Hahaha!! We are trying to watch American Idol and I had to pause it because I couldn't stop laughing. I read to to DH too lol.

I always say that a line is a line, no matter how faint!! Congrats!!!!!

With my last baby (who is now 6 months old) I was borderline with gestational diabetes. I failed the 1 hour and refused the 3 hour (I just knew I'd vomit or pass out or quite possibly both). I just began taking my blood sugar several times a day and eating a GD diet. At first I was extremely freaked out. But after a week or so, it wasn't nearly as bad as what I thought it would be. For breads, switch to 100% whole wheat if you do not already eat that. It is lower in sugar/carbs. Meats have no sugar/carbs. Veggies have no sugar/carbs. I started eating a salad with both lunch and dinner. Motzerella cheese sticks became my friend....so did beef jerky. If I ate a hamburger or chicken sandwich, I ate it with the bottom part of the bun only. I upped my veggie intake (and I do not love a lot of veggies....so I ate a lot of broccoli, salad, and green beans). I cut out yogurt and orange juice because those seemed to raise my sugar a lot. I still allowed myself to have a treat once a week. I had a blizzard one week....cookies the next, etc. It spiked my sugar for about an hour (not terribly, but high enough) but I didn't worry much about it. The damage is done when your sugars are high for long term and stay high. If I didn't have a treat to look forward to, it would be really hard to stay on the diet without a treat in sight. I ate a lot of sausage links for snacks. They were the microwaveable kind, so while not the best, they helped keep hunger at bay without raising my sugar. While it seems daunting at first, you'll get the hang of it!

How horrible! I wouldn't be surprised if they were either drunk or texting. :glare: I'm so glad the little girl is okay though.

I'm wondering if DD8 would enjoy joining the swim team at the YMCA this summer. Does anyone have kids around this age who have been on a swim team? She enjoys swimming....we have an in-ground pool in our backyard. She took survival swim lessons when she was 5 and 6 years old and now swims pretty well but she doesn't know any actual strokes. She has always been extremely shy, but she is finishing up a season of soccer and has really come into her own. She played when she was five and had a horrible time of crying on the field. But this year she's actually been going after the ball and even volunteering to play goalie. She's still shy and won't say hardly anything to anyone but she's eagerly participating now and actually enjoys it. Since swimming is less of a team sport, I was wondering if she would like it even more than soccer. I got an email from our local YMCA and it said there's a morning practice and an afternoon practice. Each is 2 hours long. She would choose *one* of these, right? Not both, I'm assuming. Two hours is a long time....what do they do during that whole time? Seems like it would be really tiring to be in the water for that whole time. I assume they are closely supervised, right? Water + kids freaks me out. And are practices usually 5 days per week? Would you stay at a practice for your 8 year old or drop them off? I also have a 5 year old and a 6 month old with me too.

Rafferty

Everett Ryland (or Rylan)

Bedtime is my LEAST favorite time of the day. Actually, I despise it LOL. Maybe I can convince my husband to do this!

I've had mastitis once. It's the sickest I've ever been. Horrible experience! I can so commiserate.

Thanks!

What shows are these? I love candid camera and would love a current show like that to watch. Do you know the names of any of them?

My uncle had chest discomfort for a little while. He kept telling the doctor and they did every test they could do....nothing showed up. Finally they told him that the only ing left to do was a heart cath, but they really didn't think it was necessary. However, my uncle wanted it done just for reassurance. Turns out, his valve was 99% blocked and he could have had a massive heart attack at any moment that the doctors said would have left him dead. He's only 48. He had to have a stent put in. Goes to show that the noninvasive tests do not always pick everything up.

Hiking. You could incorporate school into this or just "unschool" the activity and the kids will learn anyways.

I'm currently using WWW with my 2nd grader. We began late so we are only about halfway through with the book. I really like it though. It's easy to do independently....very self explanatory. And I feel that it is very thorough. It's going along well with FLL2 for us.

DD7 (second grade) is using Winning With Writing and I like it. She does well with it. She doesn't love writing but she doesn't hate it either.

I've checked out Enchanted Learning, Super Teacher Worksheets, Education.com, the Teacher File Box from Evan Moor...I'm sure that there are many more out there. Most of them charge a fee for unlimited usage for a year. So I'm not sure which one would be best. I want a really good variety. I have a rising third grader and a rising kindergartener. For the upcoming third grader I'd love some multiplication practice, reading comprehension stories with questions/activities, daily writing prompts, sentence punctuation/capitalization correction, etc. For the upcoming third grader, I'd just like a variety of "busy work" type things....she likes doing "school" like her big sister and she wants books and worksheets. Has anyone used any of the above places or any other ones?

DD5 will "officially" start kindergarten in the fall, but we'll be slowly working all summer. Reading: OPGTTR and Explode the Code books A, B, and C. We are currently on Book C, but I want to start OPGTTR along with it. Math: unsure yet...thinking of Singapore or Horizons Grammar: FLL 2. She tagged along with us for FLL1 and we are currently about 1/4 of the way through the 2nd book. She didn't do much tagging though....she stayed right up with big sister on it. Science: Tagging along with big sis....we're starting 106 Days of Creation this summer. Bible: Positive Action 1st grade, along with A Child's Book of Character Building (we've already begun both of this and will just keep going with them) History: Tagging along with big sis....maybe SOTW, but unsure yet. Art: Again, tagging along with whatever I decide for big sister.

Oldest DD is going is in "2nd grade" right now...working ahead in some areas and behind in others. We finally got her reading a few months ago since she has mild dyslexia. She's up to the Magic Treehouse chapter books and other books of similar difficulty. I don't think she's at grade level, but she is doing 100% better than what she was a year ago. Now that we've got her reading, we need to begin working on spelling. She's very good at spelling phonetically...problem is, not everything is spelled that way LOL. What's the best spelling for a 8 year old with mild dyslexia? Anyone have any suggestions? I already own Apples and Pears...just wondering if there was anything any better out there? We started book 1 and only stayed with it for a bit....she was progressing quicker than the book was going so we stopped it. I guess I could try her on one of the higher level books and see how that goes.

DEFINITELY the iPad. I had a Kindle and sent it back after two months. I thought it could satisfy my desire for an iPad at a much cheaper price. It couldn't even compare. Not only for the app choices, but the Kindle's touch screen is much less exact than the iPad's. I'm now the owner of an iPad 3 and very happy!!

You guys are making me feel much better about my $50 fine that I had last year. My husband nearly freaked....I'll have to tell him about this thread LOL.

We have the Step 2 one that someone linked to above. We found it at a garage sale one spring for $40. DEFINITELY worth the money. At 5 and 7, my girls still love it. It is on our covered back patio. I empty the water each time they are finished with it so that nothing gets into the water. We only use ours for water....I imagine that sand and water would be a huge mess. I've thought about using it in our sunroom...it is tile. Haven't gotten up the courage yet to try that LOL.

Disney at Easter? Oh, you definitely do not want to attempt that one LOL. I love that one of the perks of being a homeschooler is that I only do Disney on the off season LOL.

I think I made a mistake. I melted some chocolate chips to use on some candy that I'm taking to an event. I thought it would harden to where it is not gooey anymore. It doesn't look like it is hardening! I usually use Almond Bark for this type of thing and it does great....but the recipe called for semi sweet morsels so I got those instead. Will they ever harden?

DD (just turned 5) is on a 14 inch bike. Walmart has it as a new size, they said. She fits it great.

Yeah, we are not too happy here in Jacksonville right now. We had hoped Tebow would be coming home!