I used to do this by plugging the cassette deck into a desktop computer and using free software called Audacity: https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

Yes, check these out. I get small "whitehead" type things along my eyelash line, and usually I can sort of "pop" them with a hot compress. Then one time I couldn't and it grew and grew...I eventually had to have it drained. Ugh. But yeah it was a chalazion not a stye.

My kids wear a lot more actual "pajamas" in the winter -- living in a cold northern climate in an old drafty house = cold at night. So all the kids still prefer footie sleepers or at least warm fleece shirt/pants in the winter. Summer PJs tend to be stretchy shorts and old t-shirts or "free" t-shirts from various events the kids have participated in. The boys always get their clothes dirty during the day, so I like them to put something clean on before bed. I guess they could wear the next day's clothes in the summer, but the next day's clothes might not be warm enough in the winter. We thrift store shop not because we couldn't afford to do otherwise, but I guess we would rather spend the money on other things. There are plenty of great thrift stores here and I try to go on holiday sale days where everything is 50% off. I find lots of cute, unusual dresses and skirts for DD (who much prefers dresses and skirts/leggings to jeans and a t-shirt)...and the boys just want athletic pants and t-shirts. We find some t-shirts at the thrift store, or buy funny or character t-shirts at Target when they are on sale. I can often get the athletic pants for $2-$4 on sale days, so I just buy a bunch and then I don't sweat it when they ruin them with holes and mud. :lol: ETA: If we didn't homeschool it might be different. I remember only having enough money for Kmart clothes growing up when all my friends classmates (hard to call them friends -- I had few actual friends in elementary) had brand name, super expensive jeans from the department store. I literally had a girl ask me, as a 5th grader new to a school, how many pairs of Guess jeans I owned. When I said I didn't own any, she said, "Oh, I guess I can't be friends with you then." And she refused to ever speak to me after that. If my kids went to a school where they were mocked for not having brand name clothes, I would probably at least consider finding a way to get them some...even if they were used. I am not sure any of my kids would care though. My daughter has a totally different sense of style than all her friends and seems to like it that way.

In our case "multiple phases" meant a whole process of getting whole mouth braces on, not having braces for a year or two, and then having them again a couple years later. We went in for a consultation, and they told us our daughter would defintiely need two phases if we started at that time (she was about nine) but couldn't tell us anything about what the second phase would cost or what it would take. I guess that kind of makes sense (hard to say what will happen as permanent teeth come in). But DH said no way in heck was he going to commit to starting treatment when the place couldn't give us a clear explanation of all costs up front. We decided that both of us were happy with the results we got with starting treatment after all baby teeth were lost for ourselves, so we would just do the same with our kids unless absolutely medically necessary. I had to have two permanent teeth extracted to make room for orthodontic work and it was no big deal...probably less expensive and less painful overall than palate expanding? I certainly don't miss them now! ;-)

Same here...still missing most of the threads I have posted in recently. :-(

So sorry! I agree with pp who suggested trying to get on a cancellation list. I've had good luck with that in various medical offices. It is a bummer that they aren't more proactive in trying to get you in sooner when it is their fault that you have to wait. My 7 year old ADHD kid broke a window last night. He was mad at his younger brother (who was being kinda annoying). But he just started flailing his legs around in anger, and he forgot that behind that curtain by the bed there is a WINDOW! Luckily no one was hurt (curtain blocked the glass), but wouldn't you know it, DH is out of town. A neighbor friend came over to help me move the heavy bunk bed out of the way so we could clean up.

A mom from our co-op just had triplets. i just can't imagine! My DD had an amazing day yesterday...really focused and got all her schoolwork done in short order. But this is following a week last week where she got super distracted every day, and was an emotional mess. And she claimed to never have learned ANYTHING about exponents, and "No mom, something squared or cubed isn't an exponent, you're totally wrong." Sigh.

We've never had a problem with Gmail either for the kids. I signed up with my birthdate, and I tell my kids that I own their email account until they turn 13, and I have their email accounts in my gmail app on the iPad so I can keep an eye on it. I'll give them more privacy/freedom with it when they are actually "legal" to have an email account they can sign up for. I think it helps cut down on spam that they never enter their email addresses anywhere -- I assume that is where most of my spam comes from!

Biggest downside for us has been mice....Ugh... Our house is not quite 100 years old, but it is really hard to keep rodents out. It feels like we are constantly patching holes somewhere in the house because more mice found their way in. if you keep cats around this is probably less of a problem, but my husband hates indoor pets so it is not an option for us. My favorite plus side...beautiful woodwork that everyone ooohs and aaahs over!

