We did it a few months ago. We have Netflix and HuluPlus. It is having us $100.00 a month. We love having that money to buy better health insurance for our family.

Happy birthday Christopher!! He sounds like a wonderful young man. You have done a wonderful job of raising him.

I am so glad your dd is doing better. I will continue praying for her. I am so glad a nurse saw your dd's skin changes. DD11 has horrible, purple skin mottling all over her body due to Dysautonomia. She also gets bright red flushing in her cheeks. It gets worse the more she is dehydrated, sick, or temperature changes. Gatorade will sometimes help but not always. Her metabolic dr. suggested a Pediatric Cardiologist who treats autonomic symptoms to help with it so she is seeing one in October. Just thought I would mention it in case that helps. I'm so sorry you all are having to deal with all of this. :grouphug:

Yes, very much so. Our dd11 is highly allergic to it. We had no idea it was causing her "episodes" of anger. We were n the middle of getting her evaluated with a Psychologist when we figured it out. She turned into a totally different child once we took her off of it. She accidentally got it at a restaurant(in bbq sauce) and went into a rage. It was so bad that she climbed up the windowsill and tore down the curtains in our playroom. It also causes her to have no filter or self-control. It is awful, awful stuff. It is in things like make-up, chapstick, soap, shampoos, etc. We have to read labels all the time due to companies changing products. One of the hardest is when we eat at people's houses. I have learned to bring a snack for her when we go places in case something has red dye in it.

For our wedding, my mom's friend gave us a Christmas bell to hang on our Christmas tree. We opened it and it was tarnished and had 1986 inscribed on it. We were married in 1999. We still giggle about it whenever we see it on our tree.

Those are so cute!! DD11 really wants one but they don't make her allergy. I e-mailed them to ask if they are making ones for other allergies, such as food-dyes.

I am so sorry. I will be praying for you and your family. :grouphug:

Thank you. I grew up with an outside dog, so I had no idea dogs had these kind of emotions. She is an indoor dog so we get to see all of this. I think the craziest thing she has ever done is figure out that if she jumped up and pressed the ice maker, she could get ice out. We had to stop her from doing it but it was really funny when she did it. Another incident we had her was with a baby bunny in a nest in the yard. She took it out and decided to play with it. She never hurt it but took it around the yard with her, like it was a puppy. We got it away from her and took it to a rescue so she wouldn't try and take it out again. She pouted about that also. p.s. I'm trying quoting for the first time, so I hope it worked. :)

Our dog puts her tail between her legs and hunches her shoulders when she knows she's done something she's not supposed to do. She also pouts for a couple of days after we bring her home from the vet. She LOVES the vet due to them being friends with our family, so she has always gotten to play with their dogs at the vet's office. She also gets very excited when she knows she's going to see them. Another thing she does, is give my parents a very sad eye look when they leave. She really plays it up for them, looking sad when they are getting ready to leave. She loves it when my parents come visit. My mom always brings dog biscuits so she knows she gets them when we tell her Grammy is coming. She gets very excited and waits by the door for them when we tell her. We say she acts like Snoopy, due to her emotions. If she doesn't get something she wants, she acts very sad and depressed. But when she's happy, she's really happy and excited. She also tries to cover things up she knows she's not supposed to have, such as kids toys, by sitting on them.

This is our Melody. We call her Melly. She is a sweetie and very lazy. But if you sit in her favorite chair, and she wants to sit there, she will either stare at you until you move or join you. Even if there is not any room. She is a cuddle-bug who think she's a lap dog but weights 90 lbs. :001_smile:

Our dd11 is like this. She has hypoglycemia due to her Mito. We have to feed her every 2 hours in order to keep her from crashing. We give her a carb and a protein to help her balance her blood sugar. We also have to give pure cornstarch mixed with water at night to keep it up during the night. She used to wake up with tantrums every morning until we did the cornstarch.

