So today as I was reading my son's FB messages, I came across a situation where two of his friends were complaining of being bullied on oovoo. I had only heard of it once and didn't really know what it was, so I did some research. If you have tweens or teens, I think you should be aware that it exists since it seems that some kids who don't have Facebook or cell phones use it to communicate. And it also seems that a lot of parents don't really know what it is. Up to 6 people can message or video chat or use it like a phone at once. I'm pretty sure the girl I'm dealing with isn't supposed to have the oovoo account, so she can't very well go tell her parents about the bullying without telling on herself. It didn't seem to get much mention on the board when I did a search here, so I thought it might be worth bringing it up. Of course maybe I am alone in the dark, and everyone in the Hive has an oovoo account.

Ours was working last night, but it does get glitchy from time to time. Did you have the Netflix/Just for Kids choice pop up right away when it was working? That update was fairly recent and I think ours was really glitchy for a few days there....

Thanks for this! I have spent the last several months regretting the purchase of a Fire for my ds13 because there weren't any parent controls. I'll have to set a password and upgrade his Fire this afternoon.

I think that what will work for you depends on your washing machine, how hard your water is, and what kind of diapers you're using. I was using original Tide when I first started with cloth. Some of my microfiber diapers got the stinkies BAD, and I felt like I was always stripping them and they still smelled. The Tide, microfiber and our hard water were not a good combination. I agree with some of the previous posters that for prefolds it probably won't matter so much what you wash them in. I use Rockin' Green Hard Rock now, and none of my diapers get stinky (we have prefolds and microfiber pockets). But no matter what I'm using, I have found the rinse cycle to be the most important part of my wash routine. I do a pre-wash rinse, wash and then second rinse. And about once a month I'll run the wash/second rinse again without soap. I don't think you need a ton of soap to clean your diapers, I think you need a ton of rinsing (at least with hard water). If you start with a store brand detergent and find that your diapers are getting stinky or are not as absorbent as they should be you can strip them down and try a different detergent.

I've used sweaters from the thrift store and repurposed them as soakers. It's really easy to make sleeves into longies. My only advice is to us a pattern that has a drawstring (or add your own casing and drawstring). I always have gaping waistbands with homemade soakers...

I can't see all the pictures on my ipad either. The Math Mammoth FAQ says that there's no fix for that on the iPad. I've been drawing in a few of the examples for my kids and having them skip some of the stuff that relies too heavily on the pictures. We've only had our iPad for about a week, and we just got a Rocketfish stylus for it ($16.99).

Some things that helped me (but not as much as Zofran and Unisom together!): Fireballs Milkshakes Jello Blowpops What worked for one pregnancy didn't necessarily work for another. I did Unisom for the first four, but wasn't allowed to to take it until 12 weeks. For number 5 I had a doctor who let me start Unisom right away and added Zofran when I needed something more.:grouphug:

I use this recipe that I got from welcometomybrain.net. I have used a full bar of dove soap when I couldn't find Fels Naptha. I have one pretty stinky boy and my laundry comes out smelling good. Water (hopefully you've got some of that around the house) 1/3 bar of Fels Naptha Soap (or my favorite - Zote soap) 1/2 cup washing soda (NOT baking soda - look in the detergent aisle) 1/2 cup Borax A bucket that will hold 2 gallons Grate the soap. I use my cheese grater. Mix it with about three pints of water in a saucepan. Heat on low until dissolved. Stir in washing soda and Borax. Stir until thickened and remove from heat. Add 1 quart of hot water to bucket. Add soap mixture and stir well. Fill bucket with hot water until you have about two gallons. Mix well again. Let set 24 hours, or until thickened. It will be funky goopy. I use a big spoon to stir it up and then use a funnel to pour it into an old detergent container. I use 1/2 cup per load. You can always add a drop of an essential oil like lavender that kills germs and smells nice if you want it to smell better. I put a drop or two of lavender in the laundry whenever someone has been sick. 1/2 cup of vinegar in your fabric softener dispenser is a pretty good fabric softener. But, somewhere I read that it can be bad for the seal on your washing machine or something (I'm sure you could google it).