Ugh...when I was in my early 20s I was involved in a leadership role in an organization and helped select others who would be offered other roles/leadership positions. On two different occasions I remember being rather derisive and saying to someone essentially, "You just aren't the type. I don't think you have what it takes to ______". It was pretty hurtful. I was in a position where I should have been encouraging them, coaching them, giving suggestions for personal or skills growth... Instead I kind of dashed their hopes because they didn't fit my "mold" of what I thought our organization needed. I really regret the way I acted. :-(

I've pronounced it Q-min most of my life...but I am trying to switch to the coo-min way of saying it because I'm guessing that is actually correct...based on how I've heard it on food shows, etc.

I've never heard the term, but if I had to guess, I would agree with others who said it would be someone who take advantage of you when you are at your weakest.

We also love YMCA of the Rockies! I worked there for two summers and went back with the whole family a few years ago. Super fun!

Could you tell your kids not to look at what the other kids are looking at on the phone? Or if the other kid is being "pushy" about wanting to show them something, tell them to walk away at that point? They could explain they aren't allowed to look at things on the internet without their parents, and just not look (and maybe ask other kids not to show them things). In my mind, if older kids are looking at something on the internet on their phones (or, more likely, are texting, snap chatting, etc)...I can't imagine they really want younger kids watching or reading over their shoulder most of the time anyway. Imagine it was a kid listening to music. Maybe you don't want your kids listening to music with explicit lyrics. If the other kid is listening to music with headphones, no harm/no foul. If they put the music on speaker, then your kids could ask them to turn it off. Your kids only have to leave if the other kid refuses to turn it off or put the headphones back on. If kids are consistently trying to be pushy about showing your kids things they don't want to see or aren't allowed to see, then those kids probably aren't good company for your kids to keep anyway. True friends/good friends would honor the rules that their friend's parents set.

A smaller store I've ordered from is: http://www.legacyhomeschool.com They are in the same state as I am, so sometimes I order from them when I want something quickly since it will ship to me in a day. But it is also nice to support small family businesses too.

On either Sign Up genius or Meal Train (or probably the other sites too), people could start by putting TBA in the "meal" comment field, and then go back later and "edit" their comment based on what other people have brought. The challenge is to get people to actually follow through and check/edit their entry. I know for me, when I sign up for a meal that is more than a week away, I often write TBA and mean to go back and edit it, but I rarely remember.

My personal favorite humorous book in middle school was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. But I haven't re-read since I was that age to know if most parents would find that appropriate...LOL. :-)

I know there is a way to add a "comment" field on sign up genius - we've used that for church events before and had broad categories like "dessert" - with a blank for someone to add a comment as to what specific item. For just bringing a family meals (vs. having a big potluck event), I like Meal Train - it is a bit easier to set up for that purpose. What I have noticed though is that people who sign up toward the bottom of the list often write TBA or "?" for the meal comment field. I think the problem is that if everyone is signing up now, the people bringing a meal in two weeks may not know what will be on sale, what they will have on hand, etc...making it hard to commit to a certain meal to bring.

I have no idea if this is typical, but at our "initial" meeting before the actual testing, the Psych wanted me to essentially tell her everything I had concerns about. All the behavior problems, weird things we had noticed, etc. She asked some follow up questions for clarification, but it was really mostly me talking. Then during the actual appointment I had to fill out about seven different questionnaires about DS7's behavior, development, etc. I don't think there would have been many "questions" directed at me at all at this appointment had I not let them know j wanted to update them on some new behavior problems we had seen in DS7 between the initial appointment and the actual testing. (It was about six weeks in between...part of the delay was they had to get insurance approval in between). My DS knew/knows he has behavior struggles (our primary concern was ADHD - no learning difficulties), so I told him part of the reason for the testing was to find out how we could help him with his "anger issues" as he himself calls it (that's not his only struggle, but one that is obvious even to himself at age 7!) and to find out more about his strengths and weaknesses.

I don't think that will be a problem. Are you going to read the whole text before going back to do the practice book? The only thing I can think of is that if you read all the chapters before starting the practice, it would be easy to forget some of what was taught in the first chapter by the time you finished reading all the chapters. But it says somewhere right in the practice book that if you want to read the whole chapter first, then do all the practice problems for that chapter, that is ok. We always break up the readings in BA because it is like a little motivator to get through the workbook. Some days DS is super motivated to do extra problems because he knows if we can just get to X page, we get to read the next day.

