I vote for reading when you can and adding some interesting educational videos (and maybe computer games) when needed, especially if you're in a state that will balk if you don't mention doing *something* related to science and history. I'd let everything else go. I am so sorry about your MIL.

Sandbox, one of those hand-operated diggers Sticks Swingset -- climbing rope, swings, slide, platform for fort More sticks Playhouse Even more sticks Trees, old stone wall, old barn, big hill, rocks, logs, woods Here's a new idea -- sticks! Tent/teepee/fort Build a sunflower house Ride-on vehicles, bikes, trikes, scooters Cars and trucks Balls Nature equipment -- bags, journals, bug collecting paraphernelia, net Space to plant flowers/their own garden Wagon Pogo balls Sprinkler/hose/sprayer Bubbles Chalk Paintbrushes with water (great for little ones) Remote control car Roller skates Big metal dump truck that can be loaded and unloaded Dress-up clothes, whatever other pretend play props they haul out there -- pioneer gear, Star Wars lightsabers/blasters, Davy Crockett-esque guns Soccer ball/goal And a few more sticks on top of all of that

Bell peppers! They are pretty easy to grow and maintain (from the little I've done, anyway), and they are crazy expensive to buy in the stores during the winter. They freeze well.

I think I would buy one car that was good on gas mileage for now, and then determine who uses which car based on who's going where and when. Sometimes maybe it will make more sense for the kids to use your SUV and for you to use the new car, if they're going a short distance, and you need to go a longer one. (This is what DH and I do -- we have three vehicles and live 10+ miles from anywhere, so we figure out who needs to go the greatest distance and who needs to tote the most kids.) I'd have the kids contribute toward gas, insurance, and maintenance as feasible, based on how much they use it and for what purpose. I would also probably plan, if possible, to buy a second vehicle in a year or two, especially if all of them are attending college several miles from home. (And/or look for rideshares!)

Yes, that. My first set of prefolds went through my DD, my niece, partly my first son (I also used some homemade fitteds with him), a friend's baby, my second son, and my other nice -- 5.5 kids! -- before being finally worn out too much to use. I paid $60 dollars for those diapers, so at $10 for each kid, that's pretty good for diapering for the first 3-6 months. Yes, there was some water cost involved, but it was pretty negligible in with all the other laundry I do. (And with my third and fourth babies, we have well water anyway, so there's not a direct increase in water, though slightly in electricity, and I suppose somewhere in the longevity of the well/pump.)

We school year round and take breaks as necessary, but we usually have a fairly light June, due to other things (like ballet recital week) going on. We officially promote everyone and have the "first day" excitement in early July, as our school district lets us start counting our days as of July 1. If I changed grades over at some other time during the year, I'd just tell the district the child was in whatever grade he/she was in at the time of reporting. (When my evaluator does our evaluation in the spring, she writes whatever grade I tell her, and based on that, she notes whether I need to include testing results or not.)

We love Getting Started With Latin and are considering GSW Spanish as well! For one thing, GSWL is inexpensive, which was attractive to me for just starting out. Second, it's oral, no writing, which I also wanted for when we started it with our 6 and 9yo's. Third, I really love its incremental approach, where just one thing is taught each time, and then there is plenty of review. Now, that being said, I started it with both of my older children, and we ended up losing the 6yo along the way. He wasn't a fluent reader, and he couldn't keep up with his older sister (who, in all fairness, is very good at memorizing things, and this book matches her very, very well). I think he could do it if I worked with him one-on-one, but a, my time for that is limited (and I use it for the most important stuff, like math, writing, and reading), and b, he doesn't seem bothered by not learning it yet. I can start it again with him in a year or two, and he'll fly through it, I think. I am also liking the idea of using GSW Spanish as a whole family thing, around the dinner table. As for which to do, Latin vs. Spanish, I don't know. Spanish would be more useful as a spoken language. We started with Latin because DD really wanted to learn Latin and French, so we are doing those now and may add something eles later.

We've used cloth with all four babies. I used disposables a handful of times when DD was a baby but haven't used them at all since she was six or so months old. The boys have only ever worn cloth.

