I furnished our whole school room with the 3 shelf bookshelves from Wal-Mart. Maybe you got a bad load of them or something.....we have like 8 of them in our home and it took maybe 20 minutes per shelf to put together. The most time consuming part was nailing the backboard onto the shelves. They are all in great condition and have served us well. We bought the first three shelves and had them for years and then went back to purchase 5 more to complete our school room. You can see them in this blog post about my school room: http://christusg.typepad.com/thecarlsons/2010/07/the-finished-product.html

Index cards....I never thought I'd use them very much, but I use them for everything! Those smelly pencils....I cant remember what they are called Candy The Old Schoolhouse magazine Nice pen for her to use Cute t-shirt with something about homeschooling on it (cafepress.com)

Oh no! Gosh, you've had it rough here lately! We went through something like that last year. Seemed like our family was never going to be illness-free. It is really tiring!

I really dread all the girlfriend stuff that goes on in later years. My two girls are only 6 and 3 right now, so we have a few years ahead of us....but I dread that drama that seems to come with girlfriends. I hope we can avoid it....good luck to us on that one, huh?

I'm a photographer....though I do not have an official business up and running yet. I just don't have the time for that right now. But I have had clients and I have researched for the day when I begin my business. That said, I'd most definitely give away a small print package with the free session fee. That way people will have something to look forward to even if they feel they cannot afford to spend more money for prints with a custom photographer. But of course the goal is for you to take awesome pics so they will want to purchase more. I dont think I'd give away something with every entry....that would be too difficult. But you need to make entering very very simple. I know that if I have to do anything in depth to make an entry into something, I will just skip it.

We go to WalMart. A lot of the frames are $9 and then the lenses are seperate. My DD's total price came to $55.

I've never heard it used with "the."

I post pics....lots of pics....on my blog. I don't use my kids real names. I don't blog about daily schedules, when we'll be gone, etc. I blog about places we've been sometimes, but only when we return. I try not to mention our exact location. On Facebook, I am VERY picky about who my friends are. Since I DO post about what I'm doing, etc, I'm very select about those on my friends list. And about posting from your cell phone and someone knowing you are not home.....I post from home on my cell phone all the time. I don't sit at my computer a lot during the day, so I just pull out my phone.

I fill one sippy in the morning and set them on the counter. If you lose it, you search till you find it if you want water. Okay, if the search goes on for too long then I'll grab another cup for them....but they have to make an effort to find it before I'll get another. I used to go through cup after cup after cup. I was tired of washing cups so I designated one for the day.

How cool is that??!!! Your son did a great job!

My 6 year old daughter is shy. Very shy. A therapist actually said she has selective mutism, but I don't agree with that diagnosis because she WILL do things like answer questions in Sunday School (occasionally) and talk to her speech therapist (it only took a week or two before she'd talk to her). From what I've read, children with selective mutism will talk to no one like Sunday School teachers and school teachers. Now she does not talk to other children in the class or say anything other than a one word answer to a specific few teachers (some teachers she says nothing to)....but she will talk occasionally to select people that are not family. I believe there is a fine line between being shy and being rude. At 6 years old, I think it's becoming rude to not answer people. If a cashier or someone of the like asks her a simple question, I think she should answer. I don't care if she says only one word (such as "six" when asked how old she is), but I do think she should provide some sort of answer. If someone gives her something, she should be able to say "thanks." I understand that she is shy....I am the EXACT same way. I never said a word in school, I don't carry on conversations with people now, in a room full of people I'm sitting alone on the side, etc. So I know she is shy and I understand that. I'm fine with that. I just don't want her to be rude from being shy. Know what I mean? Does anyone else have a child like this? How do you help encourage them to answer people? I've told her that she needs to answer people, even if she only says one word, but she refuses. I can't open her mouth and make her speak. And I don't think it should be a battle. But I'd like her to answer people.

On a side note....my husband had a lot of problems with contacts and then he tried the Acuvue Oasys (sp?) and he's had absolutely no problems with them. I've tried lots of brands and can't find any that work with my eyes. I have very small eyes...so that combined with my allergies is just terrible.

