:iagree: This is also know as paper-piece quilting and it is highly addictive. I taught myself to do traditional quilting many years ago, and liked it, but then later discovered the pure fun of paper piecing. I think it would be great for a beginner, but it is definitely not traditional if that's the experience you are after. Sorry I don't have any current resources to add, but I would think most libraries would have a good selection of books and videos that would enable you to teach yourself. Some good resources have already been mentioned by PP. And FWIW I'm a fan of modern tools for quilting. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of vintage quilts, but I'm not long on time and patience with my quilting projects. I'm usually working up against some type of deadline (i.e. baby being born and I want to gift a quilt), so the speed and accuracy I get with the modern tools is a plus for me.

I voted 11-15 minutes, but I'm probably closer to the low end of that in reality. For me, even that feels like a luxurious amount of time. As a kid/teenager I was required to turn off the water mid-shower to soap everything up, then turn it back on to rinse. Yeah, I didn't much like freezing my tail off in the middle of my shower, so now that I pay my own bills, I take my time and enjoy it. I'm all for saving water, but I have limits (and a water-saving showerhead I might add).

My kids love history. We are using SOTW1 text and activity book. We do history anywhere from 2-5 days per week depending on how much supplementary material is available for any given chapter. The first day of each week I read aloud to dc from the text, then we immediately go over the review questions together, and each of them does their own individual narration on what we just read. Day 2 usually consists of looking at the corresponding material from the Usborne World History Ency, and usually mapwork and timeline work (we are building a binder-style timeline). The kids usually complete some type of coloring page also if one is available. Any additional days spent on history in any given week consist of watching related videos, reading aloud select library books, and possibly a project. Whether or not we do a project is dependent upon whether the activity guide has any suggestions that seem easy to implement for a 6-year-old and two 5-year-olds.

I was also thinking, if you have any extra pieces of fabric not needed in the actual quilt, could you sew together a miniature sample quilt first (batting, quilting stitches and all), then wash it and see how it looks. I don't know how big your squares are, but something 12"x12" might give you an idea of how much shrinkage (character) will take place after it's finished with your desired type of quilting stitches in place.

I recently had this question posed to me also, which I'll admit does hurt, but it's not that shocking to me since right now I am considerably overweight and I am unfortunate to have that glorious "apple" shaped body type. However, the last time it happened I had just lost 40 pounds on WW and was wearing a new dress that I thought looked really cute, and I was pretty proud of myself and how I looked at the time, even though I had more weight to lose. It happened as I was talking to someone I had just met and during the course of the conversation I figured out that she thought I was expecting (ouch). So at an appropriate time during the conversation I said "oh, I'm not pregnant" thinking I'd laid this little misunderstanding to rest. Her response: "Really???" Ouch again...

My kids' favorite pirate joke is: What kind of sweater does a pirate wear? Aaaarrrrr - gyle

I had my teeth straightened as an adult (well sort of an adult - I was 19 and it was on my own dime). Yes, I had teeth extracted for it - 4 bicuspids (directly behind the eye teeth) plus all 4 impacted wisdom teeth all in one oral surgery. Other than the fact that one of my canine teeth died as a result of being moved so drastically (I had the typical "fanglike" eye teeth), I have not had any problems per say. Although I have often wondered if that would have happened if my parents had seen the need to do it at an earlier age. That being said, I hope I can find an ortho for my kids that doesn't do so many extractions. It has made me wonder how well my smile will hold up over many more years (I've heard a broader smile looks more youthful as you age). I'm 36 now.

We are Firefly Valley Homeschool.

I'm so sorry I don't have any advice for you, just :grouphug:. I can commisserate because I am also very frustrated with my 4 yr 10 mo old DD. It's not identical to your situation, but we are dealing with poop accidents several times a week (which is almost every time because she's an every-other-day pooper). However, unlike yours, my DD will go on the potty sometimes. Same thing you said, my DD won't say a thing about it, one of us has to smell something. The only difference is that it won't be the entire, er, load, but enough that I would think it would make her uncomfortable (it's more than just ineffective wiping). She also has occasional pee accidents, although that seems to be getting better lately. Those are not nearly as distressing obviously. I'm at my wits end too, and I have considered a doctor's visit as well. Her twin brother self-potty trained at 3 with very little prompting from me, and I can count on one hand the number of accidents he has had, and her big sister was a little older at 3.5, but also had few accidents once trained. I just don't get it. Hopefully you will get some good advice that I can also benefit from. Hope things improve for the both of you. :bigear:

Yes! I have recently had to get used to this as well, since we recently moved from a city to a small town.

Yes, I happened upon it by accident one time, and thought it was great!

I agree with most everyone else. My kids were all wiping themselves by age 3.5 to 4, and they were all somewhat late to potty train, so it happened fairly quickly, within 6 months of potty training, I'd say. Our problem is that nobody ever puts the little wipes box back where it belongs, so I'm constantly being called into the bathroom to hand someone the wipes box. I even mounted on of those Cottonelle ones on the wall recently and they still take the thing off the wall!

I love this idea of bundling, then breaking apart too. We will be trying this as well. Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions. This observation is an epiphany for me. I think my daugther may be also viewing the hundreds block as just 1 block. One of the things I have a hard time getting her to do is to say the word "hundred" after that first number (she wants to say one-forty-two instead of one-hundred-forty-two, for example). I'm thinking using other types of manipulatives, as a couple of you suggested, may very well be the solution, and I am definitely going to try that next week. It's also encouraging that once we get through this we may get a reprieve for a little while on the difficulty scale. My daughter has been able to do single digit addition in her head for quite some time now, and used to ask to do math worksheets at the age of 3 and 4, so I've always felt she would be good in math. I do believe that this will probably be one of our biggest hurdles. Phew, what a way to start out our first week though! I think we're both mentally exhausted just from math this week.

