Sometimes I HATE my phone!!!

My mom is very formal. At her house we eat in the sinning room, full place settings, good dishes, we have had to fight to do a buffet line to save some cleanup. She prefers passing the food. Very formal. We dress up. We do still all cook. My sister and I, my mom and our husbands, sometimes my dad if we are grilling steaks. DH's family, no one has a house big enough for everyone to sit at a table. Do we just not get together? No, we have a blast. We generally set the eating time an hour before we really want to eat, so that we will eat within 30 minutes of that time. Someone is always late! This year it was the turkey. It is, by the way, cooked in a trash can every year. No, we are not red necks :). It is just the juciest, most flavorful turkey ever!!! We are very informal, but tuere are no parents or grandparents, just dh, his siblings, spouses and our 20 kids (current count....still growing!) We just have fun. So, we do both formal and informal...but we still all contribute to a predetermined menu.

I plan to try a Pavlova this weekend! First I have to find the right ingredients...she lists a weird sugar, and corn flour? I may have to use what I have and hope it works...

Does running a vinegar cycle not help? Mine looks clean, I don't want to look closer ;)

This. My oldest is 7, but for the last 12 years I have taught dance to 2-18 year olds. I have relationships with teens and tweens and hear all about their school issues daily. I have watched and helped them.do homework. I also teach teens at our co-op....my experience is.not limited to my kids :)

It's 32 pages of countries,you can pick ad choose. I was originally only going to do 15, that is how many school days we have before we break. He wants to do them all. The passport is less to print it has 4 countries per page.

I printed the book for my 7 yo, and the passport for my almost 5 yo. We read the blog, go to both links from the table of contents, fill out the book page and make a flag. We will make some of the food too.

The e-book has links to Time and National Geographic kids with videos and information on size and population. We read the blog and links. I have found Merry Christmas in each language and I added bigger maps. We color and label the country of the day. He is learning a lot, dd is getting a fun art project each day and we are having fun with it :)

http://www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/2012/10/christmas-around-world.html My kids are loving it. We are making each flag from construction paper as we go. Austrailia was a little hard today! We are a day behind the blog.

Yes! And over half of them kids, many of us eat while *gasp* sitting on the floor!! Or in a folding chair with no.table, or standing. I would feel guilty not helping at a family meal. I am not a guest at my parent's house, my grandmother's, or a sibling's house. I need to help get the food.out and.clean.

The question was about family holidays which are completely different than inviting another family or two over. We had nearly 40 people in our house for thanksgiving. I live to cook, but I need help with that expense. We all pitch in and have fun.doing it. It is the same at my grandparent's house. We can get close to 50 people there. When I host a dinner party, things are different than when I host a family dinner.

We do a planned "potluck" for all family get togethers. We set a menu...basic turkey, dressing, etc....and everyone picks something. Some of us do more, I don't have to make bread and three deserts. But I love it, so I do. Others bring the minimum. For DH's family, we are all coming from other family get togethers so we do have to warm or cook most of the food to eat. It gets crowded in the kitchen, bit that's where we hang out.

Both of my kids sit up nicely in their boosters, even when asleep. Dd has slumped forward a few times, but that wakes her up and she sits back up. I do encourage and try to model good posture at all times. Dd is nearly 48 inches and over 40 lbs. DS is closer to 52 inches and over 50 lbs. They have always been tall. We moved them when their heads stuck out the top of the 5 pt harness seats.

Pantry shelves and a photo composite of Matthew! Our pantry is currently set up like a clothing closet, we sat a pie cabinet in it for shelves. It is not enough. And then I have these beautiful composites of my older kids. They are black an white baby pics with close UPS of eyes, eats, noses, full body shots and faces. I love them!! I want one of my newest baby. DH takes the photos and puts them together. :)

I don't have to wait 15 seconds between "searches!" On the old board, I would hit the new post button, scan it amd then hit it again and if it was too soon, I got an error message. Now I can scan and hit the button again amd get new threads instead of an error!!!

I teach my kids to read and write, and much more. I actually have pretty high standards and I even plan to test them yearly. That does NOT mean I want the government telling me I have to do those things. I want to spend my time and energy finding great curricula and educating my kids, not trying to fulfill arbitrary regulations. Just because we don't want the government to say we MUST teach reading and writing does not mean we don't plan to teach those things.

W/the move and everything, I don't think we'll take a break until this baby is born :tongue_smilie: We love 'I Want A Hippopotamus For Chirstmas' and "Feliz Navidad" here. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is one of my favorites too!! It was written for our zoo :) I LOVE it!!! I like pepperoni, supreme, or veggie with olive oil and garlic salt brushed on the crust. We will take 3-4 weeks off for Christmas, New Year, and two weeks of musicals. I may try to school the second week of shows, at least partial. We may also do history and some science through the break. Definitely some home ec....lots of baking!

This is what we have.

We did well at Walgreens at 9pm Thursday and CVS today! We have 17 nieces and nephews, we got gifts for 13 of them at walgreens buy one get one free sale, plus earned enough points to almost get a $10 coupon. We found several gifts the kids wanted and had a.25% off the whole CVS purchase. I have one online purchase to make and we are done with our kids too.

Every game is a cardiovascular workout for my son! He jumps with the characters. He bounces and weaves and runs in place the whole time!!!!

Start with blowing bubbles in shallow water. Then work on holding the wall and kicking while trying to get their bodies flat. Your 1yr old can do all that too. Then take them a short distance from the wall, or have another adult help you. Push them to the wall while they "swim." I did this between myself and dh, or my mom. Then I held an arm under their belly while they really swam. And more swimming to the wall moving further away each time. If there are steps, drop things on the steps for them to pick up. Have them jump into the water with you catching them. If they have never swam much, the most important thing is to get them used to the water, they need to not be scared of the water, but understand that it is dangerous if they don't know how to swim.

I don't have my 7 year old second grader writing much. He hates to write. We do all of grammar orally except diagraming and some worksheets. He chooses to write in his freetime, but generally he types. After Christmas we are going to start a daily journal with a short writing assignment. I won't expect more than a few sentences.

RS4K is easy. We did pre level 1 this year. I would do level 1 for third grade. The labs were easy and fun.

Mine does when I go to the thread. Did you switch to mobile in the bottom left corner? When I click on a thread in mobile version it automatically goes to the last post read.