either, and I'm too short to lay a baby down in a pack-n-play, so we don't have one of those either. My current 3yo was a great sling napper; I'd wrap him in the sling, and he'd sleep for several hours that way. Not so much with my current 9mo; he falls asleep in a carrier (front or back) but only sleeps for half an hour or so that way. You'd think he could sleep through anything, being the fourth child in a noisy household, but not so much. He will, however, sleep for a good couple of hours if I lay him down on our bed (which is upstairs, out of the flow of traffic), so that's what I do for his big nap in the afternoon. I got a baby monitor so that the second he starts moving around, I can get him, before he rolls/scoots himself off the bed. I nurse or wear him to sleep and then lay him down.

DD started a year ago with Nallenart's L'art de Lire and has just about completed the first level, but she says she does not want more of it. I think it is not as strong in grammar as she wants. She loves Getting Started With Latin, and I wish they had a French version. She's not necessarily adverse to learning colors and useful phrases like "what is your name?," but I think what she really wants is to learn to conjugate verbs so she can create her own sentences and such. It sounds odd, but I don't think she cares if what she learns is in context or not; she will probably like taking a list of verbs, conjugating them, and finding her own context. So I am looking for suggestions. She is ten, going into fifth grade, and is a strong reader, but she does not do "fun" or "cutesy," so graphics and stories aren't really a draw. I studied French for several years myself, so I can do pretty well at the pronunciations. I'm looking at this: Practice Makes Perfect and this: Schaum's Outline of French Grammar. Any thoughts on either of these, or a suggestion for something else that is not too terribly expensive?

In my state, WIC gives you a lot more than just milk and cheese -- eggs, peanut butter, cereal (which can be oatmeal depending on the store), beans, bread/rice/tortillas, even several dollars towards fresh or frozen produce. I know the OP said she gets WIC already, but for anyone considering it, the packages are pretty substantial and could provide several days' worth of breakfasts and lunches. (If you have excess milk, you can turn it into yogurt/kefir, and you can get tomato juice to make into soup too.) This is so true. It's really not fair for the husband to complain at the wife -- she's only the messenger about the realities of the budget. I have reminded my husband of this a few times, that it's not me saying we can't do X or Y; it's the reality of the budget.

If you save by buying the entire range of sizes at once, it isn't much, so I would just buy a few right now. 8 is the biggest that most of the things I want to knit need, though ymmv. I would personally get the 40" cable set now, if for no other reason than waiting could mean paying more shipping on such a small item. It can be tricky to do small circumference things with a 32" cable, and if you do want to do larger things, at least you'll have the longer cable ready. On the other hand, I think KP now offers a connector, so you can make longer cables; that might be an option to get to connect the ones that come in the set, if you get the set. If I was buying totally from scratch right now, I'd probably not bother to get the 24" cables at all, as I rarely use them. I don't like flat knitting very much, so I knit in the round as much as possible and like the larger cables for that.

I really, really love my KnitPicks interchangeables. I have the Harmony wood ones and love them, but some people really prefer the acrylic or metal ones. I use those needles for all knitting, flat or round, and I much prefer them to my double points or my regular straights. I have cables to make them 24", 32", and 40", though I rarely use the 24" ones. I use the 40" ones all the time, though, because I like magic loop in the round knitting. I most often use sizes 4-8, but I also use sizes 2 and 3 (which are fixed, not interchangeable, but I have them in 40" lengths), which is good for a lot of sock patterns.

Our Easter was wonderful! My parents are visiting, and we all went to church together; the children all behaved during the service, and the music was lovely. I put a polo shirt on my baby, and my 3 and 7yo boys insisted upon wearing their ties (and my 10yo DD a fancy dress), and I love the cuteness so much. We even made it on time to church (no small feat). Usually we are very traditional with our holiday meals, but since my birthday is also this week, my parents took us to my favorite restaurant, which has delicious Indian food. Completely not traditional, but yummy! And it was sunny and (mostly) warm, which is always great for Easter.

I also think it's unreasonable to expect to see you for every major holiday, especially since you don't live close together, and especially since you spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. My parents and ILs live in the same town, three hours away, but we rarely travel to see them; they come to us at different times. My ILs were here for Christmas, for instance, while my parents hosted my other siblings and then visited us at New Year's. My parents are here this week and were with us for Easter; my ILs were here a couple of weeks ago and went to visit their daughter and her family for Easter. It all works out. I think it's very kind that your parents have invited your ILs to Easter in the past, and maybe you could just put in a gentle hint to your parents that your ILs are lonely and would love to be included, even if they're not related to everyone. (If they're used to a large extended family, it might not matter so much who is actually related.) But your MIL should not *expect* that at all.