I have tried and tried to wear contacts. I absolutely hate my glasses and want so bad to change to contacts. But I just can't do it. I honestly feel like I need to claw my eyes out whenever the contacts are in. I have lots of allergies and I'm wondering if the contacts are just "foreign" to my body and my body just doesn't deal well with them. People keep telling me "oh, give it a week and you will adjust." Well, they hurt so badly and bother me so much that I can barely give it just a few hours. With your allergies, I'm wondering if that is effecting your contacts.

I'd give it a few weeks....unless you begin having horrible sinus pressure or a fever. Then it could be an infection and not just a cold.

I'd just go....cold sores happen and they should understand that.

We don't have a public pool around here....but every time we go on vacation they seem to have to close the pool due to poop! In May we went to a hotel with a nice water area, lazy river, slide, etc. We went down to the pool and it was closed...they had just closed it a few minutes before. Due to poop. Ugh. So we waited the hour and came back. We got in the pool for 5 minutes....no exaggerating....and DH looked down and saw something by his foot. More poop! ICK!! I don't even know where it came from. We told the pool workers and they had to close the pool for another hour. We gave up and walked to the smaller pool that had no slide or river. Last weekend we went to a local water park. They had to close the wave pool for an hour due to poop. I mean...seriously? This is easily avoidable!! If you have doubts about how well your child is potty trained, then put something on them! I have a question though....even if a child has a swim diaper on and the poop in contained....it still touches the water and the water goes through the diaper. So isn't the water still technically contaminated even though the poop itself is contained? I've always wondered this.

No, I don't feel guilty. There are trade-off's to each job. He gets up early each day, goes to work whether its raining or shining, has to deal with people, has to go even if he doesn't feel 100% that day, has to answer to someone, etc. However, when he comes home, he's done with his job. He's home in the evenings....he's home on the weekends....he talks to adults all day long. Me, I rarely have "time off." Sure, I may sit down during the day. I may even scrapbook some days....but I'm still "on duty." If the kids need something, I have to do it. If a kid wakes in the middle of the night, I'm the one on it because he has to go to work the next day. I'm never really off the clock, so to speak. Do I envy his position? No...but my position sure is a lot of hard work too. I'm just glad I get to do it from my home. I'm glad I don't have to drive to work in the rain, get kids up and ready in the mornings, deal with a boss, attend work if I'm not feeling well, etc.

This printer is AWESOME....and it is $40 at Wal-Mart. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Canon-Pixma-MP250-Photo-All-In-One-Inkjet-Printer-Copier-Scanner/12534987 I was very skeptical about a $40 printer. I'm the one who thinks that electronics are "you get what you pay for." Then I saw the tons of positive reviews it got on Walmart.com. So I said "what the heck, I can always return it" and I bought it that day from in the store. I love this printer....especailly for $40 LOL! It copies, it scans, it prints. I never use the color ink, just the black and white. I keep it in the school room and use it for printing worksheets from off of my laptop or making a copy of a worksheet. I never even leave it hooked up to the computer. It is really great.

I had never seen a preview for Inception or even heard of the movie till I saw it all over Facebook and here this week saying it is the best movie ever. Looks like I'll have to free up some time in my weekend to go see it!

If it should not be shared/discussed, then it shouldn't be on Facebook.

I've been thinking of doing something similar. My girls are 6 and 3, which sounds like a good age for something like this. I like the points and the treasure chest. Actually, maybe I can do tickets. We have a ton of tickets that I bought one time....and we already have a treasure chest that the kids are constantly begging to choose from.

I think we were raised in the same family. I remember going to the grocery store with my mom and throwing in all sorts of junk food. I'd come home and eat 5 little debbie cakes in a row. My mom made my lunch to take to school....I'd have a sandwich and two treats. No veggies, no fruits. All veggies were from a can. I was not made to eat them if I didn't want to though....I rarely touched a veggie. Never touched a fruit. I have no idea how I escaped childhood as skinny as I was. I was always running around outside, which was probably the only thing that saved me. I wonder if they just didn't worry about food as much back then? We're much more "in the know" today, if you know what I mean. I am EXTREMELY picky now though....it's probably due to my lack of food exposure growing up.

Yikes! That is really scary!! We have fans/lights in our living room as well as all the bedrooms too. We never run them though. Thankfully the one in our bedroom (the kids sleep in there too) is the at the foot of the bed....so even if it ever fell, it would not be on us. That is really freaky to think about.

We're in FL...I think that tent camping with no A/C would kill me. Gotta love the A/C in our pop up.