Find one new recipe a week to try. For the rest of the week, make the changes listed above (brown rice, I don't like whole wheat pasta - we get smart balance.) You don't even need to buy a cookbook. All recipes.com and cooks.com have great recipes. You don't need to worry about calories, fat, etc. Just find things that are better than fast food :) The fresher the ingredients the better. I try to find some new crock pot meals every month or so. We do a lot of crock pot cooking. We also grill a lot. If you have a grill - start drilling chicken with your favorite seasoning. You can put this in anything: top a salad, pasta tossed in olive oil and lemon, sandwiches. Before we had our outdoor grill we used a George Foreman grill. Chicken tenderloin went from frozen to cooked in under 10 minutes. For us, the healthy option has to he as quick as the not so healthy casseroles we love. DH drinks tea instead of soda now. I am trying to transition, but it is slow going. I have cut back some. :) It OS good that your clothes are fitting better....you may not be losing weight yet, but you are losing fat and gaining muscle tone. Clothing fit and size change OS a better indicator that pounds lost sometimes. :)

I agree with the above abput R&S. We do all of the exercises orally. Every now and then I might type up the sentences and have ds underline nouns and circle verbs. Shurley is NOT open and go, R&S is. Shurley is so scripted that I needed to preread, maybe twice. It also required lots of "stuff" to be gathered of you did the exercises completely. We were in level 1. 4 chapters of sorting pictures of household items :001_huh: I one or two lessons, maybe, but 20! We skipped to chapter 5 the first day. I don't know about FLL. HTH.

We use R&S, dictation from Spelling Plus, and copywork I make from history, Bible, and poetry work.

I completely understand the stress. 2 years ago we had constant showing with no results. It just takes one :)

I hope the showing goes well tonight and that you get an offer! Our house was on the market for 4 years. We live 6 hours away. After our tenant moved out we had 4 weeks of nothing. Then, 3 showings in a week and a contract. We close in 21 days! I will pray that tonight's showing is "the one."

May....we quite 2 weeks early last year. We had covered most of the material, but we just could not keep going. He had covered enough to "skip" first grade level work. I figured an early break was okay. We made up the days in dance amd theatre camps over the summer.

I saw what my dance students were doing in school and heard about everything going on the ps system where we lived when DS was born. The schools were awful. They put the kids in block scheduling in 5th grade - 10 year olds sitting in class for 90 minutes at a time. The kids also shared how their teachers would give them the answers to the state tests, so the teachers would not look bad :glare: I knew I would homeschool if we still lived there when the time came. We moved "home" and bought a house in a good district. DS missedt he cutoff for K last year by 3 weeks. He was already reading at a 2nd grade level, and had worked up to 2 digit addition with regrouping. They would make no exceptions, if he went to school he would be in pre-k learning his letters and numbers. I decided to homeschool kindergarten. If I screwed up, he could always do K again this year in PS. It went great, we all loved it. DS excelled. There is no way I would put him in PS right now. He wants to stay home through high school. I am fine with that :D. We are, however, taking it a year at a time.

Yes, when we were playing truth or dare with our friends In high school. We were at my house, we recorded the whole game. DH's dare was to ask my dad if he could marry me (we were not yet dating). Dad said "sure, take her." But, he did not ask again when we really got engaged. The situation was not a pleasant one. Now everythimg is good :)

We are doing Foundations at home right now. DS loves the timeline cards. We are on week 5 - 40 cards. He messes up a few in the middle, bit it is going well. The book and Cds are more of a struggle. We laugh at the songs, a lot! They are catchy and we find ourselves humming them occasionally. I am n t stressed about full memorization of all of it right now. We will do the full cycle 2 times with each child. By then, ds will know it. He does better memorizing what we have studied. He is not as motivated to memorize as he would be if we were with a group once a week, reciting the memory work. This is our first year for any memorywork too, I think we will get better at it as we go along :) We use it as supplemental work, not our full curriculum. I like it. I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more specific questions about what we are doing.

My mom. She had surgery and fertility drugs to have me. She was on birth control when she found out about my sister. She was on bc after that.

