I'm wondering if this itself could be part of the problem. You've said you are your brother's best friend. You work full time. You homeschool. You also take graduate classes (and probably do very well with them). Your home is neat and clean all the time. You look as good as you did back before kids.... Well... that's a lot to compete with (just trying to see if from her side). Since you and your bro are so close, I'm imagining that his wife has heard a few times "Well, Heather can do it 'all' and she has more on her plate than you do!" or some similar version of this statement. Maybe, if she's a woman of fragile ego, that's enough for her to throw up her hands and say, "ya know what? I give up! I'll never be as high energy (insert your own description here) as she is... and I'm tired of hearing about it." Especially if they were barely married a year before they had a baby. I wish the best for your SIL and your brother. :) ~D

Soooo... what is the difference between the Black Warriors and the classic Mirado pencils? I have a huge unopened package of the classics I bought at Sam's a while back. Am I going to be disappointed? lol

My dh went to public school in kindergarten and two weeks of 8th grade. The rest of the time he was 100% homeschooled. I went to PS, but grew up around a high number of homeschooled kids due to our religion, so it wasn't a foreign concept to me or anything. :)

PM me if you're still looking. :001_smile:

:iagree:

We've recently started a tradition of dh taking one kid at a time on a trip. We're trying to do one to two trips each year (maybe camping over the weekend or going to a new town to visit a museum). He and our 2nd dd are going to fly to FL and stay with his mom for a few days in the spring. He likes to travel - the kids like to travel - but I do not. So, this is a great way for him to get one on one time with each of the kids. One on one time in a family of more than one child is just a rare event! My kids treasure it more than almost anything! They love having memories that only involve them and their mom or dad - their own special stories to share. Sometimes dh will take two of the kids for the weekend to visit family and I'll keep one of them home with me. We play "fun" stuff to do (each kid usually has a pre-made list ready for me! ROFLOL) and we spend the whole weekend just talking (uninterrupted), watching movies, whatever! It's an absolute blast! Getting to talk to them without anyone else around is SO different than our normal daily interactions. :001_smile:

I had the Kaya doll and she is absolutely gorgeous - but that hair! It was miles long and so beautifully braided, I didn't ever want to take those braids out and mess her hair up! I wound up selling her (I bought one so that I could "play" dolls with my girls) and bought the Jess doll of the year. I wasn't so fussy about messing her hair up. lol

sorry

I printed photo books at WalMart & Walgreens over the summer. You can change the layout (up to 9 photos!) on each page, and add your own captions. We were thrilled with the end results. You could write on those pages, if you wanted. The photo pages are not printed on shiny/photo paper - it's more like paper from a book. hths! :)

I'd pare down my list even further & send real cards. Then... maybe you could email those folks you had crossed off the list. We used to have a HUGE Christmas card list. I started keeping track of who sent them to us each year, and I just exchange cards with those people now & save a ton of money that way, lol. :D Email "cards" just aren't the same. I like having pictures & cards from our friends/family out to look at during the holidays... it gives me the warm and fuzzies. lol Email just doesn't have the same effect - usually I'm the only one on the computer, and I forget to drag dh and the kids over to the computer to see the picture. :001_smile:

We have 5 birds, and in my experience they're not that high-needs. My girls (10 and 8) each have their "own" parakeet. They are soley responsible for their keets and have hand-raised them since they were babies. Their keets are sweet, will nuzzle them while they stand on their shoulders, stand on their fingers. We keep their wings clipped, so they can't have full reign of the house when they're out. They can still fly, but they can't get all the way to the top of the curtains or on top of the fridge, where it's hard to get them down. If you get more than one bird at one time, keep them in seperate cages (where they can't even see each other) while you hand train them. Once they are fully bonded to their humans, you can put them in together and see how well they get along. My dds two birds (both males) are the best of friends now that they share a cage. We rotate their toys once a month. My girls probably have them out a half hour to an hour every day (well, probably 5 days a week), and the birds are perfectly sweet. Our other 3 birds were adults when we got them and they're birds-in-a-cage. We tried hand taming them, but they have been birds-in-a-cage since they were little. We have two parakeets and one parrotlet in that cage. The parrotlet is the sweetest girl and she will come out of her cage every now and then, but sometimes she just bolts and runs away from us, so we don't get her out too often as it seems to stress her. If we were going to buy a bird to raise from baby-hood again, I would buy another parrotlet. You should look those up. They're the smallest type of parrot there is (ours is fluffier than the parakeets, but other than that, about the same size with a shorter tail) and highly intelligent and beautiful. The parakeets are "screechers", but the parrotlet has a tiny sing-song voice, she sort of sounds like tinkling bells. Extremely sweet. The males can learn to talk and whistle. http://talkparrotlets.com/forum.php (We've had a hedgehog, dogs, and fish... and I've found the birds to be the easiest of 'em all. lol I can't stand cleaning fish tanks, though... :D )

