That is what I was going to post!!! My grandmother was living with my mom when I discovered these books ( there is a series). I gave them to my mom as a gift and they traded them back and forth and were fighting over who could read it first!!! It is sweet and funny!

I married at almost 22. I had my first at 28, second at 30 and last one at 35. I'm 45 now. The downside was I was really used to being independent and having my own life. I had a hard time getting used to the 24/7 aspect of parenting. HOWEVER, dh was in med school and residency and we really wanted to wait until he was almost done and I'm really glad we did. I never resented dh's schedule until I had kids. I'm very independent and do things by myself all the time. To not be able to do things because I had 2 toddlers in tow made me resentful... But I'm afraid we would have been divorced if we had had them while he was in residency!!!!

I guess I have never figured how to be nice and perfect 24 hours a day. We were married for 5 years before we had kids and I taught school. Being enthusiastic, nice happy, etc and teaching the lessons was exhausting and I came home every evening and took a nap before cooking dinner for my husband. Then I was home all the time with babies. So ALL DAY EVERY DAY you are saying, "Please say that nicely." "Have you finished your..." "Don't forget.." And I want to just go in my room and be by myself!!! Yes, it is MUCH easier now. I can go to the store by myself. It is wonderful. But when they were little and I was taking care of relatives as well and dh works long hours, well.. it was hard. My kids and I have fun. The older they get the better I like them. I taught high school because the thought of teaching kindergarteners scared me to death!!!! Now the oldest is really fun. He leaves in a year and a half and I don't want him to. Middle one is getting better. Now I only want to kill him once a day!!! But most of the day he makes me smile and has some great thoughts. My 4th grader needs to mature to be truly interesting. I much prefer A Tale of Two Cities to Clifford the Dog..

Great. Just what I need more guilt. I am already stressing if I have done everything right... Sighh.. I guess I havn't... But would ps have been better? Sometimes I wonder....

OK, you guys keep acting like I am drinking other things. I have and continue to only have water with my meals. That has been true for YEARS. It is the only thing I have other than cofee first thing in the morning. I have a doctor pepper the one or two times a year that we eat fast food.

Thanks Nan. About the labs. That is one think I meant to point out in Karen's post. Both schools have TONS of labs. Here are the TCU labs: http://www.cs.tcu.edu/facilities.htm on the next page it says:Additionally, two research laboratories (the Crescent "Smart Homes" lab and the Mobile HCI lab) are available for students to engage in research activies with faculty members. All laboratories may be physically accessed 24 hours a day. Here is the Baylor lab info http://www.ecs.baylor.edu/computer_science/research/index.php?id=42316 Both are ABET (?) certified. But Baylor is very much into this programming contest. Since it he wants to go into programming, that may be a good thing.

Mine is barely yellow at all. Many times it seems clear.

Umm, if I take more than a few sips I almost throw up. Seriously. I can only take a few sips at a time. How in the world do you chug anything??????? Once again, I have always just had water. ( other than my morning coffee)

Honestly, that is a good question. Before I pulled my kids out ot homeschool them, all I read on homeschooling sites was how wonderful it was!! No one talked about being stuck with them ALL DAY.. so when one child is in a particularly nasty mood or going through puberty or whatever, you NEVER get a break!!!! All the sites have these beautifully behaved children with dads who help out. (HA!! But at least mine is supportive!) If you don't have that, then you have not asked the Lord enough for help or depended on him enough. I took care of lots of sick relatives when we started including my bipolar father living with us for 9 months! What did/do I enjoy? Tailoring the curriculum to fit each individual child. But see that is another stressor.. Have I failed oldest, brightest child by allowing him to zoom ahead but not having the social experiences? Am I ruining my middle child by fixing his math but ruining our relationship in the process?? The list goes on. I love the traveling. I love the learning together. But it is stressful and hard work. DO NOT SUGARCOAT THE TRUTH!!!

Thank you so much!!! He "thinks" he is interested in programming but since he will not take his first class in that until March, we'll see. However, the TCU professor told him it was tedious work but lucrative. He doesn't mind tedious and likes the fact that he could work by himself. I know FOR SURE that he wouldn't want the computer science degrees that mix with the business school. He likes research, independent kind of things. He has LONG concentratin abilities. ( Much longer than mine!!)

