Sometimes it is hard to help our kids learn things....but he'll get it. And next time he'll know that he'll be late if he doesn't get with it. Good job Mama!

Yesterday I received a summons for jury duty. This is the first time I've ever gotten one so I'm not sure what to do. In my state I'm excused if I have a child under 6 and am not employed full time. I have two. So I need to send in my excusal form. Should I send this by certified mail? It goes to a PO Box....does that matter? The form says that if I send in the excusal and am not contacted back, then I am excused. What if it gets lost in the mail and they show up on my doorstep to arrest me??? LOL That's why I'm wondering if I should send it certified mail. What do you guys think?

I do not have a teen or boys. I do believe that boys are more attracted to video games than girls are though. My sister plays Halo and the likes and I really don't care for it. I don't like any game where you kill an actual "person" and you can see the blood and such. I'm fine with Mario games where you stomp on their heads and they just fall over. My girls love the Skylanders game...you don't die on there, you just "rest." As far as time constraints, I'm a bit at a loss over this as well. My girls both have iPod Touches. They have had them for three years, but are now getting to the point where I need to put some restrictions on their time usage. They watch downloaded TV shows, use Netflix, play games, take photos, make collages, listen to music, take videos, and they do even play some educational games as well. But it is becoming a bit obsessive and I'm trying to find a balance that works for us. So I'll be watching this thread closely. I do think that video games can "do things" to the brain. They are addictive and I've heard of husbands who spend all night on a video game while their wives tend to everything else. I wouldn't want my child to end up like that. There's a fine balance somewhere.

We moved in next door to the pastor who married us 12 years ago! He, his wife, and 4 children (who are grown now) are very nice. We've lived next door to them for about 8 years now.

How cool! Big Dr. Sears "fans" here!

I was the kid in school who sat in the back of the classroom and didn't say a single word. I wasn't a nerd or anything....just very very shy and quiet. I was bullied two times...once in fourth grade and once in tenth. In fourth grade I didn't have to endure much because my mom worked as an assistant at the school and put a stop to it immediately. In 10th grade when a girl bullied me, I put on the "I don't care" attitude and stepped out of my quiet shell when I needed to.

I use the wand things (these....Clorox Wands). LOVE LOVE LOVE them. They are the most sanitary way I've found to clean the toilet. Only the bottom 1/3 of the wand really goes into the toilet. When finished, I just pull the little trash can over to the edge of the toilet and click the button to release the wand into the trash. Then I use a sanitizing wipe to wipe the bottom 1/2 of the wand and replace into its holder. Easy, sanitary, and it takes me literally a minute to clean the toilet. It's not the cheapest way, but it buys me a lot of time and the "ick" factor goes away lol.

I agree with the posters asking if it is legit. There are lots that are not. I have three DD's and two of them have been approached about modeling. However, for at least one of the times, once we learned the details, we found out that it is actually a modeling school. So they want your tuition money. After the schooling they might can help find an agent. It was quickly a no thanks from us. And then they proceeded to call us for months afterwards.

I was a 19 year old bride as well.....that was nearly 12 years ago though. :D I just threw my sisters a bachelorette party this past weekend (they are 18 and 27 and having a double wedding). It was the first I've ever planned. We are not drinkers, nor very "crude", so most of the ideas on the internet were not for us. I kept it a surprise from the other bridesmaids, as well as the brides. I printed out a "schedule of events" that I gave to the two brides when we all met at a neutral location (where the others left their vehicles). I gave the brides sashes to wear that said "Bride To Be." And the bridesmaids and mothers (of the brides and groom) got buttons that said who they were....such as BRIDESMAID, MAID OF HONOR, MOTHER OF THE GROOM, etc. The first stop was a place to paint on pottery. I liked this because it gave everyone a chance to sit at a table and talk together. Plus, they could choose how expensive to make it....a person could choose a $7 piece of pottery or a $30 piece of pottery. From there, I had dinner reservations at a "unique" restaurant. Not your every day Applebee's or something like that, but this place is decorated with wild animals, a live alligator tank, etc. Again, they could choose how expensive to make it....they could choose a $8 basket or a $20 platter. After that, I had pre-arranged for everyone to go over to my grandmother's house for an "after-party." The day before I went over there and decorated, set out the games, brought over the food, etc. We went back there and played games, laughed, ate dessert, took lots of photos, etc. It all went over really well!

My oldest is 8, but she still likes the shows. I know that a lot of kids her age are watching the "tween" Disney shows....but mine still loves Caillou, Jake and The Never Land Pirates, Doc McStuffins, Clifford, Curious George, and the likes! I see no problems with it....actually I prefer it.

We enter our home through our garage, which leads straight into the laundry/mud room. There we have some shelf cubes with hooks directly above them. My purse goes on a hook.

We are SO going to do this one day! I hate road trips, but I love planning vacations, so maybe the mixture will allow me to have fun while traveling LOL. We have a 6 month old and I want to wait till she's quite a bit older....so maybe within the next 5 years. That would put our other kids at 13 and 10 years old, which would be good ages.

Never? Or at least until they move out. I don't even allow myself to watch majority of Prime Time TV. We have a few shows that we DVR, but that's it. And none of them are comedies because I haven't found one that isn't completely filthy. I've dropped quite a few shows mid-season when they begin to focus on things that I deem wrong. That being said, majority of what my girls watch is still PBS Sprout and Disney Junior. I'm a firm believer in what goes in, will come out. If my kids watch shows about name calling, kids who backtalk their parents, etc, then it will eventually come back out of them. So the Disney channel shows are out (except Disney Junior).