The wood pieces are fun, but not a neccessity, imho. I bought the whole shebang, and we really USED: the student workbook, the slate for my ds (5, he really loves the slate, lol). And that's about it. I also bought the itty bitty sponges they sell for the slate (to "wet-trace" the letters). They weren't $$ and we do use those quite often and I like them better than tearing off a piece of paper towel or something. I love the program, but could have saved some $ by making my own paper, etc. lol So far, my 8yo dd who uses the program, uses the special lines in her workbook, but prefers regular writing paper when she's just writing. She says the double lines confuse her. DS, who's been using HWT since the beginning of his handwriting "career" also uses his workbook, but prefers regular writing paper when he's practicing or copying. hths a little! :)

lol, the books reminded me of the over-the-top, in-over-my-head, overwhelming way I fell in love with my dh. lol All those "new" feelings I didn't realized I'd sort of forgotten came rushing back while reading the first book. The always thinking about... forgetting to breathe... all of it. Pretty much from first sight too, lol. Dh is very happy with my newly recovered memories. :lol: (Edward can't hold a candle to my dh, roflol) The 4th book, though... :glare: I wasn't a fan. It was all so awkward. :001_huh:

:willy_nilly: Oh. My. :ack2: And to think - I've always thought Black Widows were tiny, little black spiders. We have brown recluses in our area, but don't see them too often. After this post, though, my kids are going to have to start checking their shoes every single morning. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww.

:lol: That is a fantastic idea! ROFLOL For Joe Six-Pack, here are two suggestions, lol: http://www.drinkingstuff.com/drinkingstuff_hats_belts_ds0392.htm and http://www.drinkingstuff.com/drinkingstuff_hats_belts_ds0398.htm

We have an Elph - and while sometimes I wish it had a stronger zoom capability, overall I love this camera. It's around 3 years old now and I'm going to replace it soon - with another Elph. :) I LOVE it's small size. Because of the size, we take it absolutely everywhere. It slips right into a pocket. We're the kind of people who just will not carry around a camera case. We've tried it and we wind up just leaving our "nice" camera at home and never getting any pictures. So, the pocket-size is a huge plus for me. Again - sometimes I wish for a better zoom, but the other advantages outweigh that for me. :) hths!

My 5th grade dd is in the middle of TT7 right now and I love it. She does her lessons all on her own, first thing in the morning and really enjoys it. We'll move to TT Pre-Algebra next - and after that I'm not sure if we'll stick with TT or move to something else. :) hths!

It's very easy to over schedule with all the activities that are available. We cut our schedule back quite a bit - this year we're still busier than I'd really like (we have an activity scheduled 3-4 x's a week), but my kids are all willing to do make up work on the weekends in order to keep their activities. So far, we're right on track with our school schedule(we even caught up after having family come to visit for over 2 weeks)! I did draw the line at activities that I had to sit in the van and wait for them, though. Or activities where the little one (5) has to sit in the van and wait. All our current activities ds can either participate in, or can come inside and have something *fun* to do while we wait. The only exception is PE, but it's down the street from our home, so I just drop off the girls and take ds home with me for those 3 hours. Last year we had horse riding lessons, science classes and a few other things like that. I became very resentful at having to camp out in my van and wait and wait. So, we ditched all those this year and we're all much happier for it (and the girls really don't even miss that stuff, to be honest).

