The group standing with.... a police officer a cashier by a grave stone by a flagpole

Oak Meadow. I bought Oak Meadow first grade to use with DD this year. I was all excited, waiting for the UPS guy, etc. When it came and I looked through it, I just knew it wasn't for DD. Oak Meadow is very "go with the flow" and unstructured. DD6 needs something more structured and concrete. *I* wanted to do Oak Meadow myself though LOL! It just looks so neat.

I haven't read the book....I didn't know that they had one. I wish I would have read it first! But we did see the movie last weekend. I really liked it! I disagree on Zac Efron, I really liked how he played his character. And he's very easy on the eyes LOL. :D

I could see my kids doing this one day. I don't keep hardly any snack foods in the house. I want my kids to grow up with healthier eating habits than what I did. So I can see where kids would want to buy "junk" with their money if they do not get it very often.

I've started cleaning the bathroom about twice a day. It takes about 2 minutes each time. My kids leave water all over the counter from washing their hands and brushing their teeth. I take the bathroom hand towel and wipe the water from on the counter and hang it back up.....the counter is clean and it is just water so the towel is still clean. At the end of the day I'll usually take a Lysol wipe (kept under the sink for convenience....if I actually had to go and get a Lysol wipe, I know I wouldn't do that....so I've started keeping what I need in the bathroom) and wipe down the counter and sink. Then I'll use another to wipe off the toilet. I probably swish the inside of the toilet about once a week.....or if I see that it needs it. As for hair, we don't really have that issue. I don't sweep the bathroom nearly as much as I should.....but because the sink and toilet look fine, the bathroom looks nice and clean.

Thanks ya'll! :D She's a Jack Russell Terror (I mean terrier)/Chihuahua mix. I shoot with a Canon 40D.

That is awesome!!!!! You'll have to let us know if it works out!

Yikes! I just try not to think about it. We camp in our camper most of the time so we don't have to worry about it. But in a few weeks we will be staying in a hotel so that we can go to a water park. I've read up on it some. First, don't bring your luggage into the room before you've inspected it. You don't want ANY to get on your belongings. Go into the hotel room and pull up the sheets. Check for black dots (tiny bug droppings) on the mattress, especailly in the edges. Check behind the headboard of the bed with a flashlight. If it is bolted to the wall, you'll just have to do the best you can. Other than that, there's not much you can do. If for some reason you think there may be bedbugs after you've already spent the night there, go immediately to the front desk. They should pay to have your belongings specailly laundered. I read that very hot water is the only way to kill them.

So I'll direct you here. This is my 6 month old, 4 pound, mangy (literally...she's being treated) ball of trouble....Marley.

You can grow corn in them? Cool, I didn't know that. What about bugs? I guess that's my biggest concern. I'm not sure what to do about them. I want the garden to be organic, without pesticides. And how about the planting? Did you just plant from seeds? Or did you plant a plant that's already began growing?

We live in a neighbhorhood, have a pool in our backyard, etc. We really don't have room for a big garden. I thought that a raised bed garden would be perfect. It kind of gets the garden "up and out of the way" so the kids and dogs don't run through it. If you have one, do you like it? Can you really get enough veggies out of a raised bed garden for it to be worth it? Do you know if I can grow green beans? What are you growing? Did you build it yourself?

I think it is fine. DD6 lost her first tooth around the same time she turned 5. I was a little shocked because I was thinking more around the 6-7 age.

$350 per kid (x2 kids) for survival swim lessons through Infant Swim Resource. The lessons are 5 days a week, 10 minutes a day, for 6 weeks. These are not just regular YMCA type lessons. After these lessons, there's no doubt that your kid could save themselves. Pricey, but definitely worth it. My kids took the lessons last summer at 2 and 5 years old and I have no doubt that they could save themselves if they ever fell into a pool. We have a pool in our backyard and I didn't want to have to worry myself about it.

The little girl on the Well Trained mind home page looks exactly like Suri Cruise (daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). Just sayin'. I read way too much People magazine.

Somtimes kids just do strange things. They grow out of them. When DD3 was 2, she'd pick her lips. She's pick and pick and pick until they were bleeding. She did this often. Her lips looked horrible. And then she just stopped one day. A friend's 12 year old DD did the eyelash picking thing. She kept plucking them all out. And then one day she just stopped. Kids are strange LOL. It could be OCD, it could just be a thing she's going through. I'd wait and see if she just stops on her own.

