I use ages too I figure when asking/answering Homeschooling questions it's easier to know what age you are speaking of.

As a former PreK teacher who became a SAHM when my kids reached School aged. I of course taught them at home from toddler hood-preK. ALL my kids (with the exception) of my toddler have attended some form of formal Kindergarten (even if it was just a partial year) I never called it "homeschooling" I just said we didn't do preschool/preK we learn at home. funny thing is ALL their kindergarten teachers wanted to know what wonderful preK school they must of attended :lol:

His ties and suit jackets get dry cleaned but I wash his pants and shirts. I do sometimes take his shirts to be dry cleaned because I can only get them so clean.

My friends blog has some good stuff on it http://yhwhleads.blogspot.com/2011/04/passion-week-for-our-littles-how-does.html :001_smile:

Firstly I have never made these types of promises to my kids and I think that with the way the economy is going its a good thing. I had to work to earn everything in my life. If I had made these promises and made good on these promises for 3 out of 4 kids. I would sell anything I could and reduce my bills any way possible to at least give them some money to put toward a car. I would get rid of tv's, dvd players etc. those are not a necessity and making good on my word would be more important to me.

We had a big bash for my grandparents 50th a few years ago before they passed. I did the invites and my family that lived in PA did all the leg work rentals and such. The had me add to the invitations to bring a covered dish or make a donation (it was partially catered) I made a donation as I was flying from FL to PA and wasn't going to bring a dish. my family is not well off so this seemed like a good solution to having a decent party. We had more food than what we knew what to do with and everyone gave generously that we where able to buy my grandparents a new living room set. It worked out well. I would never ask for a specific amount per person no less. We are a family of 6 but my kids would never eat $15 worth of food each. I just would not attend or I would maybe say I will pay $30 for my husband and I but kids eat free at most buffets. I think the $15 per person is pretty tacky especially at someones home. ETA: I wouldn't even take my family out to eat someplace that would cost $15 each for us to eat.

Yes I would be shocked. even though both dh and I did. They have seen alcoholism and addiction at its worse via family/friends of the family. My hopes are they make better choices and I can only hope and pray that I have raised them right.

ugh that would send me over the edge.. I would blow up. Not the best response for sure but I know me and that would push my buttons. Your dh needs to STOP he is teaching your kids to disrespect you. If he stops and corrects the kids if they do it that should solve the issue. I would also if possible avoid family members that are doing it or politely ask them to stop. My 9 year old is kinda snappy like that sometimes and I correct it right when it happens and she is punished. I can't even think of an example of something she has said.

Well dd12's name was popular in the 70's & 80's but it is spelled differently to make it more unique. dd9's name I have only known one other person with her name and she is in her mid 30's. dh named dd5 & dd2 so their names are more "popular" but not overly so that it bothers me too much. Our names are Michelle & Matthew 2 very popular names so we wanted to be a bit more uncommon in our name selections. I had 4 Michelle's in my class in Kindy, and He had 3 Matthews in his we haven't ran into duplicate names with our girls yet (not any in their church classes or school classes atleast) which is good.

Honestly It varies by subject. I am pretty classical in most area but totally eclectic with math & science.. and even a little unschool-y in some areas. It also depends on the child too. I just now finally got a copy of WTM from our new library so I may be changing a lot. I have a feeling that the WTM methods wont work for each of my kids though dd9 is a very visual learner.

It's a tough one here. Having 4 girls everyone assumes that we need Barbie's, my little pony & dolls. My girls are not really into that type of stuff. I generally give the generic "we don't really need anything but they all love books" and still I end up with a billion dolls. I recently started tell people "we love educational toys" then tend to be more gender neutral.

I always wanted 3 girls and 3 boys like my Grandmother. We have 4 girls (5 counting my step dd) So I started thinking maybe we would have 4 boys come along at some point in time. However we have been unsuccessful getting (and staying preg. over the last 2 years we have had 3 mc's) So we are stuck in what ever happens, happens land. If we go another 2 years with out a successful pregnancy I pray the Lord provides the means for us to adopt. While I only wanted 6 when I was younger I know their is room in my heart for many more.