I hope everyone feels better soon. Hope you get some rest between taking care of everyone. :grouphug:

The countertop was on sale for around 30.00 I believe. The cabinets were about 10.00 each at the ReStore. I did spray paint the cabinets white because they were from the Hurricanes stadium and were bright red. I'm thinking it was around 60.00 total for the whole thing. I'm not sure how to describe the cabinets. I'm going to try and attach a picture. Sorry it's a little blurry, it was taken with my old phone. :001_smile:

My husband built one for our school-room a couple of years ago. I bought a discounted countertop at Home Depot and some small cabinets at the restore. He attached L brackets to the counter and cabinets. It's now a Lego counter. It fits 3 children. We used the cabinets between each child. It works really well and my husband built it in about an hour.

Thank you for sharing. I love it!!! :001_smile:

We use Miralax daily for our dd11, who has Dysmotility. It has no taste so it should be easy for him to take. It works great!! When she gets really stopped up, she has to have it twice a day. It does draw fluid into the bowels so you probably want to make sure he drinks plenty. I hope he feels better soon. Constipation is no fun. Glad you got answers. :)

We are in a similar situation with school ourselves. We have homeschooled since the beginning. I agree with you. It is a huge decision and you are a great mom for giving her what she needs. We have decided to put all of our children into a small, private school this next year that meets 4 days a week. It is a hard decision to make but, in the end, I think it's the best we could have made for them. I cannot be nurse to a child who has a lot of medical needs, schedule specialists for her and ds9(who has some of the same issues) and take them, give dd12 what she needs for school, help ds9's Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia, and Dyslexia and tutoring, and be a good mom all at the same time. The decision over it was really hard. It took a lot of prayer. I'll be praying for you and your family as you make this transition.

We shave our golden every summer. She was shaved at the beginning of June and she already looks less like a lab and more like a golden. She seems so much cooler. It should grow back pretty quickly.

My dd11's specialist is in Alpharetta, which isn't too far from there. The things we enjoy in Atlanta are The Coca-Cola museum(the tasting room is so fun) and The American Girl store in Alpharetta. We have not been to it yet, but there is a Lego Land Discovery center they just built. I've heard the Georgia aquarium is wonderful but I think it's a little expensive. You can also go on a tour of CNN's studio tour. There is also the Atlanta Zoo. There is also a Children's museum. I hope this helps.

What a testimony!! Thank you for sharing with us what you went through. Praying for continued recovery.

We decided to be done after our third one. This was due to pregnancy being extremely hard on my body and my kidney's being very affected. We had 3 kids in 3 years. I also had horrible PPD and it got worse with each one. The third time was scary so that played into our decision also. It took a lot of prayer and consideration. That being said, I went through a period of "mourning" a few years after this and began wanting more kids. I went through this off and on for a while. After our dd11 got her diagnosis, all yearning for another child went away. DD11 has been sick her whole life. Our other two have a lot of the same symptoms she has. Once we realized she had Mito, we began suspecting our other 2 have it also. If they all have it, there is an extremely high chance we could pass it on to other children we have. We had also talked about adopting, since I myself am adopted, but we felt it was better for us not to do that either since we know our middle one, and maybe our other 2, will need health-care from us the rest of her/their lives. It has taken a long time to come to terms with this but I'm at peace with it now.

They started carrying Squirt down here in NC a few years ago. We used to bring home big packs of it from Michigan every time we would visit dh's family but now we don't have to. Love that stuff! We can get Vernor's in some stores but it's hard to find down here.

Very, very, concerned about heat. Especially for my dd11 who has Mito. She has heat intolerance due to Dysautonomia and any stress on her body can land her in the ER. She starts to "melt" at around 65 degrees. so NC summers are hard on her. She ran a low-grade fever last week, which we think was because she got overheated last Sunday. She also has a hard time staying hydrated. We only stay out in the heat for very short times and sometimes she'll play outside in the evening, if it's cool. We do have a kool-tie but that only does so much for her. Our other kids do not like the heat either and dehydrate quickly also. We push water and Gatorade all summer and usually wet them down before they go outside if they are going to be out for a little while.

Hi. I'm Laura. We live in NC. I was on the old board a little bit and have been a lurker here since it started. We have been homeschooling since the beginning. We are going to be putting the kids into a small, private school this next year that meets 4 days a week. I like to read, the beach, the mountains, Autumn, and chocolate. :)

I am so sorry. Will be praying for all of you.