We do the "full Santa" with our kids. No, I do not regret it. It's part of what makes Christmas "magical". We love doing it.

Thanks for all of the advice everyone! She's finally stopped throwing up as often. She's keeping a bit of pedialyte down and she's asleep right now. I think I'll wake her periodically to give her more pedialyte. DH bought the canned peaches but I haven't gotten to try them yet. Hopefully I wont need to, but I'll keep them on hand for the next illness.

How cool! He's gorgeous!! I'd love to know more about how he helps your son. Guide dogs fascinate me.....they are so incredibly smart! Does he keep your son away from places that could put his life in danger?

Canned peaches, huh? I think I'll have DH make a run to the store in a few minutes. I'm willing to try anything right now! Poor kiddo is still throwing up the pedialyte.

Oh no!!! Ick!!!

Hmmm, not sure that I agree with you. Yes, mothers do need some outside interests just to keep their sanity at times. But I do not feel that working outside the home, generating income, etc is what I need to be doing. God has blessed me with these two beautiful little girls and I intend to mother them until they are grown. I don't feel like I need to do other things to be fulfilled. I enjoy photography and I would love to start my own business in the future....but not at (what I feel) would be the expense of being less hands-on with my children. If I do start a business, I would not take on a full load of clients.

Thanks so much!!! The pedialyte just arrived and I had DD drink only a bit. I'll make sure that I only give her very small amounts until she can go for 30 minutes without throwing up. She can't make it to the toilet, but she will tell me when her tummy hurts and I know that it's time to grab the ol' bowl. Right now my poor baby is curled up on a towel on the kitchen floor. :sad: It's so hard when they are sick.

We've never really dealt with stomach bugs. My 2 year old (nearly 3) began throwing up last night. She threw up at 3:30 AM, then not again until 11 AM, then again around 3 PM, again at 5, and most recently a few minutes ago at 5:15. So the intervals seem to be getting closer together. I'm worried about dehydration because she is keeping nothing down. My mom is getting us some pedialyte. Has anyone used this? Anything else that anyone can recommend? Thanks so much!!

I'm so glad to hear that all of your young children loved the books! I was just thinking that I would need to wait until she was older since the Prairie Primer unit study is for older kids. I can't wait to get started now! I wonder if my 2 year old (she's almost 3) will be interested since there are no big colorful photos.

Hmmm....I'm not really sure. I wasn't all that motivated in school. I didn't do awful, but I didn't do wonderful. Just average. I was the kid sitting in my desk with a text book in front of me, but hidden in the textbook was a fiction book that I was currently reading while the teacher taught. I read a lot. As an adult, I've taught myself a lot. I taught myself photography and Photoshop. If I need to learn something, I just research it and do what I need to do. So I guess you could say that I am a self learner to a degree.

I'd like to do some crafts and special actvities while reading the books as well. Does anyone have any recommendations for websites that have some neat activities? I'd love to find some sort of pioneer festival around here, but I don't think that we have one.

Did you :::gasp::: break your iPhone??? :tongue_smilie: I think my DH would have a near heart attack if I did that LOL. I hope you can get it fixed!

We're looking into getting wood laminate floors in the future. We'll be putting it everywhere but the bedrooms. I like that look. However, I have really bad alleriges so I'm wondering if we shouldn't put it everywhere. But then again, I do not like the look of it and plus, our cost would really go up.

Okay, you guys have convinced me LOL! We are going to go ahead and read through the series. And another plus, my mom told me she has all 10 of the Little House books and just dropped them off at my house! We'll be starting them very soon!

We're a member of a homeschool group, so we do some field trips with them. However, we've only gone on one with them so far. It was a field trip to Publix to learn about all of their different departments....it was really neat. There was another one that got rained out, and another one where there was not enough people that signed up. We have one this month for a tour of the library. I do like field trips.....but sometimes it does not seem like a field trip, especailly if it is just us. Tomorrow DH is off work and we are going to the zoo. I'm considering it a field trip. I'm having DD take her nature/animal notebook and we are going to record some things in it and draw some pictures. It's a field trip!

My youngest sister was homeschooled since kindergarten. My middle sister was homeschooled from sometimes in high school. I was never homeschooled though. My husbands cousin was homeschooled from elementary (I think kindergarten) until high school when she wanted to go to a private school. My husband's other cousin homeschools her three daughters (12, 8, and 5)....all since kindergarten.

I do. I'm a photographer and take LOTS of photos. There is no way that I can back them up to DVD's all the time. Plus, they say you are supposed to switch DVD's every 5 years because they can become corrupt. That would take me FOREVER. I use Carbonite. I don't have to worry about a thing. My hard drive has never failed so I've never had to download all my photos from their online back up (which would probably take forever....but at least I would have them). I've been happy with Carbonite. It runs in the background and backs up all my photos. I even have it back up any documents, videos, and scrapbook pages that I create. You can designate which folders you want it to back up.

I don't want to begin reading the big novels till she is a little older. I want to do a unit study on it so I want to save them. But I know that there are some smaller chapter books that I can read to her during our read-aloud time. I've searched online but I'm kind of confused. Are there different series? Different volumes? Sets? Does anyone have any recommendations?

Good for you!!! Your boys will benefit from it! I allow my girls (5 and 2) to watch about an hour of TV per day (they each choose one 30 minute show). Usually this is first thing in the morning while they wake up.....but sometimes it is in the afternoon instead. Very occasionally they will watch a movie in the evening in addition to their 1 hour of TV, but this is not a frequent thing, so it does not bother me. When I was pregnant with DD#2, I admit that I let DD#1 watch more TV than I should have (or rather, what I feel is too much).....it is hard having morning sickness with a 2 year old running around. So I totally know where you are coming from in reference to that. I had to scale back after I began feeling better.

Wow, that video was amazing! Three shocks and then he woke up and could talk and knew where he was and who he was. Those lifeguards did great.....very calm.

I agree with everyone else....I'd keep it as grounded. If she didn't want to tell her friends that she's grounded, she shouldn't have gotten herself there in the first place. At least that's what I'd tell my kids. :D

I agree with the message.....but can't stand the song. I don't like the word fool, the Bible speaks against calling someone a fool. And I cannot stand the televised audition process that Idol does. It is very deceiving. Not everyone gets to audition in front of the judges. Everyone goes through Round 1 of auditions in front of Idol employees. They choose the ones who go through and get to audition in front of the judges. Which means that they let all these awful singers pass through Round 1 purely for entertainment value. Drives me insane.

Usually the same for us!! But my DD is still very young and schooling does not take as much time.

Thank you so much for recommending this place!!!! I've been wanting to switch my family's shampoo, soap, and toothpaste to natural ones, but every time I look at the prices in the health food stores, I just cringe and never purchase them. This place has awesome prices!!! I just purchased toothpaste for the kids, shampoo for me, conditioner for me, 3 bars of soap, and a shampoo for the kids for under $30.....and shipping is a flat $4.99!! Yay!!! Thanks again!!

Ugh, it's annoying isnt it? The more I am "in the know" about these kind of things, the more it makes me anxious and wish that I wasn't "in the know" anymore LOL. Seems like there are harmful chemicals in everything! I found out a few weeks ago that most clothing that is shipped from overseas (which is majority of clothing) has formaldehye on it to protect while shipping. Yikes!!