Date, as in going out, alone, just the two of us, no kids -- not very often. That has happened exactly four times in the past decade. Date, as in going out without any big kids, just a nursing infant -- still not very often, but we did go out for a few fancy meals when it was just us and our first baby, and we did just go to a movie a few weeks ago with only the baby. We would do stuff like that more often if we had sitters available regularly. We don't really have the money to pay sitters, but when my parents were here at New Year's and offered to keep the three big kids so we could see a movie, we took that opportunity and enjoyed it. It was nice to see a movie that the kids might not enjoy, and on the big screen (and it was nice to have just one little baby around, to focus on him a bit). If family lived closer, I might even get to the point where I'd leave a baby for a few hours, but IDK. Date, as in doing something together, without the kids? That, we do. We used to play board games; these days, we watch movies or TV-on-DVD together, but it's just us (and occasionally the baby), and we chat or comment as we watch. Sometimes we have dessert or snacks that are just for us, too. :)

Do you have other family members who have Verizon and could share a plan with you? It's very cheap to add another line to a plan, and then you share all of the minutes, but calls to other Verizon members are unlimited and don't count toward the minutes.

Maybe someone else in PA could enlighten me a bit here. My child is indeed considered to be a part of our local school district, because of how the law works, right? So the SD does indeed receive funding for her? Is that right? If that is indeed the case, then yes, I think she should be allowed to participate in sports, activities, speech therapy, classes, even breakfast and lunch -- basically, whatever services she could receive if she attended there daily. If they get to count her in their unit count and get money for her, then essentially, they're making money from her being homeschooled -- an allocation is given for her seat on a bus or in a classroom, and they're not having to pay out for it (and they sure aren't giving it back to me, and what they have to pay someone to oversee the homeschoolers isn't making up for what they'd have to spend if they taught her every day). As long as they receive money for her and feel that they have the right to oversee us, I feel that I have the right to pick and choose whatever services of theirs I want to use. If that's not the case, and they don't receive specific funding for her, then no, I don't think the school should HAVE to allow her to participate in any of that, even though state law allows for it. I pay taxes, not because my child is part of the SD, but because I own property in the SD; the same is true of the elderly gentleman down the road. If my child wasn't considered to be part of the SD, and they didn't receive funding for that child, I would feel that a) they did not have the right to oversee me or require anything from me beyond a simple letter stating that my child would not attend their school, and b) I did not have the right to use their services. I would certainly understand if they chose to allow me to use their services (especially if my child would be an asset to their sports team or band or something), at my own personal cost; that does not seem unreasonable to me. Why should they have to provide services for my child if they don't get to count her in their numbers and receive funding for her? As to why a SD might allow it if they didn't have to, especially at the parents' personal cost, well, it seems to me that it would be a win-win for the SD. They get the chance to have a good athlete on a team, they look good to the community at large by being gracious, and they're not responsible for the student's grades and deportment outside of the team.

I believe it is partly because a lot of low-carb plans focus on eating real, whole foods, and yogurt naturally has fat, but mainly because the fat helps carry the flavor and helps fill you up so that you are satiated longer.

I think you first need to check what type of seatbelts are in each of the spots; they may dictate which children can sit in them. I have four children -- 9yo needs only a lap-shoulder belt, 6yo needs only a backless booster, 3yo is forward-facing in a Graco MyRide, and infant is rear-facing in the big Graco infant seat. The older two are in the back row, and the little boys are in the middle row. The only spot that is currently unoccupied is the middle spot in the back row, and it's the only spot that has just a lap belt, no shoulder belt, so it cannot hold a child without a harness. In the event that we have a fifth child (likely), most likely, I would move the current infant to the MyRide and the current 3yo to a Radian in the middle spot of the very back. Also, I remember from when I had three children in boosters/carseats all squished into a Ford Focus (that was tight, but it worked, though I am so grateful for the van now), sometimes seats puzzle together differently if one is FF'ing and one is RF'ing, so you might consider trying a rear-facing Radian for the new baby, putting it between the boosters in the back row. As well, there is a really small infant seat, a Cocoro, IIRC; I think it is more of a bonus for depth, rather than width, but you might ask at car-seat.org. They have all been super helpful to me.

Thank you; that is really helpful. I guess it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have it be a little easy for her, because it would help build her confidence while making sure she had the basic skills down.

Last year (grade 3), the language arts section of DD's portfolio for the state included the following: a list of books we'd read that I considered to be "general literature" (ie not specifically focused on history/science/music), a brief description of how what sorts of things we had done that might count as LA, a cursive writing sample, a poetry sample that she had written, a narration she had written for history, and a page or two from the third grade BrainQuest workbook. We really like the BQ workbooks for a change of pace and to catch things that we might miss; they also are great for showing the state that you did study spelling or punctuation, if you don't do them in a formal way.

I aim for kids up by 7:30, breakfast at 8, and school starting by 8:30. Doesn't generally happen, but that's the goal. And almost all of the time, I do require that they be dressed before breakfast; it makes our day go more smoothly if they are.