We started school this past Monday and I've been working through MUS Alpha Lesson 1 with my 6-year-old. Already I feel like we're stuck on the very first lesson. She goes through the motions of building the numbers with the blocks, and she is able to write the number if I build it, but saying the number accurately seems to trip her up. It makes me feel as if it's not really clicking for her. Anybody have any experience with this? I'm trying to figure out how to proceed when we start again on Monday morning. Would you suggest continuing to plug away at using the blocks and the decimal street poster next week, and hope it sinks in eventually? Or should I try supplementing with another resource that might explain things a different way. If so, what would you suggest? I'm also using Primer for my younger twins and it seems just right for their age. I think my 6-year-old would be a little bored with the things they are doing. Any other ideas? We're brand new at all this, so I guess I'm just looking for some encouragement and ideas? TIA

I can't speak to the areas you are looking to move to, but I think in many areas now it is considered to be a "landlord's" market, so to speak. There seems to be a house for sale on every corner, but rentals (at least decent ones) seem to be harder to come by. At least, that was our frustrating experience. Last year, we moved from OK to MO due to job loss, and we found the rental market to be extremely tight, at least for what we were looking for (a 3-4 br, 2 ba single family home in a not scary neighborhood). We also left behind a home we owned, which we are currently renting to friends. I would see new listings for rentals that looked good in our new city, and despite calling the *same day* the listing came out, it would almost always be already rented. In one case, I called about a Craigslist ad within minutes of it being posted and was told it was already spoken for! At the time, we also had two indoor-only cats, which we ended up having to re-home. It was a horrible decision to have to make, but we just couldn't afford the extra expense of the pet deposits at the time, and it was just all a very stressful situation. If money had not been such a problem, I think we could have found a home to accommodate our pets, but it was difficult enough to find a rental house to accommodate our family's needs, much less the pets too. We were in my BIL and SIL's basement for a month, and we were desperate to get out of there. On the positive side, if you do have the time and money, those are definitely the keys to finding something that will accommodate your situation. Unfortunately, those were both in short supply for us at the time.

I had originally thought math first ever since reading WTM, since that is the recommendation. But my kids seem to love math and get all excited about doing it (at least right now). While that would be a nice intro to the day (i.e. "Yay, we get to do math!"), they are still young and learning to read, so that seems to require more brain power for them at this point. I think it's actually me who needs a gentle intro to the day, since I am so not a morning person. :tongue_smilie: We will be starting with something Bible-related as well, so that'll probably ease us into things sufficiently. I also like the idea of the loop schedule that a pp mentioned, I hadn't considered that option.

I'm trying to nail down a rough daily schedule for our first day of school, and I was wondering how you all decide which subject to start with in the morning. I'm torn between starting with the least liked subject because it might be better received when the kids are well rested; or doing their favorite subject first so it's not so hard to get them into the swing of things each day. What do you think is the best approach and why?

Yes, parking is still free on the north side of I-64/40, but the lot isn't huge, so you may want to get there early if you will be there during peak hours. I took my kids a couple of weeks ago on a weekday and we got there when it opened and had our pick of the free parking spaces. Plus the kids like going across the bridge over the interstate anyway. Even if you park in this lot on the Forest Park side of the Science Center, I think it would be quite a bit more than a mile to the Art Museum. I wouldn't particularly want to walk it in the STL August humidity, but that's just me. As a pp said, I think there is also free parking around the Art Museum (though I haven't been there in a long time), so I wouldn't think it too difficult to get your vehicle closer to it. One tidbit of history that I recently learned is that the Art Museum is the only one of the 15 palaces built for the 1904 World's Fair that was built to be permanent, and is still around for us to enjoy today. It was the Palace of Fine Arts. I couldn't believe I've lived in Missouri most of my life and didn't know that until recently.

On other patterns I've used with any kind of small loops, like belt loops or something similar, generally you cut one long piece (in this case the 3x12 piece). Then after the pressing is completed, you would divide the strip into However many loops you need, in this case 2. The thinking is that it's easier to press one big piece, than a bunch of itty bitty ones (it's easier not to burn fingers that way for one thing). My guess is that the pattern writer simply left out the step where you cut the pressed rectangle into 2 pieces.

I happened to see on our local news the day before the concert that we were being allowed to bring in our own bottled water in a small cooler that would fit under our seat. Our news channel had a list on their website of allowed vs. non-allowed items, so that was helpful because normally they don't allow this at the stadium (and it was much better than paying $5 a pop inside the stadium). I guess they didn't want people dropping dead because of not drinking enough water. Also both my husband and I took some video on our phones But the sound is just too loud and intense for those tiny microphones to handle, so the sound in our videos is pretty lousy. It wasn't worth the trouble, much nicer to just enjoy the concert without trying to hold a phone up in the air.

My DH and I just saw them at Busch Stadium in St. Louis this past Sunday. Boy was it hot out, but totally worth it! You will have a blast, they put on a spectacular show.

Love your name choices, those are the names of my b/g twins!

What kind of sweater does a pirate wear? Aaarrrrgggyle (best when said in a gravelly pirate voice)

Oh, I feel so much better that I'm not alone in my memory lapses! DH talks about events that happened in the past few years that I have no memory of, even when I am reminded that they did in fact happen. That being said, I have b/g twins who are 4.5 now. I don't think I had a Level II U/S, and guess I didn't know that was an option or something I should've asked for. I don't remember it ever being mentioned. Congrats on your new additions! :001_smile: