I enjoy my #4 (sadly) much more than I did my first 3. Not that I didn't enjoy them, I am just more taking the time to enjoy him. My first 3 were all one right after the other (3 kids in less than 3 years). My oldest, I was always looking forward to the next thing she would do, reaching milestones, etc . My second one was a screamer and was most of the time inconsolable (sensory issues), and by the time my third was born, I was just trying to maintain order with all of them. Especially since they were all so little, and needed ALL of my attention ALL of the time. My #4 was born 6 years after #3, so they had all grown up and matured quite a bit by the time he got here. I get to enjoy the sweet baby-ness of #4, and not worry about what is coming up next or when he will do this or that. It will all happen soon enough. Right now, I am enjoying and savoring every single minute of him just being little. I guess, he's technically a toddler now (will be 2 years old next week), but he's still my sweet baby and loves his mama. The olders haven't rubbed off on him yet ;)

Thanks for sharing! I just bookmarked your page for when we go through our Prairie Primer studies coming up soon. :)

Neat! Thanks for sharing! We're doing The Lorax unit study this week, too! :)

This is for orders $50 and up. :)

Having only made a few paper airplanes, mine turn out with a pointy nose, but that is following dh's instructions. :)

We didn't have any lemon juice, so we threw them in some Mt. Dew and it worked great. So did Sprite. :)

Me, too. :)

I asked my kids if they would like the personalized pencils and candy in a pencil box and if that would be a good gift. Here are the results: dd, 10 - made a face like, Not really ds, 8, "I think that is nice" :) (he's really appreciative of anything that you say is a gift, though. He was thrilled to get underwear for Christmas one year because they were "Just for ME!" LOL) ds, 7, "How about just some candy?!"

Wow! Thanks for the info! :)

Not Enter Sandman, but Gary Hoey's You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch sounds like For Whom the Bell Tolls to me. :)

I think it would work out ok for you. I have the same situation. Kind of. How old are your older boys? My two older boys are 8 and 7, and I have a 12 month old. The older boys share a room, and the little guy is in my bedroom, but we're thinking about opening a wall in between 2 back bedrooms (the older boys are in one, and the other one is just used for storage right now) to make it one big bedroom for all of the boys. I think it would work for us now, but I'm not so sure if it's a good idea for when they are older. In a few years my then teenaged boys probably won't want a little guy in their room. Of course, if you put them all together now, you would still have the option of putting the schoolroom back as a bedroom again later if it didn't work out. :)

Same here with my dh and our boys. My daughter, I do take to get her hair trimmed when needed. It is an ABSOLUTE NO WAY that ANYONE besides my husband or myself touch my children's hair unless I am right there telling them to do so, or it is necessary because of a life-threatening situation. I have several horror stories of my children going to visit their grandparents and coming home with haircuts. TERRIBLE ones that they did themselves because "they" decided my kids needed a haircut. Whether they did need one or not, I feel it is absolutely not their place to touch a hair on my children's heads, especially without asking me. The first situation was when my daughter was a little over a year old. She went to visit her grandparents, and when she came home, her hair was cut and she had bangs! If that's what you want to call them. My mil did it herself, and they were choppy and uneven and she looked absolutely terrible! Mind you, this is my mil who can't even write because her hands are so extremely shaky. I was so furious when they brought her home and I saw her hair, I picked her up and left and went to my mother's house with her. My husband called and wanted to know if I was coming back, that his mom wanted to see our dd and to bring her back. I was so furious that she ruined my baby's hair that I said she would never see her again. She, of course, has seen my kids (quite often, we have a good relationship now), but, unfortunately did not learn a lesson after we have told them (dh and myself have both) that they may not cut our kids' hair. They have taken it upon themselves several times to do so. Fortunately, now our kids are old enough to let them know NOT to do it when they go to visit. What was extremely horrifying about the experience with my daughter, was that she had never had a haircut before, it was her very first one. I wasn't there, I didn't want the haircut, and she didn't keep her hair! That was 9 years ago, and I have forgiven it, but it still makes me mad! It took until my daughter was 7 years old for her hair to finally look normal after her grandmother decided to cut it whenever she felt like she needed it.

No, I don't wear gloves when I clean or when I do dishes (twice a day). I think my hands look great, and my husband always says they are the softest hands he's ever felt. I don't use harsh chemicals a lot, though. When I do use bleach cleaner, I put it in a spray bottle and dilute it with water, spray it on, and wipe it off. After cleaning, I immediately wash my hands and put on lotion. I use Avon Moisture Therapy Intensive hand cream. It's the best lotion I've found!