Not a Yukon, but we just did something similar and got a Suburban after having a mini van for the past 5 years. We also have a pop up camper that the van just couldn't pull that well. And with the van, we had to use the third row seat since we just had our third child....and if we did that, we couldn't fit much luggage behind the third row. Traveling would have been extremely difficult. So we got a Suburban. And I have to say....I'm loving it! Sure, we don't have quite as much leg space in the back seat. And I have all three kids on the second row bench so that they can help out with the baby between them...and so that we'll have lots of cargo space. But those are pretty minor compared to what I love about it. I love how much bigger it is....definitely feel safer. Love all the cargo room. Love that all three kids fit on one seat (all in car seats!). We have yet to pull the camper with it, but I'm sure it will do just great.

It brings me to a place where it says I must have a Mac. Maybe it is only for Mac computers?

The only iscrapbook app I see in the app store is only $4.99. I'd be very interested in the one you are referring to but I don't see it.

If you don't mind the trouble of bringing him with you, I'd research boarding him for the one day you will be away from the campground. We've used dog boarding places. We toured them beforehand and our dogs seem to have done fine. Quite nervous, but fine.

Aww...they really know how to make a mommy feel bad, huh? It's hard when you realize they have to miss something they love, especially when it it church. I hope that you feel better!

I was blessed with two calm, quiet, easy going babies. They are now 8 and 5 years old. #1 was high maintenance, but if she was in my arms, she was fine. #2 was very easy nearly all the time. Then came #3. She is now 6 months old. And she is crazy LOL. Since she was born, she came out "running." The girl never stops moving her legs. It's like she's practicing for a marathon. She began army crawling at 5 months because she was so adamant about moving. Now she's regular crawling at 6 months. She's EXTREMELY high maintenance. She wants me to pick her up, then she still cries because I'm not walking her around. She moves, squirms, climbs my arms. She just wants to move. If I put her down, she cries again. She hates naps. I think I'm losing my mind. I've never had a baby like this. Schooling my bigger girls is hit and miss. #3 takes so much care. Today the big girls gave me mothers day cards. My middle DD (5 years old) drew a picture of the two of us on a date....which I did often before #3 came along. She said her favorite thing was spending time with me but that I didn't get to do it since #3 came along. :crying: I never knew she felt that way....she's never mentioned it. But it is true. I'm nursing and I'm very pro attachment parenting, so I don't leave my babies. I'm thinking that maybe in the evenings sometime, I can leave baby with DH for an hour just to take each girl out for ice cream by themselves or something very local. Or even just go take a game and play on our bed with the door shut. I guess I'm not asking for advice....just wondering if anyone else's third child is a little firecracker. I'm actually very nervous about her toddler years LOL. She's going to be the child that pulls everything out of the pantry and that I can't take my eyes off of....I've never had one of those LOL.

My parents still give my sisters and I birthday gifts. I plan to give my children birthday gifts when they are grown.

I'm a huge proponent of extended breastfeeding. I nursed #1 for 27 months until she self weaned due to the fact that my milk changed because I was pregnant with #2. I nursed #2 for slightly over 4 years when I got pregnant with #3 and I had to wean her because it hurt so bad to nurse. Currently nursing #3 who is only 6 months old. That being said, the cover of Time is just weird. I mean, who the heck nurses like that??? It's simply an attention getter.

For those who have never heard of not medicating.....a fever is the body's way of fighting off an illness. The illness loves to thrive in 98.6 degree bodies. Once the body recognizes there's an "invader" it raises the temperature in order to vacate the "intruder." I choose not to medicate (for the most part) so that the body can do its job. However, at night, I DO medicate because I cannot monitor my child when I am asleep. And even during the day, if the temp starts inching higher than 103, I start closely monitoring and will medicate. I let fevers do their job but am also very cautious with them. If my child has a 102 degree fever and they are in the playroom playing with toys, then I do not worry about it at all.

I'm a born and raised Florida girl and I can definitely say that beaches on the Atlantic side are not great. Clearwater is my favorite that I've been to so far. There were no waves and the water was clear and blue. I NEVER go past my knees into the water on the Atlantic side due to rip currents and critters that you cannot see beneath the murky water. But in Clearwater it was so nice to actually SWIM in the ocean! No waves mean no rip currents. We could see fish in the clear water. Manatees swam about 15 feet away from us. We caught tiny puffer fish in buckets. We wore goggles and looked underwater....we couldn't do that on the Atlantic side! It was really nice!

When middle DD was late 3 or early 4 years old she went through a hitting phase. Finally I was tired of it and told her that nice she was hitting, we would have to put something soft on her hands so she didn't hurt anyone. Next time it happened I pulled out a pair of mittens. I told her she had to wear them for an hour. You'd think I'd just cut off her hands judging by the amount of crying that followed during that hour. She held her hands out in front of her and wouldn't touch anything lol. After that I just reminded her about wearing the mittens. I think she only had to wer them one other time.

As others have mentioned, before guests come inside, I tell my DD's to place any special toys into my room. Anything else in the playroom is fair game. And no, they are not allowed to take more than a few items to put into my room.