My dance classes for two year olds are 30 minutes once a week. I think the gym in our building does mommy and new for an hour at that age. Kids come once a week until k/1st grade. At that point, if they show potential and mom and dad are okay with it, tue kids might come twice a week. I know they have some 7 year olds who do 2 hours a day, twice a week. This gym is owned and run by a former Olympic coach. 5-7 year olds can do things that a two year old should not attempt, no matter how talented. I would be stern in saying that this for fun for dd right now. You will remain with kids her age once a week. If they keep pressuring you, find a new activity. I would say, they don't have her best interest in mind. That is just my opinion.

I did the same with my ds last year. His birthday is Sept 23 and the cutoff here is Sept 1. When I decided to continue hs with first grade this year, my parents did not understand. When I explained what he was working on and capable of vs what he would be doing in K this year, they started to get it.

DS is up by 8:30 or 9 most days. I let him sleep in if he needs too. DD is rarely up before 10. If she does wake up early, I put her in my bed with a video and either snuggle with her until she falls asleep again, or I leave her to rest. We have to be at coop by 9 on Thursdays. That is the only day I wake the kids up. DS will play legos, Wii, or watch netflix when he wakes up. Sometimes he gets his own breakfast. When I get up, usually around 9; sometimes as late as 10...I get breakfast and we chat. I might clean, we might play a game, or we might start school. We start no later than 11:30, we are generally done by 1. Then we make lunch. We play for the afternoon. I go to the studio between 3:30 and 5:00 most nights. I get home between 8:30 and 9:00. We eat dinner at the kids are in bed by 11 pm. I try to get to bed by midnight. We have a very abnormal schedule, but it works for us. :D As the kids get older, we will start school earlier, but at this point (and for another 1.5 years) I only have 1 that is doing a full load of school. DD won't be in K for a while. Her school is on an as requested basis - which tends to be daily :tongue_smilie:

What is it about? I looked on the website and could not really find any information on it. I heard people talking about it today, but that is the first I have heard of it.

I have left him and come back to the following: *The whole page done in colored pencils. *Answers in strange places with lines drawn from the answer to the question (long, squiggly lines). *Multiplication like this: 6X5 = 10+2+3+6+4+5.....Daddy told him it was correct :glare:, Daddy did not read the directions. It is "correct" it's just not working on the correct concept. *squiggles, happy faces, and his name all over the page. *a workbook, pencil, and no child:tongue_smilie:

We use Spelling Power and the Dictation book. We work through it quickly to learn the rules. We will also work through the spelling notebook in TWRTR.

My son is very good at math. I still have to sit with him and make him do EVERY problem most days. Every now and then he has a day where he works independently; but those are rare :) It is not that he does not know the concepts or understand them, he is just 6. He needs guidance.

Chicken Enchilada Soup about 1 pound frozen chicken 1 can black beans 1 bag frozen corn 1 can red enchilada sauce (mild or hot - whatever you prefer) 1 can diced tomatoes 1 can chopped green chilies 3-4 can chicken broth cook on high 4-6 hours or med for 6-8 Remove the chicken about 30 minutes prior to serving and shred, replace in the soup until ready to eat. It is great with a little sour cream and cheese!

Get the green one, paint it black with chalkboard paint. Or you could make your own. I would paint a piece of masonite rather than plywood. It is already smooth. Lowe's and Home Depot will cut it to size. You still have to purchase the full piece, but they do the hard part. Then paint and frame if you wish, or just hang it up.

Skip the writing and the talking back and forth. Just do the reading sections. After we finished, and as we worked through the book, we did the Bob Books. Then we started with the transition books listed in Tue back of 100 ez lessons.

That sounds like fun. Enjoy your day!

So, when we go, I will liat the whole trip as a school field trip. Skills acquired: standing in line :).

5th grade will end in 2012....that makes 7 yrs. 2005-2006 k 2006-2007 1st 2007-2008 2nd 2008-2010 3rd 2010-2011 4th 2011-2012 5th You have been homeschooling 6 years. When you finish 5th it will be 7.;)

Wow!! I think I made it closer to 40....but 100!!! I am so far behind! It was all of the polls. I could not help myself :) Replies were syper quick and easy.

I had them memorized...then in 8th grade....I got a calculator. I can do them in my head it is just slow. I do have to use a little trick for my 9s.....I won't be teaching the tricks to my kids anytime soon.