I have been invited to a 25th wedding anniversary party. It is not a really formal affair, and the guests are friends, not family. I need ideas for what to give them. I know 25th is the silver anniverary. I have already thought of a picture frame, but I am looking for any other, not really expensive, ideas. Thanks!

Organic Apple cider vinegar - cuts through the phlegm. Slippery elm cough drops (TMI alert....) Are you close to your menses? That will cause your throat/vocal cords to be a bit swollen. I learned that from a music teacher.

My 10 yo dd would still play with that stuff. She turns 11 in a couple of months. She asked for a couple of schleich dogs and breyer horses this year.

Organize something - closet, drawer, whole room Vacuum - used to be my therapy in AK. We had great carpet and a wood stove. I felt like all was well when I could see the lines in the carpet. Make something - I have to do something small, like a card, bracelet, or earrings. Scrapbooking is great, but too big of a project for me. Good scents Hot herbal tea Funny TV show Write a letter - I recently started faxing letters to my Gma. I want my letters to sound positive, so I am forced to recognize the good things going on in my life. Definitely getting outside for a walk or weeding an area of your yard. :grouphug:

Actually, I got the idea that a dev. opt. could diagnose dyslexia from some folks on the special needs forum. I asked the opt specifically about dyslexia, and she said it was not that. She said my dd has just the left/right issues. The opt is a bit arrogant, or overly confident, but she came well recommended. I don't know if she was right, but I was certainly hoping. I live in what feels like the middle-of-nowhere, so good recommendations for testing are hard to come by. There is a lady, contact from a friend, that would test my dd. She is associated with the company that produces Sequential Spelling. She is also out-of-state, so either I would have to travel to where she lives, which is near my parents, or do as much paper/skype testing as possible. Since my parents are 30+ hours away, that is not a quick trip. Unfortunately, for sad reasons, we may have to head there soon. My mother thinks my dd has ADD like the rest of us and that she internalizes all of the stressors around her. She is medicated for her allergies. We have several family members with terminal medical issues. They are all back east, but we have been on a "roller coaster ride" with two of them - going to die one day, much better the next, back to death the next. Plus I took a 3-week sub job, so I was not able to give them my full attention for a little while. I don't know. Since we have terrible insurance, I have not pursued much testing. Have any of you dealt with the local elementary school to get testing? Are they usually happy to offer their services to you even though your dc is not enrolled in their school? Or is that option more bothersome than helpful? Thanks for the input.

I wondered about dyslexia until we went to the Developmental Optemetrist. The opt said she was not dyslexic, maybe had a mild tracking problem, and no other problems. She said she is not strong in her left/right skills and gave us exercises for that problem. My dd still reverses b's and d's. I discussed the memory problems with the opt, and she said that our dd is lazy. (She was not mean about it, just matter-of-fact.) She said we had to give our dd an incentive to learn. I had been opposed to "bribing" my kids with candy or money to do well in school. Slowly I am changing my opinion. My dd seems to be more of an experiential learner. (Is there such a thing?) I used SL in the beginning, and I loved it! My dd, on the other hand, got nothing from it. She is not an auditory learner. Then I thought she was a visual learner. Now I am not sure. I had hoped she wasn't parroting answers since we had to work so hard to get her to memorize anything. I had truly hoped that her efforts to learn facts cemented them into her long-term or working memory. Thanks for all of your responses!

Praying, too. :grouphug:

Please tell me if this is normal: My 10yo dd could not remember what "plural" means. She could barely tell me what "z" is. She could not remember chlorophyll and photosynthesis in a 4H meeting recently. These are all events that took place within the last few weeks. I am beyond frustrated. Her study skills stink, but with large amounts of help she can do well on tests. I give her study guides to help her. My dh goes over spelling words with her. She can memorize the information, but it is difficult for her. She only memorizes things after being nagged to study "more". She has studied each of the three concepts at least once a year for at least three years. She has taken tests on them. She can remember the most mundane things - events usually - that I can't remember, but she can't remember her school work. She is on three meds for hives/asthma. I had her checked by a dev. opt. She has glasses, mild prescription. The opt. said she had no lds that she could detect. She is on grade level on everything. Her hearing is fine. She just has a really poor memory. Any ideas? Or is she just a normal, prepub. girl?

I purchased some soap making supplies at Hobby Lobby. I don't have any great recipes - just melt and pour glycerin base, adding scent and color. Hobby Lobby has some cool extras like shea butter, aloe vera, vit e, orange peels, and lavender. All of these things are available online, too.

And this is wrong? Ugh! :lol: Hehehe. I would soooo love our legos either on a completed project or tucked neatly away in a specialized compartment. But.... All over a table, in a tackle box, and in a very large rubbermaid container will have to suffice if I actually want them to use them. BTW, anybody see the VIP houses that will be available Jan. 1?

You could just buy the instructors' guides and the harder to find books directly from SL. Do a little research and find out which ones are readily available at your library or others' used listings. The problem with SL is there are so many good books in their cores. No one wants to give up the good ones! :) Have you tried half.com? Or homeschoolclassifieds.com? You could bargain with people on homeschoolclassifieds now. Nothing seems to be moving on that site at the moment. It won't liven back up until February.