I have a Sonlight 3 language arts curriculum. I looked through quick and I don't think that any of the student pages are written in. I did see a little underlining in the guide. gone I also have: Favorite Poems Old and New (Ferris) gone Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children gone Adventures With Atoms and Molecules II and III gone 4th Grade Writing by Kelley Wingate Publications Sonlight Core (Intro to American History) it is the older version of what is now Core D...copyright 1999 gone That didn't take long :)

So...I'm leaning towards trimming the workbook fat and trying to squeeze the first generation iPad into the budget. But would love to hear from more people. Anyone :bigear:

Thanks for the reminder, we've been practicing and I forgot that today is the day!

Thanks for expounding! I wonder if they will make iBooks compatible with Mac computers sometime in the near future...

Elizabeth, I'm not familiar with interactive iBooks at all. Are they things that you are using as spines? I saw from a quick search that they seem to be pretty reasonably priced (many starting at $14.99) I was originally thinking that I would use an iPad for some internet access and to let the kids write on the PDFs for programs like Math Mammoth. And of course there are some great educational apps to download. We're not super high tech around here, but we're not totally unplugged either. So I guess I'm trying to say I don't know how I feel about interactive books. I kind of like books to just be words on a page:tongue_smilie:, but I don't want to miss something great, either!

With the talk of price drops coming Wednesday, I took a peek at the refurbs in the Apple store. And I'm thinking I might be able to squeeze a 1st generation iPad into the school budget for next year. From what I can see, the biggest differences between a 1 and 2 are the size, faster processor in the 2, and the cameras. I'm thinking that if it's primarily for the kids to use none of those things will be that big of a deal. But it's always good to hear from the hive before pulling the trigger on a purchase like that... If I buy a 1st generation 16gb iPad, will I wish that I had waited until I could afford a newer one (which would be at least another year)?:bigear:

A couple of months ago a thin, active mom of 5 in our church had a stroke. She is in her 30s. Then a week or two later another woman who could fit the exact same description had a heart attack. They both recovered quickly, but I think that is pretty scary stuff (especially since both of these moms homeschool like me, are around my age, and I am a mom of 5 who is pretty overweight)!

When I called the doctor back to ask what to do (since I'm nursing) they went a totally different route. From what I saw, the radioactive stuff does get passed on in the milk

I went to see my GP because of a nagging wrist injury. During the exam, I was nursing the (tiny) baby. She sent me for a bone scan. When I arrived at the place for the bone scan, the tech looked around at my kids and asked if I was nursing. Then she said, "You know you have to take the radioactive drink and can't nurse for 72 hours after this, right?" So I dragged my 5 kids out for a totally useless appointment. The poor, sweet tech kept apologizing to me about it. But really doctor? I was nursing the baby in front of you when you sent me for the scan!!!!!!!

I used to dream about getting rid of my television! I live with it now, though...and since I've never let it be the centerpiece of our lives, I wonder how much my kids would even miss it.

"Teen Iceberg Tales":lol: I love it!!!

Hang in there you moms who are more unreasonable than me:cheers2: I'm not really a tiara kind of girl!

In his defense, all his friends really do have it. I was a little surprised to see our senior pastor's 12 year old has an account. And they all use their real names, not associated with their parents. I will absolutely have the password and check his account regularly. And I don't think he's bothered by that idea. It's just that April is soooo far away:mad:

Thank You all! I will be showing him this thread later so that he can see there is a whole big group of unreasonable moms hanging around here.

because I won't let my son get a Facebook account until he turns 13 in April. EVERYONE else has Facebook even though they're not 13, except for his one cousin who gets on her mom's account all the time. I've been surprised by how many people aren't bothered by lying about their kid's birthday, but that's their thing to deal with. But I know I can't really be the only extreme rule follower left on the face of the earth, can I? :bigear:

I was having an AWFUL time getting my abs back to the point where I could even do a few sit ups after the last baby (I could knock out 40 or 50 easily before I got pregnant), and my chiropractor told me to just spend time tightening them throughout the day. She suggested making a game of it - like every time someone says "four" tighten and hold for 10 seconds. And whenever you do any exercise be aware of your core and try to keep it tight. I have been doing this for about a month, and it has helped a lot more than the stuff I was doing for the few months before. So if you can't work in a full ab workout, maybe this could help you.

We recently helped my mom hang her tv over the fireplace, and she's pretty happy with it. But I just wanted to warn you, Best Buy will charge you an extra $100 to hang the tv over the fireplace. They consider it a "custom install" even though there is nothing that they do differently.