No, not after authors....but my 5 year old DD wants to name her future three children: Scooby Doo Martha (after the dog on Martha Speaks) Bolt (from the Disney movie) Do you get the dog trend going on here? I told her maybe she should just stick with dogs when she's older. :tongue_smilie:

I had two sugar cookies today (from the stash I have hidden on the bottom shelf of the panty, way in the back, away from the eyes of children and hubby). Two sugar cookies aren't *too* bad, right? Well, until I opened the can of vanilla frosting and slathered them till it was an inch thick with frosting. Then I walked into the laundry room to eat them so the kids could not ask for any. :tongue_smilie:

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. Something messy and yummy that they will need those napkins for! :D

Totally :iagree: !!!! I don't care about religion....I care about Jesus.

DH only travels about twice a year. Both times he usually flies to some place that is not within driving distance. One time it is usually the UK. He would just have to wait it out in the hotel room. I never thought of calling the hotel and asking them to check on him. Great idea! I'll file that away in my mind for future reference, should I ever need it. There's no way I could fly to get him. For one, I do not fly. For two, it would cost a lot of money. And for three, if he was in the UK I would not even be allowed to go since I do not have a passport. I'd definitely call and check on him a lot though. I'd try to give him some instructions, but he probably would not listen to them LOL.

Ditto that exactly!!

I know people say they hate Wal Mart on BF, but it is actually my very favorite BF place to shop. They make sure they have PLENTY of everything. I have NEVER not gotten what I went to Wal Mart to get on BF. And I like how our local ones set them up too...much more organized than other retail stores. Last year I wanted a few different things and was able to get them all with no problems.

Eww, no. I cannot stand the look of skinny jeans or leggings.

I was curious about stocking sized games as well. I ordered Zingo online....I'm hoping it will fit into DD's stocking! What about.....LCR, Toss Up, Blink, Pass the Pigs.

LOL, at least he's patient! :D

I have a different relationship with my sisters. I'm 29....one of my sisters is 25 and the other is 16 (yes, we all have the same mom and dad LOL). We're all at different stages in life. I've been married since I was 19, have two kids, and I'm a stay at home mom. My 25 year old sister still lives at home with my parents, never married, no kids, is working and attending college. My 16 year old sister is still just a kid. So we're all at different stages in life. I'm closest to my 25 year old sister. In fact, we just went shopping today and took my 2 year old with us. She's a great aunt to my girls. We do not call and chat on the phone with each other very much due to the life differences. But I see her probably twice a week for a little bit (we go eat at my parents house every Thurs night) and we go shopping together often. They all (my two sisters and my parents) live in the same neighborhood as I do.

Wow, you people are brave LOL! I am terrified of getting food poisoning....I'd never eat it! Usually if I have to play "would you eat this", I usually do not. I'm a chicken. :tongue_smilie:

We were at a large Christmas activity in our town yesterday and were waiting in a long line for the women's bathroom. I was standing in back of two strangers chatting with each other. One was an 8 year old girl with her dad....the other was a woman. The woman was chatting with the 8 year old girl. Then came the question from the woman: "What grade are you in?" And then, there it was....The Pause. I immediately knew why the girl paused LOL! I knew she was going to say she was homeschooled. And she did! She informed the woman that she was between 3rd and 5th grade, depending on the subject. No one could say this girl was not socialized, she could carry on a conversation better than I could!

I would let him stay. It sounds like he's just hearing the basic structure of a lot of Christian faiths, which is that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. There's no way around that if that's the faith of the church that he is attending. Maybe he could have learned it in better terms than "saving that Mormon girl". And maybe he did but repeated it incorrectly. I know what he's talking about......if you believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, then any other way will not result in Heaven. It's a matter of caring for and wanting only the best for those you love......for them to have a home in Heaven one day. It sounds like the program truly does have some wonderful qualities. The distraction fast sounds awesome! If you want, why don't you go sit in and observe a few times. It may mortify your teen, but sometimes that is what a parent has to do. I know that when I was 15, if my parents had tried to pull me out of my youth group, I would have had a conniption fit. It was my place where I could socialize, where I could worship God and learn more about him, where I could relax. I looked forward to every meeting, every outing, ever church service. If you do pull him out, you may want to be prepared for one angry teenager.

We got cats about a year and a half ago. I'd never had a cat before but I thought they would be fairly easy. I mean, they use the bathroom in a box, they do not have to go outside, they don't really get dirty, they clean themselves, and you can leave them home if you need to travel for a couple of nights. Ummm...no. We had two cats. They were just the sweetest things.....but there was cat hair EVERYWHERE. I mean, hair balls would "blow" across our kitchen floor. And we have a dyson too! The cats would get on our kitchen table, despite everything we did to teach them to stay down. There would be hair up there, where we ate at. They would walk across our table with those paws that also walked in the litter box. And I HATED cleaning out the litter box. Absolutely positively hated it. And cleaning up the litter that somehow got around the cage. And hearing them run through the house playing at night. Not to mention, I also found out I was allergic to cats. Finally, I just could not live that way anymore. I was growing to resent the cats. We searched for 6 months for a good home for them. I refused to just drop them off at the animal shelter. I knew that two adult cats would probably just get put down. So we finally found homes for them. And I am a MUCH happier person LOL. As you can tell, I'm in the "dont get a cat" club LOL. We have our dog....we love our dog.

