I forgot.....we also have one of those trees!

I feel your pain LOL. My DD is 5 and she loves her stuffed animals. We currently have an entire toy box filled with stuffed animals, plus two laundry bins, plus a smaller rubbermaid bin just for Webkinz (like 30 of them!), plus a small drawer for small stuffed animals. We used to use two nets but the animals were inaccessible. But yeah, this is AFTER cleaning some out and giving them to Goodwill. Ugh! But she just loves them!

Wow, I've never heard of post-viral hives. I learn something new every day here!

The one thing I would definitely veto is advertising in the paper. Who knows what sort of strangers you could get that way. And I would not want them interacting with my 8 year old daughter. Other than that, I'm not sure what to tell you. I have a determined little one too. She's five. We had a garage sale last weekend and she spent the weeks leading up to it creating all sorts of things to sell at her own little table at the garage sale. I kept trying to gently tell her that people will probably not buy the sorts of things she was creating. One man purchased something from her, and then my parents and sisters stopped by and bought her out. :D So in the end, she was happy. But I think she would have been sad had she not sold anything. What your daughter is doing definitely may be hard to market....but maybe you can allow her to market only to people on your street, and to people that you know. Gently tell her that she may need to branch out and do other things rather than just training kids to train their dogs.

No, if you hide them, they do not know it. They will not even know it if you delete them, unless they go looking through their friends list and notice you are missing. If you hide them, I'm pretty sure you can still get PM's from them though.

We'll be trick or treating at Disney.....the germ capital of the world. :D Lots of hand sanitizer and lysol wipes will be joining us!

Nope, not too warm.....that's freezing down here in Florida LOL! We'll break out the coats and mittens to go along with that soup. :D

Wow.....just wow.:confused:

In the past few years, I've been.... The Cat in the Hat a hippie a pirate a super hero Cruella DeVille

Try Etsy.com . That's what I did last year for Christmas. You can find some cute stuff for good prices. It's all handmade. But there's also some expensive ones on there too, so you just have to look through it.

We're doing almost the exact same thing this year! I cleaned out the playroom of toys that the kids do not play with. Almost everything I pulled out was electronic! The staples that they really used didn't talk, or move, or have lights and sounds. The toys they really play with are the ones who let them use their own imaginations, make their own sounds, etc. Here's the things we kept in the playroom: Little People Schleich animals My Little Ponies Littlest Pet Shop puzzles stuffed animals (Webkinz and others) Playmobil And here's the possible things I'm getting my girls for Christmas: bilibo's more Playmobil domino race set ant farm crayola masterworks art set for DD5 keva planks lots of crafts and art things for DD5 new Webkinz each Little People Animalville for DD2 playsilks

This little girl's house is about 5 minutes away from my house. :crying: We drove by there today and it really hits home when you see all the news vans out front, police everywhere, and the huge memorial of stuffed animals and flowers. So sad. Everyone around here is holding their kids a bit closer now. There's a child killer on the loose. :mad:

Little People. We bought a bunch of them when DD5 was less than a year old. And we've acquired more over the last few years. DD5 played with them often, and still does. But DD2 absolutely LOVES them. That's all she's played with for the last year or more and she plays with them daily, for hours each time. And of course, they are excellent quality....you can't mess up a Little People.

I have not read all the replies....but I know what you mean. I'm the mom who says "No, I'm sorry, they cannot have so-and-so-treat." Yes, my kids give me the pouty face at times, but for the most part they know that sugar and treats is just that.....a treat, which happens on occasion. No every day. Not every other day. This time of year is hard. We are attending a Halloween event tonight, as well as on Saturday evening. Then we are going down to Disney and attending their Halloween party. Plus we'll be trick or treating down there on Halloween night. Yesterday at homeschool group was birthday celebration day for the month, and there was cake. We went to DH's aunt's house for dinner on Tuesday night and they had dessert after dinner (which we never have at home). It's just crazy!!!!! My kids will get tons of candy during the next week. I'm allowing them to choose 20 of their favorites from each night that we have an event. Those 20 will go in a jar, along with the others they choose from other events, and they can have one or two pieces of candy per day. When I was a kid, my mom used to let me take my entire bag of Halloween candy up to my room and eat it all, whenever I pleased. Now, today, I have a huge sweet tooth and I dislike most fruits and veggies. I wish I had been brought up with better eating habits. So I'm doing better for my kids. I'm the mom who would not allow my kids to have a whole piece of cake yesterday at homeschool group. Everyone else had a huge piece. I took one piece, cut it in three slices, and split it between my two DD's and me. I don't want my kids to miss out on the sweet stuff, I just want it really monitored and in moderation. But at home, we do not keep sweets around, and we eat mostly stuff that does not have high fructose corn syrup or any dyes.

I know what you mean! My 5 year old actually gets upset if we cannot fit in science! :D

Definitely the Leapster. We purchased a VSmile and took it back....the graphics were horrible. We then purchased a Leapster. My DD got it for her 4th birthday (she's 5.5 now) and she loves it. The graphics are much better than the VSmile.

Thanks for your replies everyone! I'll talk to her and see if she has a preference. Personally, I'd like to learn ASL with her. It interests me for some reason. My 2 year old wants to learn Spanish....I think she's in love with Diego and wants to be able to communicate with him. :D

LOL, my DD loved it as well. For days afterward she would go around the house looking for things that "had a partner." LOL

I think that the poster who said that the group of people who have the lowest divorce rate is the athiests/agnostics is probably right. I've found that Christians seem to hold their spouses to a certain level. The thinking that "Well, you are a Christian and you should be behaving on *this* level and you should not be doing A, B, and C." Holding people up like that is only going to lead to disappointment. People disappoint. And because Christians think that their spouse should "know better and act better because they are a Christian" leads to a lot of fights, disappointments, and eventually, divorces. I've heard a pastor preach on that subject one time and I think he was right on. ETA: I also think that the poster who said that the definition of "family" is changing as well....and it all depends on what your definition of "family" is. My definition is one man, one woman, married, and children if they have any.

I think I get a headache in the same place that you describe. Is it right on that circular round bone above your neck? There's one on each side....I think it may be a pressure point? For me, it feels like a headache, but I think it is really a neck ache. I'm thinking that when I have those, I may be sleeping wrong on my neck. Motrin will pretty much take mine away, but not all the way.

The front of the book says it can be used as a core curriculum. Should I not be using it as that? This is my first go-round since my kindergartener is my oldest. :D We've covered patterns, even/odd, number lines, and addition. We're just about to begin subtraction and then move into time, fractions, money. I've heard really good things about the Singapore math. Maybe I should get that book and see how she works through it.

I absolutely think the "American family" is dying. I'm a Christian and I believe that Satan's first plan of attack is the family. If you can tear up a family then that effects all sorts of other things and causes other bad things to happen as well. I believe it is all a sign of the times.

My DD has shown interest in learning about both of these. I thought about letting her choose which one we do. Is there any reason I should keep this decision to myself and choose one over the other?

oops...didn't mean to add to this!

We're using the kindergarten math book by the Critical Thinking Company. Has anyone used this? My DD loves doing workbook pages and these are bright and colorful. And we also break out the counting blocks when needed too. However, we're about halfway through this book already. So we'll be finished with it before I know it. I wonder what I should move on to? The first grade book by the same company? Or is there something else that I should be doing? Another route to go? Another program? Keep going with this method?