Wow, lots of great suggestions -- thanks! I did not know Blick had so many great ideas just on their site; since it's free, I think I'll start from there and maybe the Geography through Art book. I like the look of some of the more expensive programs too -- might have to wait a bit on those, or discuss them with the grandparents. It is so nice having such a great resource at hand!

We've been drinking raw milk for over four years, from three different farms, and none of us have ever been sick from it. (In fact, we've been healthier in the past four years than ever before, but that's beside the point.) I drank it when I was pregnant with DS2 and am still drinking it during this pregnancy -- so far, no problems. I do like to let people know that the milk is raw if they're visiting though, because I feel that they should be able to make their own choices. I personally feel that it's as safe as, or safer than, pasteurized milk, but I think that risk is up to the individual consumer.

There are several Smithsonian museums; if you can only see a few, I'd vote for the American History museum, or if your kids are very into science, the Natural History museum. We also found the Native American museum to be fairly interesting, though IIRC, smaller than some of the others. We never made it to the National Gallery of Art when we lived there, and now that our children are older and would appreciate it more, I wish we'd seen it. The Air and Space Museum is pretty neat too, and Mount Vernon is beautiful. If the weather is nice, the Zoo is fun -- my kids loved seeing the pandas and elephants!

Not at all! I taught myself when I was 31, and I started teaching my MIL in her late 50s.

I really, really love my KnitPicks interchangeable set as well! I also have fixed 40" needles in sizes 0-3 for small things. I have full sets of regular straight needles as well as double points, and I far prefer the KP ones. I have the Harmony wood ones for both interchangeables and long fixed needles, but if you prefer metal or plastic needles, they have those sets too.

:lol::lol::lol: This wasn't a report card comment, but I did get into an argument with my eighth grade history teacher when playing a Scattergories-type game in class one day. I named Lichtenstein as a country beginning with the letter "L." He disagreed that it was a country and refused to look it up on the map for me. He was even British, so obviously had grown up much closer to Lichtenstein than I've ever been! My parents were not impressed. The worst comment I ever got on a report card was something like, "talks too much in class" in elementary school. In all fairness, though, the teachers knew it was because I was bored out of my mind, and while they had little they could do to help me, they did need to let the other students do their work. (And I grew up to be a very quiet, rather non-social high school student who is a fairly non-social adult.) ETA: I also got in trouble for reading during math class once, seventh grade. The teacher called me on it and asked how I could possibly read and keep up with what she was teaching (which I already knew). I was enough of a smart aleck to give her the truth and said, "It's easy. I just read a little, then look up at the board, read a little, look up at the board." I really don't remember what she said after that, but nothing happened from it. My parents, I think, rolled their eyes at the whole thing. I was almost always an extremely model student -- never late for class, never got a detention, never did anything wrong. (Partly because my dad taught at my high school, and everyone knew I was his kid, and I have a very heavy sense of family honor.) I always joked that I could have gotten away with any big mischief once, because nobody would ever have believed I did it. Too bad I never tried. :)

This is so my DD. She has always liked bright color combinations, whether or not they match. If it's decent and weather-appropriate, I let it go. Unless she's going to encounter other kids who might tease her, I wouldn't worry about it, and even then, maybe she's strong enough not to care what other kids think.

Does anyone have any good suggestions for art programs for upper elementary students? Not art appreciation/history, but ideas for actually creating art, using different media, etc.?

We've done a tiny bit of French here and there but not much. We're going to start with the Nallenart program soon; DD is in third grade. I hope she will continue with French for a while, but we'll see. I've studied French, so I feel comfortable with teaching it/learning more with her. Same with Italian, and it's a very easy language to learn, IME, so I would be thrilled if they wanted to learn that later. While Spanish is more commonly spoken in many parts of the US, I never studied it and am not really ready to teach it. We are also starting with Latin soon; the younger children may or may not pick up any of it, and that's okay. How much Latin will depend on the children's interests and abilities later. Can't say as I'd be upset if they wanted to learn some Greek in a few years either. Maybe Latin and French for the next few years, Greek and either more French or a different modern language in high school? I like languages, and DD seems to be linguistically oriented as well, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

Maybe meals or gift cards for take-out places, especially if her baby will be in the hospital after she's released? I would think clothes that fit a really little baby would be nice. With only being 5 weeks early, it's likely that the baby will be home fairly soon, right? But probably small; my large-ish newborns fit right into newborn sized clothes, so they'd swim on a preemie.

