That is a precious story!

My sons have DS' (which I LOATHE, btw). The games they have include Avatar, Spongebob Attack of the Toy Box, 3 or 4 Pokemon, Transformers Decepticons and Autobots, and the ONE educational (or at least less brain waste-y) game is one that has 4 "board" games on there - connect 4, battleship, and two others.

Oh gosh, I would have cried myself. Oh my goodness. :( That brings back college nightmares! LOL

We did regular work. We finished up on Friday and will start a Unit Study on the birth of Jesus and will be making ornaments through the next 10 days. :)

Home Alone (the original) Polar Express A Christmas Carol/Scrooge (there is a Mickey Mouse Version for the littles) A Christmas Story ("goofy bb gun one" LOL which happens to be my all time favorite!) Rudolph Santa Claus is Coming to Town The Santa Clause I and II (and III) It's a Wonderful Life (I so hated this movie until I as old enough to appreciate it) How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both the Jim Carrey version - for older family members and the Cartoon version for even the little).

We just figured this out as well. Luckily ourse did not catch fire, but it did come close. We were lucky...as it was running after bedtime! Now we take it apart and clean it out twice a year as well...maybe we will up that to 4 times a year!

Just Christmas here.

Nice to hear other women are also taking meds and feeling great. My MIL said it best when she told me that if I had diabetes, I would not let it go unmedicated...so why do I let my mental state rule my life when I could take something and live again. Bam! Like hitting the nail on the head there!! And I am just soooo happy I took the leap. So glad you other ladies are feeling better too. :)

My dh has a 2007 Toyota Rav 4. He loves it. He drives a good bit to work and back and the gas mileage has not really been too bad for him.

I agree! I am sorry you are going through that. I have shared here that I am OCD and suffer from hypochondriasis. Praise God, I have started taking Lexapro and am feeling 95% better! I am so much happier this Christmas season than I have been during others and I know the meds are helping me. The only drawback I have is that I really didn't want to be on meds for this...I wanted to kick it myself...but I have come to terms and my peace with doing what I need to do to make certain I stay mentally happy and sane for my family.

I will oblige and feel sorry for you. I am, unfortunately, cursed with a similar bio family (on my dad's side) and I completely know the feeling. Last trip I made to see my dad took me 3 years to actually do it...and it will take another 10 to make me do it again.

Awww - I miss singing! Your daughter has a beautiful voice and I love her Pie Jesu. I sang Shubert's mass in G in highschool and it was an experience I will NEVER forget. Thank you for sharing your daughter's wonderful gift with us!

For me, it was a night out with no kids with my dh. :) No matter where we went, it was worth it to have that time together.

They don't know how to just be kids. They are sheltered and less mature than their public schooled peers. They are all dorks. The whole family just wants to be different and weird.

We are enjoying Writing Tales II, and I will use WT I with my younger son. Then we plan to move on to CW. :)

I agree with the pp. Horizons 3 and Singapore 3A/3B are the two I can compare for you. Horizons taught Roman Numerals and Singapore didn't (not in 3 anyway). Otherwise, it was very similar. My oldest son did Horizons 3 over the summer and just literally hated it. We switched to Singapore 3A this fall and he has really loved it. It covered, in depth, multiplication facts and long division as well as addition and subtraction earlier in the book (we actually skipped a lot of that when we started though). We are now getting ready to move on to measurement. I have not seen as much geometry in the level 3 Singapore as I did in the Horizons. It seems they taught angles, rays, and so in the level 3 stuff with Horizons. But I think they are both approximately 1/2 year ahead of a typical public school.

We tried level 3 ...twice. Each time, I found it witty and humorous, but the approach was just not right for my son.

Oh it totally sounds like something I actually did as a kid. My mom also didn't blow the whistle. Actually, there were LOTS of times my mom didn't blow the whistle. Once I was at a party where we thought we could spend the night. We all got drunk, then the guy's mom told us all we had to go home. Drunk. She told my boyfriend and I to call our parents. Well, my mom was okay with me drinking a bit...especially since she thought I would be staying there. My boyfriend's parents were missionaries and would have died on the spot had their son called them and said, "hey I am drunk and need you to come get me." So we called my mom and told her that I was okay to drive (by this time, I was) and she told the other mom that she was coming to meet us at such and such place and take my bf home. She had no intention of meeting us. I drove us to my house and he spent the night with me. Okay...wait...let's NOT go by my example at all. I had a pretty crazy teen-aged life. LOL But, I lived AND my bf didn't get in trouble, and OMG if my kids ever even try to pull something like that I will freak out!!!!

The words sound like letters in the alphabet and SPELL something... If - Letter after g in the alphabet You- U See - C (the K in seek combines with Amy) and you get - K...ME Does that help?

Okay...so I am thinking 3 kids - two boys and one girl were being "inappropriate"...but who were "the victims" and how were they victimized?? I am totally missing something here...

It will be...if you set your mind to make it that way after Christmas. :)

That is so very sad...and such a senseless act for anyone to kill a child. :( It just reminds me that God's plan is not always easy for us to understand. The faith this family demonstrates in such a tragedy is amazing.

Sounds as if you are already looking in the right place and are faithful that God will see you through this. I know several people that have been in similar situations and placed their faith in God and also came out just fine. My mom was one of them. She lost her job last summer (not this past, but the one before) after being a store manager for 15 years with the company. Her severance was okay, not great, and the unemployment in TN was atrocious. She took a low paying job for awhile and then finally found the place she works now. It was a rough road, but she never missed a house payment, never went hungry. God is so good! I will be praying for your family.

Gosh, I would be more inclined to buy her clothes or shoes or something she may NEED rather than the frivilous stuff. I have never been the gift recipient, but I have a family that I know well in my mind - and I can see the mom in my head right now. Her clothes are ratty, torn, and dirty. She shops at our church yardsales for her son...not ever for herself. If I were to give her a candle to burn, she would think it was nuts. She would want clothing for herself. To us, that seems so "necessity" but to her, that is something amazing because she doesn't have the means to buy nice clothes for herself and they are something she can use over and over and over. God bless your generosity!

Well, I don't really follow CM, so I guess my answer is not going to be a good one. LOL My kids have a lot of free time after school. It is their time. We eat, play games, relax, make crafts, play with friends, etc. There is no real structure to our day after school and I like it that way.