I should of added too I guess the price to fill up isn't shocking me so much because we had a 92 conversion van and now we have a more fuel efficient minivan so we are spending less.

honestly I am not freaking out too much just yet. Gas is down 10 cents at our local speedway and we have a saver card and get an extra 3 cents off per gallon. We will get gas at Kroger with our saver card we get between 50-80 cents off per gallon (that means we spent 500-800$ of food though) We are a one car family we do all our errands on Fridays (library, post office etc.) We have a local convenience store we can walk to to get milk and such. Dh does work out of town 5 days a week and drives about 60miles round trip but its all high way and we get about 28 miles per gallon so it hasn't been to terrible. I don't like driving (especially because we are new to the state and my gps signal is weak here for some reason) so its easy to limit trips. We also have a nice park at the end of our street an my kids are content with going their a few days a week and don't want to go all kinds of places.

hmmm..I have a bunch 1. this is our first week HS'ing in 2 years and I know I have been way to easy on the kids 2. I planned a 5 day lesson plan but we finished everything in 4 days other than spelling test so I told the girls I would do an oral spelling test and if they got 95% of better we would go get a rebox movie (when secretly I just wanted to keep them all watching tv so I could scrub the floors) 3. the Movie was Toy story 3 and I should of read some reviews because my 5 year old cried near the end and I wasn't watching enough to know what upset her so badly and I felt AWFUL 4. I moved and unpacked my entire house in 8 days and I was less than nice to those who where not being helpful 5. its 2:41amand my dinner dishes are not done and it is going to bug me until I get up and do them 6. In moving we had to leave our church and I am not in a huge hurry to go church shopping and my girls have not had any social contact since we moved on the 3rd because of it 7. We have a very low income and simply can not afford curricula for 3 kids and I am terrified my kids educations will suffer because I am not so good at winging it. 8. back to the movie night, a big part of it was letting them stay up late so I can sleep in for the first time in a long long long time. 9. I am "borrowing" someones internet picked up by my wifi to make said confessions because at&t is taking forever to get our internet set up. 10. after 1 week of FIAR I am not sure I like it at all but dd5 loved it I would feel terrible to stop doing it but it truly bored me to tears. 11. dh and I snuck out for chinese food and I gave the kids mac n cheese dd12 later busted me by finding fortune cookies in my purse :lol:

our home we just moved from was just less than an acre. Our new yard is much smaller. Our kids are not much for playing in the yard we are more go take a hike or go to a fun park people so it is ok with us. Plus much less yard work. Though my garden will be mostly containers this year I am ok with it I like supporting local farmers ;)

I taught PreK & K5 for 3 years. It was really mind blowing to me that some of the children had NO foundation for education as if their parents had never even cracked open a book and read to them. I wanted to devote all my energy to teaching my own at home. I have done private school with them and some public and recently pulled them out of a private school to homeschool again. We have just had so many things going on in our lives that at times I had to work and couldn't afford to just stay home. We are in a position to be a one income family again and I hope we can keep going this way for a long time. I do know for sure I will never go back to teaching in schools again. My oldest dd however I think will make an excellent teacher if she goes that route she really has a knack for handling younger kids and they flock to her.

We just started 87 Monday so far dd likes it. However she has taken pre-alg up until last week when we moved from her private school. I haven't had to "teach" anything she is flying right through so far I think its all review of concepts she already knows I feel she will be ready for Alg 1 in the fall but I don't think I will be using saxon for it. Nothing against Saxon I just feel their are better alg programs out their.

We all eat together every time we are all home, however we don't have a table that seats all of us (ours broke when we moved last week) but we sit close enough to keep the conversations going etc.

I have never heard of the show but we are practically TV free so my kids have never even heard of comedy central.

Up until we moved last week we did. Our table broke as we where trying to move it out of the old house. My aunt gave us a replacement table but only seats 4 (barley) I stand at the bar in the kitchen for breakfast/lunch. For dinner I sit with dh in the living room but we all remain in conversation with each other. Hopefully we will be able to replace the table in the next few months.

Thanks guys. My girls helped me clean a bunch this evening so we should have very light chores tomorrow and hopefully we can dig a little deeper. I found a cool book we can do some science stuff with tomorrow while I unpacked a box this evening so hopefully we can have a little fun with that. It all anatomy so I am thinking we may have a fruit/veggie/cheese lunch and try to make some body parts :lol:

:grouphug: We are all sinners. While I may not read or watch most things "they" would consider un-Christan I only answer to God. I don't pass judgment on others based on what they read/watch/wear I have a big enough plank in my own eye to go fishing the speak out of any one else's.

anyone still working on their rooms?

We just do netflix and we are only doing cd's right now until we get the internet set up at our new house. We get no digital reception here but I am ok with that I would watch endless sitcoms when I had digital reception at the old house. We are not big tv people so its not a huge deal to us. We do watch a lot of library dvd's and such too though.