Possibly Christian and Missionary Alliance (cmalliance.org, I think). It's going to depend on the individual church, though; some do children's church, and some don't, and some use all traditional music, and some use more contemporary stuff. ETA: I missed the part about liturgical in the OP, so that would probably disqualify the CMA.

I use workboxes and really like them. They motivate *me* to make sure we get to everything, and they eliminate "where's the X that I need for this lesson" waste of time, because if it's needed for the day's lesson or project, I put it in the workbox the night before (or sometimes that morning before we start). Each of the big kids has several workboxes, plus a small box for pencils/colored pencils/pens/scissors/pencil sharpener/glue (this also gets taken to co-op), and my 3yo has a workbox of his own too, into which I put various art materials and early learning activities. And there are boxes for the subjects we do together. They seem to like the workboxes more than a pile of books, and it really does help me to keep everything together -- a book to read for history, with the accompanying activity sheet next to it, or the math book plus the needed manipulatives, etc. I plan the year in advance, in a general way, at least the order in which we're doing things (though some stuff is obviously "do the next thing") and then each week, I plan out the week's specific stuff, based on what else is going on that week. Some weeks we have more time to do extra projects; some weeks we have a lot going on, and we do more workbook-type stuff (especially if it can go in the car). Planning dates out too far in advance doesn't work for me, because I just don't know what's going to happen. So my plan this year is to start as soon after July 1 as I can and do schoolwork every day unless we have some reason not to, rather than take off days just because I have them scheduled.

No way can I feed our family of five (#6 doesn't eat solid foods yet, and I don't see an increase in my own caloric needs while breastfeeding) on $100 a week, especially paleo. It's not a super high COL area, but to go completely without grains and legumes, I'd need close to $200 a week, more if I went all grass-fed/organic/pastured. There's no question -- pound for pound, if we need more food at a meal, I can add another pound of veggies for a whole lot less than I can add another pound of meat. We still limit grains, especially for the adults, but we also do bean-based meals a few times a week too, with lots of veggies (skipping the rice/pasta/potatoes). When I know I'm serving something with beans for dinner, I try to make those the days when I don't decide to eat oatmeal for breakfast or a sandwich for lunch.

Not Asian, but I'm small, and neither of my parents are very tall. My DD was allergic to dairy for her first couple of years, and she's on track to be on the average or slightly tall side of things. My oldest son has not been allergic to dairy and has eaten quite a bit of it, and he's very slender and probably average or just below average in height. I think genes matter more than whether you eat dairy or not.

Saxon is working sooooooo beautifully for my oldest child. The lessons are straight-forward, nothing cutesy, no attempts to dress it up and make it playful (she hates that kind of thing); it's just simple and basic and "here's how you do it." She is the kind of kid who needs to "chew" on something for a while -- have it introduced, work a few examples with me, and then practice it in small increments. Having a large amount of problems on one topic shoved at her at once and then moving on to something else the next day isn't really the best option for her right now, so I prefer the spiral approach. It really just depends on the kid.

Not many green veggies in season locally during the winter here in PA, so I use frozen veggies frequently; I stock up when they're on sale. Especially for smoothies, look at it this way: if the alternative is no veggies, you're getting a boost of nutrition that you wouldn't get otherwise. It might not be as big of a boost as if you were using fresh, but it's not like it's poison -- it's a bonus.

I don't mind being called Mrs. Lastname, but it does seem very formal to me. I am totally okay with being called Miss Firstname, and that's what most of my friends refer to me as when speaking to their kids (who are generally young like mine). I generally refer to my friends/my kids' co-op teachers as Miss or Mrs. Firstname, so that's what my kids call them. I do have one friend, who is a little older than I am, and her kids are teens, and she always refers to me as Mrs. Lastname to her kids, so that's what they call me. I try to refer to her as Mrs. Lastname to my kids, but I often forget. I always called my parents' friends Mr. or Mrs. Lastname growing up, with a few exceptions, and it was really hard for me to switch to calling them by their first names when I became an adult. Generally, I prefer to err on the side of being too formal rather than not formal enough, but I don't have a strong preference on the name thing.

Congratulations!