Honestly, I do not "get" the whole "Narnia is a Christian story" deal. I mean, I understand the parallel story, but why is it Christian if it is not about Jesus/God/etc? I don't know, to me that would be more reason NOT to watch it. They are portraying Aslan (the Lion) as Jesus Christ. Sounds kind of confusing to me, especailly for a child. Maybe even sacrilegious too. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the Chronicles of Narnia, I think it is a good, clean story with good morals. I've watched it and read the books. But I see it as just a story, not a "Christian" story". As for Harry Potter, I'm a fan. And I consider myself a pretty conservative Christian. I see HP as pure fantasy. Would I let my young children/teens watch it or read the books? Definitely not. I just do not feel that it is a story for children, especailly the later books. And if I feel like it *could* shake their faith, then I will steer them away from it. HP doesn't shake my faith in the least....I know that it is fantasy, there's no way I'm believing otherwise. It's imagination to me. As is Disney. We are huge fans of Disney. My kids know that the magic in Snow White, Cinderella, etc is just pretend. Actually, I have much more of a problem with the Twilight series than the HP series. In Twilight, Bella is pretty much worshipping Edward. She raises him up on such a pedestal that it bothers me a lot. And the lust in the book is just too much. No child/teen of mine would ever be reading/watching this series. The magic doesn't bother me, but the "worshipping" and lust does. As for shows like Desperate Housewives, I think we should stay away from those. They are real people in what could be real situations. I do think that it causes us to "tolerate" the sin even more. It downplays the severity of sin. I want my conscience (the Holy Spirit) to continue to tell me right from wrong....I do not want to dull that sense by constantly exposing myself to sinful things on TV. We used to watch Heroes and Mercy, but have recently stopped due to things that I feel are immoral. We are also about to stop watching 90210. I've felt uncomfortable about that one for a while and I need to do something about it. It just centers all around sex....high schoolers having sex at that! If there's a random sin in a movie/show, I can be okay with that and overlook it. But if the series seems to focus solely around sin, then I cannot be okay with that. Sometimes it surprises me with what Christians allow themselves to view/listen to/etc. And I'm not without blame there (above paragraph). But I know Christians who listen to raunchy music about sex and affairs and curse words and stuff like that. I don't think that's the type of things that God wants us to be putting into our minds.

Yes, Amazon annoys me with their pricing sometimes. Most of the time, they are the cheapest place to get something.....however, when they are not the cheapest, their price is like waaaaay above any other store. Not just a little above, but a ton above. I don't get it.

I've been watching these since about August and they've been flying off the shelves since them. I bought some for my girls way back then. I only got them 2 hamsters each, along with 2 beds and carriers. I'm not doing the whole she-bang because I dont think they would get played with in their cages and stuff. I can totally see my girls just toting them around though. Check Wal Mart early each morning...they usually get their shipments at night and stock them overnight. At least I know ours does it that way.

I've never tried it, but I just cant seem to justify the $25. I order from there often, but I always make the $25 minimum to get free shipping. In fact, over the last two weeks I've already made three different orders and made the $25 minimum each time.

We do have quite a bit of Playmobil. And she will play with them when big sister pulls them out. But after playing with them for a day, she'll go back to her Little People. I love looking through the Little People catalog! But we just have SO many sets that I cannot justify purchasing more when she's perfectly content with what we have. We have the Noah's Ark set, the castle, the family house, the pirate ship, the nativity, the Christmas train, the airplane, the school bus, the playground, and tons of Little People and animals to go with them. She rarely touches the accessories, just carried around and plays with about 30 or so of the actual People LOL. And we have all the usual stuff like strollers, wooden puzzles, musical instruments, etc. I think I will check out the Wedgits....and the unit blocks and tree house blocks. Maybe she could build her Little People some sort of structure. :D By the way, I'm SO excited about the one stuffed animal that I got for her this year. She LOVES llamas. Not cats....not dogs....but llama's LOL (thanks to Diego). Webkinz just released a llama and I got it for her. She's going to flip! She has one lone llama figure that she plays with along with her Little People, so she's going to love that she has one to hug now!

Actually, her aunt has already snagged those up to give to her for Christmas LOL.

As for the Wegits.....she may like something like that. How do they go together? She does enjoy playing with our counting cubes sometimes. Those stick together and she'll just make tall towers out of them. I might have to keep these in mind. I was actually considering some sort of building toy. We had duplo blocks and they never got played with so we recently sold them. We have a kitchen set with accessories, she has purses and tote bags (these actually get used a lot too because she carries her little people around in them). I am definitely trying to stick with a lot of non-toy items. I'm going to be on the look out for some Diego clothes (she loves Diego). And she loves princesses as well, so I guess it may be worth it to check out the Disney store online for Princess clothing. Thanks so much everything! Definitely checking into the Wedgits!

Buy the cheapest one you can find. Seriously. I bought DH a $200 name brand one a few years ago for Christmas. It died withint 3 months! So on Black Friday the following year, I bought a $50 one that WalMart had. The thing is still working today! In fact, Wal Mart is having a deal on them again on Black Friday. They usually have PLENTY, so you should grab one there.

Seriously, that's ALL she plays with. I'm soooo glad that she loves them and it is so cute to see her toting them around all the time, but she leaves me with zero gift ideas LOL. We have all of the "regular" toys we need like Littlest Pet Shop, stuffed animals, My Little Ponies, dolls, etc. We're good to go in those departments. I can't just get her nothing. DD5 is SO easy to buy for....I have a list a mile long of things she will really like. Stuff like art sets, an easel, fun science kits, computer/DS/Leapster games, board games, Webkinz, etc. DD5 is covered. I just can't have DD5 opening gifts and DD2 opening nothing. Is there anything really unique that you've seen/heard about? Or that your dc really loves to play with? She's a very mature 2 years old....she'll realize her sister is opening gifts but not her.

Haven't bought it yet, but I'm seriously considering one for my two DD's this year.