I think you need to drill the routine for a while. If they wander away, go and bring them back. No fun stuff until their work is done. Take away the fun stuff for a while if need be. I use my 3yo's best time for independent play with work with my 6yo. The 9yo is supposed to do her independent work then as well, but she is super easily distracted, so I am currently ignoring it in favor of giving the 6yo what he needs. When 6yo is done, I do history and science with everyone. Then he goes to tidy his room and then plays with the 3yo while I work with the 9yo. (It does depend a bit on the baby, and what is easiest for me to do while nursing, holding, or wearing him, so it can vary; if he's taking a really good nap, for instance, I might put off history and science in favor of working with DD, who gets distracted from math by the smiling baby in my lap.) Then 9yo DD stays with me, wherever I am in the house, so I can supervise/assist her, while she finishes her work.

Nope, but granted, we are fairly new to her. She's seen my baby a couple of times and my 6yo once. She asked my 6yo a little bit about how school was going and what he was learning, but I think that was mostly to evaluate his speech and to get to know him a bit. She then asked me if I had any concerns about him, educationally-speaking, which I felt was appropriate, because she could refer us for testing or whatever if I was worried (I'm not). She seems pretty laid-back and open to non-mainstream ideas, which is what I want. If she was negative about homeschooling or anything, I'd find a new doctor.

Would Writing With Ease be good for my 10yo DD next year? She'll be in fifth grade, and I'd rate her language skills as excellent but reluctant; she doesn't really like writing but is creative and could use a gentle push toward helping her get her thoughts on paper. We haven't really done a lot of formal composition, but I don't think she's at absolutely square one either. What level of WWE would be good for her?

I had intended to take a full six weeks off after my fourth one was born, but I found that after about two weeks, I was feeling pretty good, and my older kids needed a bit more structure. So we did light schoolwork for a couple of weeks, then added a few more subjects, then a few more, so that by 6 or 7 weeks, we were back to full schoolwork.

My boys are almost 7, 3, and 6 months. My MIL often buys the older boys matching socks when she sees them on sale, and they're similar in size, enough that it's sometimes hard to tell at one glance. Plus, DS1 is gentle on clothes and doesn't tend to wear them out, so he passes them down to DS2, but they forget which ones have been passed down. So I just started putting a single dot with a sharpie on DS1's socks, and then two dots in DS2's socks. (The baby's are still tiny enough that it's obvious which ones are his.) So when DS1 passes down to DS2, we'll add a dot, and then when DS3 starts having similar socks, his will get three dots.

Only one of my children has been sick enough to need a sick visit/antibiotics, and that was the child who received most of the vaccinations, but on a delayed schedule. (That child also has multiple semi-serious allergies; the immune system is clearly wired differently in that child.) The others haven't had more than a cold or minor stomach bug. Yes, they were all breastfed; no, I don't really think that matters all that much. I think a lot of little things we do have helped a little bit, but in general, I think their good health is mostly luck of the draw and things out of our control (like, we live a fairly isolated existence; we live in the country, DH works in a very small office, etc., so we can limit our exposure pretty heavily).

In March, I will have been nursing continually for a decade, except for a handful of months toward the end of pregnancies, when the milk dried up, and the older nursling mostly weaned. I have met the WHO's recommendations (and then some) for my three older children, and I expect to do the same for my current infant. As for when we introduce solids, we are big delayers here. DD didn't get any solids until almost 8 months, DS1 was first given a little bit at 9 months but didn't eat more than a bite here and there until a year-plus, and we didn't give DS2 any solids at all until his first birthday. (And even though I hear all the time that they won't want solid foods if you don't start them early, I think that's baloney. None of my kids have thus far been very picky, and the one I waited the longest for solids with is the least picky of all of them. He eats anything and everything he can.)

I've not read all of the replies, but for one of our children, we got Hib, Prevnar (Pneumococcal conjugate), and DTaP. Our ped was really fantastic; she was comfortable with us skipping all of them if we had wanted to, but when I asked her which ones she felt were most important for *our family,* she thought DTaP was a good idea. I think a ped should be able to discuss which ones are most appropriate for your children. If it matters to you, certain vaccines are cultured in human fetal tissue. That particularly bothers me, so I chose not to give those ones.

This year, we're studying US history with our 1st and 4th graders. When we get to the point at which each state was added to the union, we color the state on a blank map and read the book from Sleeping Bear Press about that state (B is for Bluegrass, about Kentucky, and so on). We're also looking up a few places each week from my list of "should know" US geography features (from this thread:http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=290598 I have them all written on cards, so we can review the ones we've previously looked up. Also, my kids like the games from sheppardsoftware.com a lot.