Well, I suppose it depends on what you have available to replace the vehicle, should it be in any kind of accident. Being in a similar position in October 2009, we dropped full coverage on our then 9-year-old, paid-for Ford Expedition. It had 160K miles or so and was in decent shape but not fantastic; it was starting to need a bit of work, and its gas mileage was terrible, but we weren't going to replace it quite yet. And it could seat 8, though we only had 5 at the time. So we dropped comp and collision coverage on it to save a bit on our monthly bills. Well, after never having had an accident, it skidded on some ice THREE months after we dropped the full coverage and ended up rolling over completely and being very badly damaged. (However, because of its size, plus properly installed and properly used carseats, my husband and two children who were in it were completely unharmed, so the vehicle served its purpose.) Because we only had liability insurance, we lost the value of the vehicle completely, and when I got pregnant later that year, we ended up having to buy a van so we could have sufficient seating for all 6 of us. Had we kept full coverage, even with a deductible, the Expedition's payout from the insurance company would have more than paid for the van. So that was a gamble that did not pay out well for us at all. Otoh, years ago, having full coverage on a vehicle that got stolen meant that we received enough from the insurance company to replace that vehicle without having a car payment. We now maintain full coverage on all vehicles. I would really try to cut in other areas first before dropping full coverage, unless you can easily afford to replace a damaged vehicle.

Love it! I think it will fit nicely with your other children's names as well. I think a lot of traditional masculine names would work as a middle name, like Michael, as a previous poster suggested.

My DH has been pretty pleased with both the prescription regular glasses and prescription sunglasses he's gotten from 39dollarglasses.com. They're not quite as high quality as the (regular) glasses he got from LensCrafters, but at $40 a pair vs. $300, he's not too upset about it. I think the sunglasses he got were $50 a pair, though around Christmas, they had coupons for $20 off, which made them really reasonable. It's been very easy to take his prescription paper and order the glasses online. I know other people like Zenni Optical too, though we have no experience with them ourselves.

To name a few: Messiah College (PA), Nyack (NY), Tocoa Falls (GA), Malone (OH), Letourneau (TX). . . And if a specifically Christian college isn't the right thing for your child, maybe a small college in an area that supports your values and beliefs, and that has a thriving Christian community on campus, would work.

Personally, I think the most important thing is to eat real food, whether that means vegetarian or paleo. If it's been modified heavily, it's not real food. So, eat real olive oil and/or butter (and real lard if you like) but not Crisco. If you eat animal products, try to get ones that have been allowed to roam and eat their natural diets. Refined to Real is a good book; it's not too overwhelming. There's also Nina Planck's Real Food and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and a whole host of others, but I would start with Refined to Real.

Yes, I went out the week before my due dates each time. I went about a week past my due date with each of my first three babies; it was hilarious when people would ask when I was due, and I'd say "a week ago." They looked like they thought I would be having the baby on the floor any second. I actually felt pretty good at the end of my pregnancies. With my fourth baby, I was out at the park with friends on Friday, having a great time, and then the baby was born (a couple of weeks early) on Tuesday morning.

My friend who is blind does not mind if you ask how/if you can help, so you might talk directly with your relative and ask her what makes it easier to participate in the conversation.

I use cast iron for almost everything -- frying meat, omelets/fried eggs/scrambled eggs, sauteing vegetables, frying pancakes and french toast, soups and stews, etc. I've got cast iron pans, a dutch oven, a big skillet that covers two burners, even cast iron waffle irons, and I use at least one of them every day, usually at least two. I have non-stick nothing (except for a couple of specialty bake pans, like for bundt cakes and edge brownies). The cast iron just needs to be seasoned very well, but it has replaced any non-stick pans as well as my crockpot. I use stainless saucepans for boiling eggs or vegetables like lima beans and peas, cooking beans, and for making sauces. I suppose cast iron would work fine for those too, but I don't have pans in the right sizes/shapes for those. I do have big stainless stockpots that I use for some soups, making stock, stuff like that, but the dutch oven might suffice for those too. I bake in Pyrex or Corelle casseroles some too, when the cast iron isn't the right size/shape. And while I happily cook beef and pork roasts in the cast iron dutch oven, I prefer chicken roasted in a stainless roasting pan. ETA: I do have a stainless steel frying pan still, but I haven't used it in years. Partly that's because it's not big enough for my family anymore, but mostly it's because I like the cast iron better. Stuff doesn't stick to the cast iron nearly as much as it did with the stainless.

I wear my rings all the time. DH used to wear his, but he stopped wearing it when he started working construction, because he found that he was often taking it off to use machinery, where the ring could be a liability. (It's a very wide ring.) Now that he's in the office, he could wear it, but he was also super thin when we got married, and it doesn't fit him now. I've looked into getting it resized, but at the width it is, it would be very expensive.

I adore Addie as a nickname, and Adelaide is so pretty! I like your other two choices as well. I personally think Joy would work well as a middle name with any of those names.