I used to be bad about keeping everything because it all had sentimental value or good memories attached to it. But, when we started moving, I found some things that I thought I "had to keep", that I forgot I had. Since I hadn't seen these items, or used these items, or even missed them, I realized I really didn't HAVE to have them, so I started pitching everything I hadn't seen or hadn't used for over a year. Now, I just regularly toss things. Whether it be in the garbage, or donation or whatever.

My mother is 53, and I would let my children wear pj's all day, IF it weren't for the fact that my husband wouldn't. So I do make them get dressed before he gets home if they did have their pj's on all day (which is not very often that they do wear pajamas all day, it's mostly me that is so comfortable in them, lol). BTW, his mother is 73, and she most certainly WOULD NOT let the children wear pj's all day.

I agree with the other posters. I have an 8 year old, and to say he is obsessed with Pokemon would be an understatement. He LOVES to get Pokemon cards. It doesn't matter if he already has them. Also, the How to Draw Pokemon book was quite popular in our house, too. We didn't own the book, he would just check it out of the library. Every single week. For 6 months straight. LOL

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

:lol::lol::lol::lol: That's hilarious! I love it! :)

:lol::lol::lol: :iagree:

It was not geared towards children. I did not know that beforehand, or else I would have done things differently. The whole service, including praise and worship and the presentation was an hour long. From 7-8pm. I realize that to them, it probably was boring. At the time, I thought they would enjoy it, especially since I had them hyped up about going because this man had previoulsly been to our church to talk about dinosaurs and Creation. We had not attended that session, so I wasn't sure what it exactly entailed. Well, I was wrong,and I admit that it definitely was not an entertaining or interesting lecture for them. It was definitely geared towards adults or much older children. It wasn't anything they could really actively participate in, look up verses or anything. There were slides and just "evidence" of the global flood. I know now that I was wrong, and their behavior, although not acceptable in church, was probably to be expected, given the circumstances.

That is EXACTLY how I feel! And I have had the same thing happen about people telling me how wonderful my children are behaving. (Well, not last night, but other times, lol) I guess it sticks out to me more when other people's children ARE behaving than when they are not, and noticing EVERY LITTLE THING my own kids do, and wondering who else is noticing. Thank you! :)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I am only laughing because I can totally picture that! (And it's funny!) But I can SO relate. My 7 yr old is quite the attention-getter. On a good note, my 10 yr. old and almost 1 year old were perfectly behaved. :)

I did have a talk with them this morning about being respectful in church. And I also did ask them what they remembered about what was said last night, if they had questions about anything from it, or if they found anything interesting. Surprisingly, they did answer my questions with quite a bit of detail, that I thought surely they must have been paying some attention. I'm glad for that. :) They even looked it up further online this morning. I did lift their restrictions today, and they are outside playing right now. :)

Thank you all! You have wonderful points. I will reconsider my own behavior and reactions. I tend to forget sometimes that they are just kids, and will act like kids. We normally don't sit in the front. Usually it's more toward the outside about halfway back so I can make a quiet, quick escape if need be. My ds7 is the one who begged to sit up front. I did remind him that he would need to be on his very best behavior because everyone in the whole church could see him. Didn't phase him, lol. In fact, that was probably why he was doing it, for the attention. I never knew how strict and impatient I was until I had my own kids. Looks like I need to work on that myself and lighten up with them. Gentleness is something I definitely need to put on. That's a struggle for me. Would appreciate your prayers for that. Thank you all!

Thank you all for making me feel better. It has been sort of an ongoing problem, but it's not EVERY time. Maybe it was unreasonable for me to expect better behavior. They normally do go to their classes while we have our service, but dh and I thought this would be something neat for them. I must admit, it was not particularly interesting to small children. I should be thankful that we do have a wonderful church, and my kids always look forward to going. In fact, they cry or get really upset if we don't go for some reason. We have been attending this church since they were born. They have a WONDERFUL children's ministry, and my kids love it. I guess I was just humiliated by their behavior last night. Sometimes it feels like all the eyes are on me and I am being judged. I'm sure that is the enemy trying to get at me, and people aren't really doing it. I know if it was someone else's child, I would probably find it funny, and be sympathetic to the parents. I will think about some quiet activities, but was hoping to avoid bringing anything like that. Will have to see if it might help, though. Thank you all again. :)