I have been loving this thread! We start Kindergarten this fall and I have gotten so many great organizational ideas from you all. I am almost done with my planning for the year. I modified the plan just a little and am using binders. I bought 4 2-inch binders - one per quarter. I made a list of all the weeks in the quarter and whether we are doing school or if it is a vacation week and slid those in the clear pocket in the front of each folder. Then I got tabs with pockets to put inside for each week. I've got all our workbooks and things filed for each week. I still have a few copies to make for science and then I will be done with that. I also made a template to put in the front of each week that has our history topics for the week, science topics, artist, composer, and then a space to list specific library books we need, a space to list supplies, and a space for field trip ideas. I can just take this list when I go run my errands and get the library books I need and supplies I need for the week. Also, I wanted the general topics on there because I don't always reserve books ahead of time. Sometimes I just look for the general topic and let DS pick a few that look interesting to him. I already had lesson plans made up for the year in HST+ so I think I'm going to go ahead and print them out for each week and put them in the section as well. I'm super excited about this year. We did preschool last year and I was very relaxed and we skipped school a lot of days for no real reason. Now that we have to actually report to the school board I'm trying to be a little more organized.

If you have an online email account like yahoo, you can email stuff to yourself and then just keep them in a separate folder. Not the best way, but it works

I keep a binder of all the work he does throughout the year. This is my first year, but my plan is to go through his binder at the end of the year and only keep the best pieces. I do take pictures of everything we do though and put it on my blog so we'll be able to go back and look at the things we've done even if I don't keep them all

I only buy what we need for the current year. I am afraid I will buy something and then change my mind and decide not to use it later and DH would have a fit!

We moved about 2 years ago and we don't really have any couple friends here yet other than people we see at church. We don't do anything with them outside of church though. Before we moved, we had a great couple that we hung out with about once a week. DH had gone to college with them and when we moved to their area he reconnected with them and the wife and I just really clicked. For several years we were together at least once a week if not more. I really miss that and wish we could find a couple here.

My son's room was overflowing with toys and it was driving me crazy. I had planned to just clear it out one day when he wasn't there, but my DH made the suggestion to let him do it and then we could go together to take his stuff to Goodwill. We dumped all his toys in the living room floor and I gave him the empty bins that were going back in his room. I told him whatever he wanted to keep had to fit in those bins. There were some hard decisions and a few tears but for the most part he did pretty good. Then we loaded it up and took it to Goodwill. He asks me every couple of weeks if I think the kids who got his toys like them

Go to this link http://www.linkwithin.com/learn?ref=widget and it will walk you though getting it set up. It's pretty easy

Cades Cove loop is re-opened. I talked to a friend at church Sunday who had just been there this past weekend. They said the road has been repaved and some of the pull-offs and bridges have been fixed up and it is even nicer than it used to be.

Check out http://www.blurb.com They will put your blog into a book form. They have different sizes and covers to choose from and are pretty reasonably priced. I haven't actually done mine yet, but I plan to use them when I get a chance to do it.

I started WW a couple of weeks ago. One thing that helps me is I already used E-mealz for my dinner menu and grocery list. They have a points friendly menu and I switched to that so I don't really have to do any thinking about my dinner. I pretty much eat the same things for breakfast and lunch so dinner was the only problem. So far, all the meals we've tried have been great and my DH and son have also enjoyed them. DH has even lost some weight and he's not even doing WW. The thing I love is that they plan in a lot of fruits and veggies into your meals which is something I had trouble doing on my own because I am also a huge carb addict and would have those at every meal if I was planning myself. Our grocery bill has even dropped $50 a month since we started e-mealz. Hope that helps!

We used LHTH and enjoyed it, but I did add Sonlight P3/4 to it because I wanted some read aloud options and didn't have a library close by. We would do LHTH, read 1 or 2 P3/4 stories, and then do 1 or 2 pages out of the Rod & Staff preschool workbooks each day. It was perfect for my son.

Mine's in my siggy

:iagree: We love E-mealz. My whole family likes the food, it's easy to cook, and our grocery budget has dropped $50 per month since using it. It's not entirely from scratch and sometimes I will substitute (homemade spaghetti sauce instead of canned for instance) but overall I stick with their menu.

I don't know about Library Thing, but Homeschool Tracker Plus will let you do this.

We started using E-mealz a couple of weeks ago. We use the plan for 2 since DS is still a really picky eater and doesn't eat much. It makes plenty of food for us and actually has cut our budget. I grew up in a large family and am used to cooking for 6 or more people so I have always had a problem with cooking meals that are too large and then having tons of leftovers that go bad before they get eaten. So far the meals we have made have been good, DH and I have both liked them. They haven't been too difficult and DH likes it that we are actually eating "real" food and not something out of a box or can. I am happy too because we have been trying to eat healthier and have done Weight Watchers in the past but haven't stuck to it. We use the points system plan from e-mealz so that makes it easy. Also, we have tried some vegetables and things we wouldn't normally have tried because I didn't know how to cook them or didn't think we would like them but so far everything has been great. I have skipped a few meals just because I know that they are something we won't eat but I just substitute a family favorite in for those nights.

I use soy sauce and everyone always request my green bean casserole for family/church get togethers. It's basically the same thing everyone else listed: canned french style green beans cream of mushroom soup extra french fried onions -- yummy and then a few shakes of soy sauce

We moved to the Knoxville area about a year ago. We live in Seymour. DH worked downtown when we first moved here and it took him about 30 minutes to get there. We are exactly halfway between downtown Chattanooga and Sevierville/Pigeon Forge. There are a lot of rural areas out here and we love it!

I also use blogspot. I love it! It's very easy to use and uploading pictures is a snap. Also, if you use blogspot you can upload a cute background from http://www.cutestblogontheblock.com They're free and alot cuter (I think) then the ones that blogspot offers.

My son is 4.5 and we are doing PreK this year. We also did some preschool stuff last year. It is all on my blog http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com

We moved to a rental so he hasn't been able to paint here. Maybe when we finally buy another house. Yes, and my son loves it! We actually took it down and took it with us when we moved. I wasn't sure it would still stick, but we put it up in his room here without any problems. Since we can't paint in our rental house it was a great way to fill up the white wall.

My hubby is a huge Tennessee fan and when my son moved from his crib to a big boy bed, we redecorated his room in all UT stuff. My hubby even painted an orange and white checkerboard on the wall. Sadly, we had to move for hubby's work about 9 months later. The people who bought our house were Kentucky fans so I'm sure that the checkerboard wall was the first thing to go when they moved in :) Here's a pic:

Well, actually I have never ordered them off the website. When I have needed them I have gone to the post office explained that I needed a couple for whatever project and they didn't have a problem with me taking what I needed. You could always go into the post office and ask them.

You can actually get the priority shipping boxes for free of the USPS website. Just go to the supply section and you can have them delivered to your door for free. I've gotten them before for other projects.

I haven't actually done it , but I know you can go to http://www.blurb.com and have your blog printed into a book. It is fairly inexpensive and you can pick and choose which posts you want included.

We've been doing Little Hands Toward Heaven by Heart of Dakota. You can visit my blog (link in my siggy) to see pics of what we've been doing. We love it!