Sadly, this is not uncommon. Some people feel a need for revenge or something. The first house we bought was a foreclosure -- they said that the father of the family died, and the mom and teens just let the house go. A thermostat was bad, so the heat didn't work; instead of calling an electrician (who fixed it for us in a few minutes; we only called a professional because the mortgage company required it), they used kerosene heaters, which resulted in kerosene stains all over the stairs and a scorched wall in the master bedroom. A fixture in the upstairs shower was missing, so water poured into the floor, damaging the dining room ceiling. And so on. Heartbreaking on so many levels.

I'm not really very familiar with YL, specifically, but I don't really see it as being any different from other sorts of outreaches. Jesus Himself used this method -- he saw that people needed physical healing from illness, or emotional comfort (like the woman at the well), and once people saw that He cared and could do something about the problems they faced, they were more open to His message. I don't really see how tutoring students and then inviting them to an off-campus Bible study or whatever is any different from a team going to a poor country, building a house or helping to heal sick people, and inviting those people to a church service. It does concern me that there could be random adults hanging around with kids though. I think that most of the time, it's probably okay, but I do know that there are sick people even within a church. I think it would need to be handled extremely carefully. And yes, even aside from whether or not the person was evangelizing for my faith, I'd be a bit concerned if my kid came home, told me how cool his new tutor was, and asked to go to some event at a church that wasn't mine.

I believe so, but even raw goat's milk needs extra things added to it. It may be the closest actual milk to human milk, but since it's designed for baby goats, it doesn't have everything that a human baby needs, and in the right proportions. Why do we use cow's milk to create most formula, instead of goat's milk? I assume because it's less expensive and more readily found. I am a nursing mama too, but if I couldn't nurse, I'd probably look into making my own formula with either raw goat's milk or raw cow's milk.

We've been drinking raw milk for years. The biggest cons for us are that it's more expensive and that it's not something we can get just anywhere. People are sometimes concerned about raw milk because it has not been pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria, which can be particularly dangerous for people with compromised immune systems, children, pregnant women, etc. It's also not legal in every state. However, we feel that there are several pros to raw milk. One, pasteurization destroys beneficial bacteria as well as bad, and often, pasteurization allows for less cleanliness around the animals. In our state, raw milk is completely legal, provided you comply with testing requirements that prove that things like listeria and brucellosis have not been found in your cows. We feel that raw milk from clean, well-cared-for animals is very, very safe, and that you run a great risk of things like listeria from other foods than you do from raw milk (you can find statistics to prove that, but it's my opinion that you can generally find statistics to prove just about anything). We've gotten raw milk from three different local farms, have given it to our children, have drunk it throughout pregnancy, etc., and we've had no problems at all. The milk we buy is all grass-fed (either mostly or completely), which is healthier for the animal, and which adds important nutrients (including CLA, which fights cancer) to the milk. Plus, the animals are allowed to roam around and be outside, and they receive no antibiotics or hormones -- again, healthier for us. (Yes, those things could also be true of pasteurized organic milk.) Pasteurization destroys the milk's natural lactase enzyme, which can make it hard to digest, whereas raw milk is often gentler on the body because it has its own lactase. We also feel that raw milk tastes better. DD and I absolutely hated the taste of pasteurized milk, regardless of fat content, but raw milk is a completely different creature, and it tastes delicious. (Plus, since it's not homogenized, we can skim the cream off if we want.) I encourage you to check out realmilk.com for more info and statistics.

Wow, that must be quite a story! Glad you and she are okay and home. Congratulations!

