I would love to join. Is this an exclusive club? LOL

I use it for both my 4th grader (with questions) and my K'er (just me reading to him and prayer time) and we LOVE it. :) ETA: We use Beginnings I for K'er and Beginnings II for older ds, will move on to Discovery soon.

We bought our son a Microscope for Christmas from physlink.com - now it is xump.com. They have great prices and selection for prepared slides: http://www.xump.com/Science/PreparedSlides.cfm

Do you make them? Do you stick to them if you do? I don't necessarily make New Year's Resolutions, but I can just "feel" when it is going to be a good year. 2009 promises to be a better year for us than 2008 was...especially where my mental health is concerned. :) I feel I have made a lot of changes in the last year for myself which makes my whole family work more effectively and happily. My thought for the new year is that I want to pay off debt and have dh and I be well on our way to being "happy" with our financial lives. This is a biggie, but we can do it. It will just take willpower. I also hope to take better care of myself, eat better, and take even better care of the house chores than I do now. I feel like this is at least a good, positive way to start thinking of the new year. Anyone else? What is your resolution/plan for the new year...if you have one (or more)?

We will be starting back on January 5. My oldest son went to be with his dad for a week today, so we can't start until he comes home. It will just be me and my little next week and I am looking forward to some just "me and him" time. :) Next week will also be a planning week so I can get things together for the new year. :)

WOW! What a crazy pregnancy you had, RebeccaC. Goodness. I am so glad you and your babies made it out alive and it was awesome that your dh stepped up to the plate! phathui5 - WOW! So you had your first at 15 then? Gosh, how young. I as talking with a friend of mine recently, an older man, and he told me that he had 6 siblings - all 1-2 years apart and his mom had all of them by the time she was 29. I thought THAT was young. Nope...you got her beat! LOL

Well, the big tree went today...with my ds5's permission of course. He scored a cool new toy spaceship with his Christmas cash and he was too occupied to really care when I asked him. ;) The only Christmas thing we have left in the house is the little tree in his room which he insists will stay up until NEXT Christmas (haha...we shall see about that one) and the few little decorations I have on my front porch. I have to change out the flag, put away the trees beside the door, change the door mat, and take down my snowman windsock....then I am FINISHED. Ahhhh...so nice to have my house back to minimal decor and CLEAN!

My bladder issues are definitely not terrible (I have a grade 1 everything prolapse)...and not something I stuggle with on a daily basis or anything. I just thought having another baby would further exacerbate the issue...especially a vaginal birth and both of my others were vaginal.

Oh, poor fella. He will be in my prayers. My youngest is healthy overall, but he had RSV at age 2 and it was absolutely SCARY. I am glad her son is in the hospital and getting care. RSV sure can be rough.

THank you all so much for your input and for sharing your stories and well wishes. I will let you all know how the tests come out here soon. I should be able to test on the 30th. I have two children. Both of them, I tried literally 1 time. Not for one month, one actual time. If my body is true to form, then I am definitely pregnant. We made tea without the teabag last Wed around 2am, I had egg white yuckies (TMI, sorry) Wed, Thurs, and Fri and supposedly ovulated Saturday. I am now 6 days past ovulation and my bbs are so sore, they can't be touched. I also have a lot of bloatedness and I am soooo very tired. Having another child is not my or dh's desire, persay, so we will be elated if I am NOT pregnant. However, if I am, I know God will take care of me and that this is His will and of course dh and I will love baby more than anything as we do the other 2 sons.

UNO. We played that game until 10:00pm last night! LOL My oldest ds and my dh and I just LOVE it. My youngest doesn't care to join, but loves to watch (and occasionally tells me what color daddy's last card is so I know not to pick that color. LOL

Oh...and I will add that I had my other children at 19 (3 days before I turned 20) and 24. I was young and reasonably healthy with both. I had some of the back issues, none of the bladder issues. Ds9 was a HARD labor and birth and he was suctioned after I pushed for 2.5 hours. He was "sunny side up." Ds5 was a piece of cake. I was induced (for no real reason) and fell asleep with my epi (which I got because of my bladder alone! No pain at all from labor). When I woke up, my body was pushing him out. I pushed one set of 3 and out he came. It was incredible.

I didn't mean for it to seem that I wasn't caring for my health concerns. My bladder...well, it is still in there. LOL But it gets very...ummm...not fun at time. Mostly when I cough, sneeze, or a week before my AF comes. But still...it is okay. My back, I go to a chiropractor for it and it helps a lot. I am not sure I could handle another epidural as a spinal block (un-necessary) is suspected to be part of what caused the problems I have now. My cycles being crazy has scared me the most, but I have gone to several GYNS, had paps yearly for 10 years now and no abnormalcies other than one when I was 20 just after having ds9 (possible fluke/insurance fraud anyway). I had a biopsy of my uterus in August at my own request and it was normal. They docs have just narrowed it down to worry, stress, and hormones. My mental state bothers me the most, I guess. My OCD/hypochondria as well as the bad ppd I had after ds5. However...and this is just amusing...LOL If I were to follow the Shettles Method, I pretty much did EXACTLY what he recommends to create a baby girl. LOL I had no idea as I had never read Shettles before, but it was a bonus when someone pointed that out to me today. ;)