My children are 11th, 9th and 4th. The oldest two did history, literature and science together from the time they were 2nd/4th to 6th/4th. At that time, I kept them together in history and literature but my oldest started the Apologia science progression with General Science. But I added my youngest into the history. We started using TOG so they were all on their own levels..however, I tended to keep the older two together and just modify the requirement for my middle. When the boys were in 7th/9th I tried to pull apart their literature. That was a disaster. My middle one reads just as well if not better than my older one so about halfway through the year, I gave up on assigning them separate novels and we just studied the same ones. In a way, it feels strange. This year they are doing close to the exact same thing, but I am calling one of them English III and the other English I. I have not completely figured out next year. This year the boys are doing AP Gov and my girl and I are doing Texas history. Next year I will start TOG year 1 again. I will probably do the history part with all 3. My oldest will do English at the cc. I think my middle one will do English with me, but I haven't decided yet for sure. I was a planner as well, but your children are so young. Your plans will change SO many times. Ask me how I know.:glare: They need to be a little bit older so you can figure out their abilities to know how to group them. My older two have the same abilities in history/literature/writing- well the middle one writes better than my oldest. I can leave them together. But for math and science- my oldest is advanced and my middle one is barely average!!! Have fun. Enjoy the journey!

Well, I had them automatically sent to Baylor, TCU, and LeTourneau. That said, LeTourneau sent him a letter yesterday that thanked him for sending him the scores and saying he looked good for admission. They also sent information on the honors college. So I guess it will be ok. Can you tell this is my oldest and I'm a little paranoid? I am just so scared that he will fail in college and it will be all my fault? If there are any holes in his education, I cannot blame the school. It is my fault!!! I am such a perfectionist that I feel like all of his skills or any of my children's skills should be in the 90's!

Yep, mine has one..It is still hard.

I'm looking at his ACT test scores and the percentages ar all 99 or 98 percentile until you hit writing.. Now the combined writing is still 98, but his writing score is 51%. Yikes... sigh.. We are still working on his writing skills. People said that colleges don't really look at the writing, but man...to me that really jumps out at you!!

Ok.. now I am confused..are you talking about leaving the paper or turning the whole thing so it faces a different way? If you are talking about how your leave the paper??? I'll be honest..I didn't know you could leave the paper different ways... I may leave it a different way if you mean that.. I don't have a clue!!!

Here is another possiblity: how easy is it to accidently get it off? At one relative's house, it comes off when I just pull to get some. ( Now I do pull pretty hard.) So I have to reassemble it. To be honest, I wouldn't have a clue which way it was...as I don't even look. I couldn't tell you how I hang mine up. So is that a possibility??

I have been measuring EVERYTHING now... so far no weight loss, but we'll see in a another week. But I read here that people need at least 64 ounces of water a day??? I have a 32 ounce cup and even MAKING myself drink out of it every time I pass by it I didn't finish that throughout the day. The only think I had before that was 2 cups of coffee in the morning. I don't drink anything else. I'm guessing before I kept track that I maybe drank 16 ounces or something. I'm really having to force myself to drink... How do you do that??? I've always just had coffee in the morning and then water with meals.. I never drank any other time. How do you make yourself drink more. I'm serious, I can't drink more than a swallow at a time.. ( This is even true of other drinks.. If I get a large slushie at Sonic, it lasts me all day and by the end I've only had 1/2 of it.. Haven't had one in several months, though. )

Yep, husband and I went out to dinner with my pastor and his wife a couple of weeks ago. We sat there for nearly 4 hours talking. We haven't been out to dinner with any adults in years. It was so much fun. My husband and I have been to Ethiopia with this pastor as well. I e-mail him my writings as well that he uses in the church newspapers and such. In fact, he used something I've been struggling with in this latest sermon. ( No release of personal info or anything like that. Just an issue that a lot of people are facing in my church. ) So yes, he knows me and my family pretty well. We are a church of 250 or so that attend every week. ( Memership is supposedly over 1,000)