I love Land's End. Their quality is excellent. I can pass down clothes from older dd to younger dd. I have not ever had any problems with their clothes falling apart. I wear their items, too. Their shoes will last longer than you want to wear them. I did have one bathing suit that faded prematurely. LE replaced it. I don't think it was their fault, just a hyper-chlorinated pool. I like Land's End Canvas, too. LL Bean is another good company that is similarly priced to LE. I should add that I only wash my shirts and the girls' fleece pjs in Woolite and air dry them. I have had no pilling problem on those items, nor on the other items that I wash in Tide or homemade laundry soap and put in the dryer. LE has awesome clearance sales! Their full retail prices can be expensive, but they have clearance prices that definitely make buying them worth it.

:iagree: I have seen God work in my and others' lives many times. There are times when I get discouraged about something, miniscule or enormous, and the very next day He will let me see something that counteracts that frustration.

Another book that my dh recommended is More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. I am not Catholic, so I don't know if this book will contradict your beliefs. I did not explain the entire thread to my dh before he gave me that title. C.S. Lewis's book recommendations are great! Lee Strobel is another author that my dh would recommend. Definitely pray for her. Watch out for opportunities to talk about this again and keep the lines of communication open about this. If she is scientifically minded, she will need proof. She isn't going to believe just because she was told to believe. Also, do you think part of the problem was that Bob Jones Univ. was the entity putting up the nativity scene? Many people are opposed to BJU's legalistic beliefs, so maybe your dd has picked up on their different stances? As for Grandma, maybe you or your dh should sit down with her and kindly explain that her negativity may be causing problems that she doesn't realize are happening. I get discouraged with church occasionally and sometimes vent about it at home. If my kids are around, they hear every word I say. If they hear what I say, I could unknowingly alter their view of church and God. I don't want them to dislike church, so I have to save my conversations until I can find some place to talk where they won't hear me. Your Grandma may be unhappy about church right now, but I would hope she would try to hide her frustrations from her grandkids. She probably doesn't realize what she is doing.

I usually wait until February, too, but I have already compiled a list of what to buy for next year in case I find some really good deals. I am at a place in hsing where I know pretty much what next year will look like. For the year after that, 7th grade, I am at a complete loss!

My dh and I lived overseas for a few years. While we were there, we met Christians who truly believed that apples are the actual forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate in the garden. Some bad teaching took place somewhere over there! Although, most of the Bible stories and pictures of the Garden of Eden from my youth seemed to portray the apple as the forbidden fruit. I ate apples, but I used to wonder why we are able to eat them now when they had been bad before. It wasn't until I was a little older and read the Bible on my own that I discovered it says "fruit", not "apple".

Answers in Genesis books for Kids might give her some of the "proof" for which she is asking. They are by Ken Ham, who caused a lot of raucous at the Greenville HS Convention last year. I don't necessarily agree with his brazen outspokenness, but I do like that particular set of books.

I don't have much to add... But I know in my first few years of hsing, I felt the urge to quit at about week 12 of each school year. I don't know why, but for about a few weeks around week 12 school would get really rough for us all. I just had to ride out those weeks. The year always got better - until spring fever, of course! I hope that your year will turn around and will end in blessings! Also, with the kids having gone to ps last year, your hs may have been "reset" in terms of accomplishments in your first three years of school.

Please post and tell us how you like it! My dh and I are both interested in getting one for Christmas, but we want to hear the reviews first!

The pastor is just the "vehicle" for the baptism and Lord's supper. Baptism from a "bad" pastor does not invalidate the baptism. As far as Southern Baptist pastors, my husband is one. He does not know of anyone that has been un-ordained. One church ordained him, not the convention, so maybe that first church could revoke his ordination. Unfortunately, a pastor could move from one part of the country to another and take another church that does not know much about his past. A church I attended many years ago hired a man that had been having an affair while at his old church and was still involved in the affair at the new church. I don't know if his wife knew at that time, or if she found out later, but it wrecked his marriage and ministry. Thankfully, though, we do live in an age of social networking. Unless you find a pastor out in the boonies with no internet connection, a church can dig and find out a lot about a person before calling him to their church. People can still hide things about themselves, but it is getting tougher to do so. I am sorry that your church/community is having to even ask these questions and deal with this type of a situation.

I paired Miquon with Horizons. I would not use Miquon as a stand-alone, but my dds started it as 1rst graders. I did not want them to miss any concepts and enjoyed the reinforcement miquon had to offer. You are starting with a very young child, so miquon, by itself, might be fine for your dc. You can always supplement later if you find that it is not enough. If you get through all 6 of the books without trouble, then you won't be holding your dc back by going into more advanced levels in anther curriculum provider versus subjecting them to over-reviewing the basics like you would have done if you did it my way.

I am stumped. According to a schedule I found online, I am supposed to give a quiz on the first five lessons. The quiz is in the back of the book, but it has more stems than we have studied. Am I missing something? Thanks for the help!

I do the same thing, too. An then I get evil and mad at my relatives for making me help them with gift ideas! What do you get children that seem to already have too much stuff, don't go to ps to know what the "latest" toys are, and still like the same things they have had for the last five years! But... I still love Christmas!

We have completed up to sentence 41 in Practice Town, and we still have not had anything other than prepositional phrases. You will see the gerunds and appositives in Paragraph Town by about lesson 4. The Island level did not teach anything other than prepositional phrases, so the rest are new in the Town level.

Back of couch, stacked neatly on top of tray table set, on a quilt rack in bedroom, and folded neatly in two closets. My older dd loves to sleep with about three heavy blankets on her bed each night. I nag her constantly about folding them in the morning. I wish she would just use the bedspread and blanket already on her bed, but she prefers the heavier blankets. I end up folding the ones in the living room every night and returning them to where they are stored.