Ewwww...yes. It would creep me out and I think I would have asked right then and there, "WHY?" That is weird. This day and age, you can't be too careful with your children in this world. :(

By "last," I don't mean you have to be finished having kids...just asking your age when you had your youngest child. If you were 29 or older, were you in great health when you started? Did you have any nagging issues? Did you worry more with a pregnancy as you got older than you did with one you had in your early 20's? I ask because the chances are good right now that I am pregnant. I am 29 - will be 30 before baby is born (if pregnant). I am not at my top optimal health - and by that I mean my back hurts often (I have disk issues in my low back), my bladder dropped after my last child, my menstrual cycles have been wonky since May - Drs decided it was hormonal after ruling out other bad things. I am also a hypochondriac and I worry worry worry. After my youngest was born, I went through some severe ppd and then my OCD/hypochondria reached a new all time high. I am scared to death to be pregnant again. Doesn't help that I have read so much about women in their 30's getting pregnant and having some kind of cancer just lurking in their bodies and the pregnancy changes it to a fast growing thing and they die. :( See...this is NOT good for me at all! I am a Christian, and I believe that *if* I am pregnant, it is God's will. This was not planned as we have said for YEARS now that we are done having kids. My dh and I have one together and I have one from a previous marriage. There was a time several summers ago, when my friend had a baby, that I thought, "OMG I need another." However, that feeling has well PASSED and I know it has because my best friend just had her baby 4 months ago and NOT ONCE did I envy her or think I needed a baby too. :( Sorry for the rant. If you have gotten this far, thank you for reading. :)

My older was a chronic bedwetter. I attributed it to his ADHD and how soundly he sleeps. However, here is something odd that I observed: When my younger was almost 4, he potty trained himself. Yes, he was definitely older, but when he did decide to train, he trained 100% day and night. Not another wet diaper...ever! So...almost immediately, my then 8 year old just all of a sudden stopped wearing pullups at night and stopped wetting the bed. Hmmmmm....made me wonder if he could have controlled it earlier on and was just too lazy/used to it to stop.....

We had a very nice Christmas but I am still glad when it is over and things get back to "normal." We spent over a month in preparation and now it is time to get my house back to normal, our activities back to normal, and go on to life as we know it. :)

Haha...this sounds like my oldest son. He will stand in his room and occasionally squat down and then stand back up yelling, "mom, I have looed everywhere and I can't find it!" Generally, I come in his room and within 3 seconds find it about 3" from him. :(

I have to get toilet paper and paper towels at Wal-Mart. Does that count?

My oldest son told me when he was 8 and I confirmed. My 5 y/o still believes.

Awww...what a sweet little boy you have there! My goodness. I would have cried too! Bless his heart.

I hadn't really thought of my little one thinking anything of me taking down the decorations. I did leave the tree for him and he doesn't know that the un-decorating has anything at all to do with his brother. I am not 100% sure that it does...just that for me, when Christmas is over, Christmas is over. LOL I too am a minimalist - I can't stand clutter or colors that don't really go together and, unfortunately, Christmas seems to bring out the worst of those two things in my house.

I decorated the house the weekend after Thanksgiving, but we didn't get the tree up until the 15th. However, now everything is down EXCEPT the tree. My little guy is the only reason for that...but I don't mind the tree. It was all of the santa stuff and the snowmen (that I love every day BEFORE Christmas) that just had to go. Tomorrow, I will take down the outside decor and change the flag to reflect "winter." :) Another reason, and probably the BIGGEST reason I take down decorations on Christmas or the day after is because my ds9 goes to be with his dad for a week just after Christmas each year. As much as I am happy that he gets time with his dad, it utterly depresses me if I see Christmas stuff and my ds is not home. :(

This was a wonderful Christmas! My mother was here to spend it with us for the first time in almost 5 years. That, in itself, was great! We had a smaller than normal Christmas for the kids, yet they still LOVED it and had a complete ball. They didn't notice nor care that they only got 3 gifts to unwrap and one from "santa." That made my day. My dh and I decided not to exchange gifts, as did my mom and I because...why??? My mom lives on a budget (a small one at that) and she couldn't afford to spend $$$ on me or my dh when we have everything we want and more. My dh and I would rather pay off bills and spend some quality time together than get gifts for each other (refer to comment about having everything we want and more). I did some work and got most of the Christmas decorations down today and have my house looking almost "normal" (I hate all the clutter of Christmas). We still have up the big tree until New Year's Day because my little one asked for it. :) We finished up the day with a wonderful and yummy dinner with my MIL and S-FIL and now my mom and dh are playing UNO with my ds9 while my ds5 spends time being dressed as a transformer. The only thing I am sad about tonight is that my mom has to go home tomorrow!

I refuse to go to the movies on Christmas day. When I was a teenager, I worked at a movie theatre and I remember how much I hated each person as they walked through the door on that one day LOL...oh and it was mandatory that everyone work that day. It made me so mad! I quit just after Christmas.