Well, I was music education but then switched my major the summer before my junior year. I've taught children's choir at my church since 1998 with a few breaks when I had my 3rd child and the year my dad died. I do a sticks group using materials from here: http://saltandlightmin.org/home/trainingresources.asp However just recently the music minister and I have recently collaborated and come up with our own sign language/ stick things. I've was music ministry chair for 5 years or so, but have taken a break..but to be honest I still sort of am. I run things like the Hanging of the Green service. When our music minister and his wife are out, I run the rehearsals. I even planned a few worship services during one period when his dad was dying and he kept having to fly back and forth to New Jersey ( from Texas). Over the last year I have begun to direct the adult choir more and more. In fact I got to this last Sunday as well. I sang in a ladies ensemble that traveled around a little bit for a few years, but had to give that up. I am now in the Praise Team for worship. I lead VBS music nearly every summer and that is fun!!! I've done music on some of our mission trips as well, learning songs in Spanish. So even though I switched my major from music education to secondary education, I use my music A LOT. I can't imagine it not being a big part of my life. I sort of wish I had gone ahead and gotten my degree, but my husband could not have handled my being a "real" music teacher. They have so many extra performances and traveling and contests. He likes me home when he is home. Plus, I need to be here with the children. Dh's hours are tough (orthopaedic surgeon) and I need to be the stable one. The children have all participated in children's choir, stick groups, etc. Even the older one who doesn't particularly like performing, does the behind the scenes things like power point or sound. So it is something we can all do together. Plus the degree at Baylor in the 80's was all opera. (Not my favorite.) I was told to stop singing that contemporary Christian crap. ( Amy Grant Age to Age) Of course now Baylor is excited about contemporary music and has several artists like David Crowder that are on some kind of a board for a degree in music publishing or something. I also got stage fright VERY badly. I barely passed my sophmore barrier. I was so nervous knowing my whole degree rested on passing it that I completely blew my first song, but I recovered. My voice coach was so disappointed in me. It is a big reason why I changed majors. I am an adequate singer. He gave me a B+ my freshman year first semester until he realized that he ruled my 4.0. He never gave me another B, not because he thought I was better but because he didn't want to ruin my average... I never wanted to be a performer. I just wanted to pass my love of music on to other kids and to worship God that way. The kids all must take an instrument until they graduate. ( Dh's rule, not mine. He played piano until he was a senior and we have 3 clarinets in our closet. I have records of his high school band with him playing solos! But he hasn't played since he played in the band his freshman year at Baylor.) The boys play piano. My daughter playes piano and violin. She is also in a community children's choir and does community theater occasionally. So if you want, you can make it a part of your life. If you have a performance degree, you can perform in church orchestras. You could give private lessons to other homeschoolers or to adults who have always wanted to learn. I LOVE MUSIC!!!!

If you have a junior or senior with good test scores, you might consider this visit experience: http://www.baylor.edu/ecs/prospective/index.php?id=60605 The date for April should say 2012. My son will be attending this in April. He should get a feel for this dorm and the computer science department in general. I'll post a review after we go.

Then he shouldn't have the pertussis vaccine. My boys had seizures as well and we didn't give them their first ones. They did have them when they were older before we went on a mission trip and they didn't have a problem. I had a bad reaction to the pertussis vaccine when I was 5. I had a very high fever and I still have a scar on my butt from it. My daughter had her 5 year old shots for our trip to Honduras. 3 or 4 days later one of the spots took up half of her thigh. When I went back to the doctor and showed them, the nurse thought she had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Nope, it was the pertussis shot!! So they have a note on her chart now. I am a doctor's wife and we are pro vaccine. That said , there are contraindications (like seizures) for certain vaccines. Your doctor didn't say anything about that??? It was our family doctor that advised us against the pertusis at first.

Well, it is certainly more thorough. Plus you DO know that you can buy it more cheaply through Amazon. Houghton Mifflin has DVD's that identical to the Chalkdust ones with Dana Mosely. Somewhere there is a thread with ISBN numbers. You need to make sure you get a video that goes with the same edition as the textbook. Plus, look for it used. I got Algebra I set for 75 dollars and the Precalc that I am currently using for 90 dollars. Yep, you read that right: textbook, DVD's and solution book. So to me, you bet that is worth it!!!