I would definitely look for ways to read to the 7 year old alone at least part of the time. That's a pretty big age gap -- Even with just two years and nine months between my DD and my oldest DS, I have pretty much always had a separate read aloud for her vs. the boys. (Difference in interests is part of it as well -- very different books appeal to her). But with a 4 year (or almost 4 year?) age gap, if you think ahead to the future, in a couple years your oldest will be ready for middle grade read alouds with more intense topics, while you still have younger kids who clearly wouldn't be. With my boys, DS9 and DS7 have interest in some chapter books that DS4 isn't interested in, but DS4 really just wanders away to play and I don't require him to listen. I try and encourage him to play "out of sight" of the where I am reading (Usually I'm in the living room, he goes to another room just around the corner), and then the older boys are less likely to get distracted. I read aloud to my DD at bedtime most nights while my DH reads to the boys, and this is how I do read aloud time with her most of the time. Obviously she is old enough now that we wouldn't NEED to read aloud, but she likes it and it is a relationship building time for us to read together. When DH isn't available, I just read to the boys first, then read to her (she stays up later anyway). When the kids were younger and I had nursing and napping babies, I often read while I was nursing the baby or while younger ones were napping. Reading during meals doesn't work for me either (either because I am eating or it is a much needed break to uh...post on forums or facebook). ;-) We also haven't had much success with kids playing with toys while I am reading, because they can't play blocks, legos, playdoh, etc without talking extensively. Sometimes they color or draw while I read, but that is the exception for us rather than the rule. We also use audio books. If there is something my DS9 in particular really wants to hear that DD isn't interested in and it is too intense for his younger brothers, he can listen as audiobook with headphones. We also do audiobooks in the car quite a bit when I can find titles that are both interesting and appropriate for everyone. (When youngest DS was younger, I kind of assumed he wasn't listening and we listened to some kind of intense things like Harry Potter. He may have actually be listening because I am surprised how non-scared he is by things that my older kids totally would have been scared of at the same age. But I am not sure if works out that way with all kids!).

We started camping with our kids when I was expecting our youngest, including doing Yellowstone when the kids were pretty young (almost three years ago...youngest was not yet two). I think it is very doable, but I would definitely test out your cold weather set-up if possible ahead of time. Camping with lows below freezing would be miserable if you aren't warm enough. We were super happy that we had invested in 0 degree rated sleeping bags with lows in the 20s when we were there! I would also double check to make sure you can do your tent set up alone if you haven't done so in past years. We have a very tall (cabin style) tent, and I discovered last summer that it is really tough for me to set up alone because I am so short, and I can't really reach certain parts of the tent at it's full height (my DH was joining us later in the evening, but luckily we also had friends camping at the same campground who could help me out with the height issue...LOL!)

We allowed it for a long time because our couch was seriously cheap (I think we bought it at a rummage sale for $25), and I didn't really care if it got destroyed. The problem I didn't forsee is that when it did break, it damaged the floor underneath. Whoops! So, now we try really hard to enforce this rule, and send them to jump on our mini trampoline. But with the three boys, despite having had this rule for years now, I still repeat it many, many times every day.

I know this isn't universally true (mission trips seem to be a big exception, actually), but I feel like most culturally acceptable youth fundraising is for team/group activities rather than individual activities, and maybe that is the "sort of" consistency that applies. Maybe the problem is with the funding model or organizational expectations. When I was in high school, the schools had cut funding for marching band, so an independent community organization formed to pick up the slack and run a summer marching band to represent our town in all the parades around the region. My parents initially gave permission for me to join (fee to join was something semi-reasonable for 25 years ago...$200 or something like that). But then it turned out that to cover the real expenses, each family was required to participate in many, many fundraisers. The cost to skip the fundraiser and just donate one family's portion of the expected fundraiser "receipts" was something much higher that my family couldn't afford at the time...maybe $500 or something like that. My mom didn't like the idea of either the fundraisers or the extra donation option, so I just didn't get to participate. I am guessing the organizers rightly guessed that if they charged the true cost and didn't fundraise, they wouldn't be able to find enough families in our town who could afford $700 or so to join. But they figured if they had enough car washes and sold enough candy bars, they could pull it off.

My DD is working through this book: http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=012177 Some of the math is over her head, but it is good overall.