We're using Latin Primer, but we bought the DVDs to go along with it. For me, the DVDs are a *must* have, as I know absolutely nothing about Latin, lol.

This is what we would do if we were to get a cat. :D

I thought the "not you" comment to Brokaw was funny. :001_smile: And, I wasn't insulted at the comment to the guy when McCain said he probably hadn't heard of Fannie and Freddie Mac... probably because I had only heard their names in passing. So, when this whole financial "thing" happened, I really had no clue for a while what was going on and had to research quite a bit (and dh filled me in, lol). I know I wasn't the only American who didn't really have much of a clue who they were. :confused:

My kids know the Pledge from being in Girl Scouts. I don't have anything against it - it's just not something I think about all that often.

Another vote for the OKC Zoo (it's really one of the best in the country - you could spend your entire 4-5 hours here probably) and Science Museum Oklahoma, right next door. Then there is the Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (aka the Cowboy Hall of Fame). This one depends on the kids, I think. It's mostly artsy stuff. Now - they do have a kids area outside, but the rest is "be quiet, don't touch" kind of things - and the security guys there are vigilant!!! LOL Then, in the downtown-ish area (where Bricktown is) is the Oklahoma History Center - there are quite a few interesting things here - lots of Native American information and displays - astronaut stuff too... Almost across the street from the History Center is the Governor's Mansion - you can take a tour. Or tour the State Capitol (you can see the State Capitol from the lobby of the History Center). Harn Homestead is also in the area, if you're interested in going back in time. Bricktown has a lot of great restaraunts. The Botanical Gardens are beautiful. Wonderful photo op! :) The Oklahoma City Museum of Art has a gorgeous glass art display. The Romans are leaving after this coming weekend - and I don't think they have another exhibit moving in until November. Also - a sobering thing, but something you might want to see while you are in the city. The Oklahoma City National Memorial is downtown. I probably wouldn't advise visiting the actual museum with your kids (there are some graphic/disturbing pictures there, iirc), but you can walk the grounds. It is beautiful and tragic and wonderful and terrible and overwhelming and calming all at the same time. The Sam Noble Museum of Natural History is awesome - it's the place our family always wants to see when they come to visit. But, it's all the way in Norman. Have fun! :001_smile: ~D

We just sold our pet hedgehog. But, I wanted to chime in and say that as long as your daughter isn't in a habit of putting her hands in her mouth, she would be fine with the hedgehog. She's 6.5 from your signature line? My youngest was around 4.5 when we got the hedgehog (it was his big sister's 7th birthday present). We didn't let him handle the hedgie much until after he was 5 and fully understood to keep his hands to himself after handling the hedgehog. After we played with the hedgie, everyone had to scrub their hands (with mom monitoring the hand-washing to ensure it was being done properly). When the hedgehog is young, yes, sometimes he'll huff and puff and spike his quills. Sometimes they will pierce the skin (usually very, very superficially), but again - handwashing goes a long way. Sometimes we'd wash our hands 4-5 times in a row. Ours was a year old when we sold him and he was the most tame, calm, friendly little critter. He never huffed anymore or spiked his quills, he'd just calmly crawl around sniffing everything with his cute little nose. :) With all that said - our hedgehog was an awesome little pet EXCEPT for one glaring defect. Cleaning his cage/wheel every day just got to be too much for me. I wouldn't allow dd to clean the cage (couldn't trust her to be sanitary enough) and I just grew to hate it. Yech. So, I would still get a hedgehog all over again - even with the current pediatrician warning... BUT I wouldn't get one again knowing what I know about that icky wheel every morning! lol (For some comparison - we now have 5 birds and cleaning up after them is a cake walk compared to cleaning the icky wheel/litter area of the one hedgehog cage! lol) Good luck deciding!

THANK YOU for posting this! MIL asked for it for Christmas. I'm debating ordering it for my mom too - but I think I'll wait til it's out on BluRay because iirc I don't think the DVD has subtitles - and holding out hope the BluRay will? (Dear ol' Dad has trouble deciphering British accents these days, lol)