Aww, how sad for them! LD relationships at that age are so hard, but they are doable. At least in today's world of cell phones and e-mail, it's a little easier to stay in touch with the day-to-day stuff. DH and I were apart for a couple of years while he was in college and I was in high school, and it was hard (and a bit lonely). We ran up huge phone bills and wrote lots of letters, but still, it was missing the little moments that were hardest. (But when we were finally together, that was great, and I think it was good preparation for the ups and downs of married life too, to know that you can weather a trial.) Perhaps things will fizzle for them, and perhaps they'll be drawn back together. :)

Not necessarily directed at you specifically, but to anyone -- what happens if Mr. or Miss Right just drops into your teen's lap (so to speak)? I was that teen -- I was 14, the boy was 16, and it was going to be just one dance together, as friends. My parents hadn't intended for me to date that early at all (they were thinking 15 for group dates and 16 for individual dates, and only with boys of whom they approved), but they liked this boy and did agree to the dance (and dinner with some other friends, and my dad insisted on driving us). They might not have been surprised at a few more dates after that one, but nobody was picturing a ring, four kids, and a house. One set of problems was suddenly solved, but I'm sure a whole different set of worries appeared. (They did allow us to go on solo dates when I was 15, but they were still very careful about where we went, how much time we spent alone, etc.) We've been together nearly 20 years, married for almost 13, so I'm hesitant to assume that all teen relationships have expiration dates. Our oldest isn't quite 9 yet, so we have a while, but I'm thinking that we'll just have to play it by ear, not necessarily set up rules ahead of time or anything.

Hmm, probably $200-300 throughout the year, for all of them, total, but even that might be high. A good chunk of that is for whatever books and materials we can't get for free otherwise, and the rest is for art supplies, printer paper, supplemental manipulatives, co-op activities/classes, etc. I don't count dance class or museum memberships as part of the homeschool budget, because we'd do those anyway (and actually, we do more of the museum stuff on weekends when DH can join us), but if I didn't homeschool, I'd go through less printer paper, wouldn't need as many art supplies, etc., so those things I count.

It's rare for someone to call after 9 pm here, and unless it was an emergency, I wouldn't call someone after that either. (The exception would be my parents; they're always up until after the 11:00 news, and sometimes I don't have a chance to call them until 9. They would not be alarmed by that, but if they called me after 9, I'd probably be concerned that something was wrong.)

That's exactly what I was thinking too. I'm not really surprised, though. (OP, your DH sounds like my high school physics teacher. He had us build stuff and try different things. The only year I've ever liked science class.)

An hour or so, plus other reading time, art projects, etc. I can't imagine a first grader really needing more than an hour or two of focused seatwork a day.

Wait, did my kids go to your house? This sounds like their antics. But yes, I do sometimes have days where I can't pry DD out of a book.

I'm with others who suggest history and science. She's at such a perfect age for really getting into them. You don't even need a formal curriculum; I'd just let her pick out whatever books strike her fancy and go from there. Simple books like the ones in the "If You Lived. . ." series are nice because a child can flip through them leisurely and hit on a liking (er, obsession in my house) for a particular time period, and then you can get more books on that era. We did unschooly sort of history for the first several years, and I'm really glad we did, because my DD has such a drive to know moremoremore and a love that even I (who generally liked history and majored in it in college) don't have. I don't think it's necessarily odd to do 2nd grade level work with her in 1st grade. I've always figured that grade levels are kind of meaningless and that you do whatever the kid needs, regardless of what the numbers say. So if 2nd grade level work fits her next year, then go for it!

Congratulations! He's gorgeous!

(((HUGS))) Mama! I think you probably don't want to drive this far (Harrisburg area), but if you aren't happy with your dentist, I can highly recommend ours (pediatric-only practice, and one of the dentists is especially fantastic with the kids). He said that sometimes it's just luck of the draw, and you can do everything right, and they still get cavities, or you can do nothing, and they get nothing. Just do what you can, and know that there are wonderful options these days.