They had not made it to the friends house yet.....they didn't show any of that. They showed Charlie sneaking out and then his brother standing in front of the car, then they drove towards their friends houses but never made it. Either way, even if Charlie was drunk, his actions didn't kill his brother. They were stopped at a light. But I'm certain he hadn't even made it to the party yet. I really liked this movie. I didn't expect that twist in the middle!

I think that would be fine. I always thought the point of both wedding and shower gifts were to help furnish the couple's place.

We been reading lots of books. We've done quite a bit of painting. I just covered the table well, poured the tempera paints onto paper plates, and gave them lots of cardstock to paint on. Sometimes I pick a neat book and think up activities to do that go along with that book. We've done The Big Green Pocketbook. I hid objects around the house (similar to what the girl collected in the book) and attached a clue (to the next one) to each item. I happened to have two small green bags that I had gotten at Michaels and let the girls go around collecting the items and putting it into their own green pocketbooks. We also did Corduroy. I made little folders out of manilla envelopes and put some Corduroy activites in there.....make your own bear out of cardstock/googly eyes/felt/etc. Today I'm going to take huge pieces of paper, trace the girls, and then let them decorate themselves with all sorts of craft supplies. Fill a bunch of rubbermaid containers with water, give them some cups, add some food coloring, throw in some toys, and stick them outside in the yard to play with the water...in the shade, of course. Look online for simple science experiements....my kids love doing this. Give a little more screen time. I usually let the kids choose 1 twenty minute show per day each (so they watch 40 minutes of TV per day). When it is hot, sometimes I let them agree on one more show to watch. Turn up the music really loud, make some instruments out of things laying around the house, and have a dance/music party. Play freeze dance.

It's a little over 5 miles from my house....I can be there in about 10 minutes with no traffic. But that's not the best hospital. It's just okay. If it were something important, I'd want to drive further to the hospital that's about 45 minutes away. That's the one I give birth at when I'm pregnant.

Okay, am I the only one who thought it was one phrase? ENTO (Into) NTMOLOG (entomology)....Into Entomology. I didn't realize they were two seperate ones LOL.

Yikes!!! Just another reason why I never open the door when I'm home during the daytime.

LOL!!

I only have one.....and this will be our second year of homeschooling. I'm not one to have a ton of books. I do have quite a bit of books, but only what will fit in our (small) homeschool room. I don't save curriculum I'm not currently using (unless I know for a fact that I'll use it with my next child....I haven't saved anything yet but I know I'll be saving Math U See after this year). We do have quite a bit of craft supplies because DD6 loves crafts....in fact, I just made her a craft cart yesterday. You can check it out on my blog: http://christusg.typepad.com/ . I don't own hundreds of crayons, etc....but I do have quite a bit of different types of things, but not a lot of one particular type of craft supply. All of our homeschool stuff fits in our small homeschool room and I'd like to keep it that way.

I want to make a garden too.....and I'm here in Florida as well. I had no idea that fall was the best time to garden! I just figured it would be spring. I want to make a raised bed garden in a small portion of our yard. I wonder if I have time to get that started before fall gets here? Are there certain things that are better planted in the fall here? I want to grow some tomatoes, carrots, strawberries, blueberries, and beans.

I have found that dogs are VERY possessive of bones and treats.....even more so than their regular food. I make sure that whenever I give our dogs a bone or treat, they are away from the kids and the other dog. My sister has a great dog too.....but that dog will even show her teeth at my sister when it comes to a bone. My dog has bitten the air before at my children. Not bit them, just nipped the air as a warning. Did the dog actually nip the child? Or the air? I feel that growling (to a certain degree) is okay. They are warning the child that they do not want to be bothered then. I tell my kids that if the dog ever growls (which, honestly, has only been like twice when my kids were "in their space") then they need to take that as a warning and leave him alone for the time being. I am VERY cautious with dogs and children though. If I EVER felt, for the slightest second, that my dog has become aggressive with the children (as opposed to the children invading his space and him feeling like he needs to give a warning), then the dog would be gone in a heartbeat. And as far as watching every second......I'm sorry, but that's what I do with young children and dogs until I know that the child is old enough to respect the dogs space. Even if I have to seperate with a baby gate when I can't be watching, that's what I do. That being said, our dog does tend to stay to himself and find his own place to be, usually away from the kids.