Thanks!

Oops, here's the question mark I forgot: ? We are thinking of going to Victoria, BC and I'm interested in renting a car for one day while we're there. Anyone done this recently? Thanks!

Great post. I followed the thread and didn't reply until late in the game; I knew it would morph into a thread about c-section in *general* (with personal experiences backing up the reasons why c/s is necessary at times) when in my understanding, Philothea just wanted to vent about a turn of events on her probably well-researched road to a VBA2C. And I love this quote from your post -- amen! Nobody should be forced to have a surgery they do not want to have. Sadly, it does happen. :thumbdown:

I got here late but am glad you've come to a conclusion you're comfortable with! I do want to mention that I posted here recently about a friend who wanted to do a VBA2C -- due in August, too! -- and the hospital has shut her down here in her ninth month. She will not be allowed to deliver without surgery locally at our hospital; this rule was just changed in the last month. She scrambled to find another place to deliver. Not wanting a planned home birth, and not finding ANYWHERE to deliver (except a high-risk -- which she's not -- clinic two hours west of here, under the proviso she *moved* there before the baby was born), she is in fact being forced into an unwanted c-section which is now scheduled for August 15. Her *only* other option -- besides laboring at home and showing up at the hospital, which is about six blocks from her house, ready to push (which I don't know is an option) -- is an unassisted home birth. I wanted to believe that there's no way a hospital can force you into something like this, but I no longer do. I'm posting to give you the information that it actually does happen. I don't want you to go into the meeting thinking you'll be allowed to do whatever you want IF they've already changed the rules (they may NOT have, I'm just saying IF they have I wanted you to be aware that it DOES happen -- forced c-sections). We have excellent OB care at our local county hospital (my brother in law is the high-risk/emergency OB in town and he's very good and very respected), so it's not that. The hospital just decided that ALL VBA2Cs were too risky (which I wholeheartedly disagree with, and namely in my friend's case; her C's were NOT for things that couldn't be different in future pregnancies, and in fact which ARE different this pregnancy). It's a travesty.

Our oldest was born October 11 and the next child was born April 11, 2-1/2 years later. From Oct. 11 to Apr. 11 is exactly six months. ALL of our children after that have been born in between these two dates. So "for six months of the year" they are all either in an odd-numbered or an even-numbered year (for example, right now they are all even: 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 2 and 0-baby). That's fun! I'm easily amused. Dh's birthday is in there too -- mine's the ONLY one outside those six months. That makes *me* the Queen, lol.

Agree with this -- the service/volunteering we do is as a family for the most part (we work with international students on our local campus). So that keeps us together as a family *while* blessing others. Plus it's a lot of FUN and a very effective outreach since the students LOVE it so much. HTH!

Thank you!

I'm not one to take many meds (even over the counter), so am wondering about aspirin and nursing. Can these two go together? It's not for pain relief, so I'm not considering ibuprofen or or acetaminophen other alternatives; just aspirin. Any words of knowledge would be appreciated! I'm looking at Bayer's site but so far haven't found anything ...

14yos - doing [breakfast and lunch] dishes 12yod - I don't know (probably reading) 10yod - Checking the meat browning on the stove 8 yos - still doing his zone chore 6yod - out front playing under the apricot tree 2yos - standing near the laptop whining/crying b/c he says his toe hurts (the bandaid was applied yesterday) 4mos - sleeping on my lap as I type It's 5 p.m. Our evenings are pretty laid back. We eat when dh gets home, read, play, what-have-you. Then about 8:30 dh calls everyone together for Bible reading and prayer. Then it's bed time. But it takes another 45 minutes or so before everyong is actually in bed. This bugs me and I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

Warm Vanilla Sugar body lotion from BB&B. Yummmmmmmmy!

Another idea is to roast the potatoes and then make roasted potato salad! It's VERY yummy; a big hit around here. You can search for the recipe at cookinglight.com; that's where I got it.

We have an entryway in this house, albeit a small one. We all habitually kick off our shoes as we walk in the door. Cleaning this area up is done daily as one of our zone chores, but (family of nine) it still seems like there's always a mess out there. We have some shelving and I like having the shoes lined up there (esp. shoes used regularly) instead of in the kids' bedrooms. But then I got to thinking of my growing up years. We *didn't* have an entryway but there was *never* a pile of shoes around the door. My mom wouldn't have had it. I don't *remember* her training us to put our shoes away as soon as we came in, and I don't even remember actually doing this (going to my bedroom to take off my shoes), but we must have because I know my mom wouldn't have let us just kick them off when we walked in. I'm also remembering that our house was always clean and all-the-way picked up, dishes all done and put away, every night when we went to bed. But I'm not ready to figure THAT one out yet ...............

YES, several of our kids do this in several of our door frames. They find it great fun. I could post pictures! Lol.

I agree with this. My point when being the first to bring up the possible negative side of the video wasn't about possible German aryanism or any related thing: It was about the fact that today's German government does view children somewhat as "theirs" as evidenced by the fact that homeschooling is against the law. So them saying "have more children" might not come solely from pure motives.

You're funny! Glad to see you got it working!

Ah. In *that* case, then I think your mother needs to be addressed by you privately. I still say that she can't be told or asked how to spend her money, BUT you can *certainly* say, "Mother, you may not bad mouth homeschooling in front of our kids. We have made our choice and are certain we made the right decision for our family. And while we would LIKE your support, we don't NEED it, and all we're requiring is that you not say anything negative about homeschooling to us. In addition, please don't bring up your shopping trip in front of our kids. You can spend your money however you'd like, but pointing out that our kids don't get to benefit from your generosity in this way is one way of being negative about homeschooling." If she can't respect this, then I agree with Kelli -- limit contact, especially during the back-to-school season. ((((((((Mary)))))))))

But embarrassing. Let's just say it had to do with mommy and facial hair. :glare: Thanks. Like I want reminding that I haven't plucked for a few days, lol.

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1.) How many kids do you have and what are their ages? Seven: 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 2, 4 mos 2.) What is your favorite food? Restaurant food, lol. At home, Tillamook chocolate ice cream. 3.) What is your favorite movie? A Wedding for Bella 4.) Coke, Pepsi or neither? Neither -- Lemonade or water. 5.) What is your favorite book? Too hard to answer. OF LATE it would be The Great Neighborhood Book. 6.) What is your least favorite household job? Cleaning out clutter. 7.) What is your favorite season? Autumn 8.) What is your favorite sport? Pickleball 9.) What is your favorite holiday? Christmas 10.) What is your least favorite store you have to shop in? Albertsons

I love that! What a thoughtful husband!

We take the summer off so aren't doing school right now, but I'm really being convicted (again!) about too much time on the computer. There is a verse in Psalm 119 that brought this yet again to my attention ("Turn your eyes from worthless things") -- not that fellowship here is "worthless" at all; it's just the amount of time I give to it that can *become* worthless. I think you know what I mean; don't know if I'm wording it well. I've really come to enjoy this website! I think what I'm being led to is to only be on during the two hours in the afternoon that my kids take to do their paper routes. That way they're busy with other things, the youngest are napping and the middles can have a quiet time. It also gives me clear cut "start" and "stop" times. So, have a great week planning and I *will* pray about your time here when you can return.

My tip: With a steady hand and eye, learn to cut in around the edges with a paint brush instead of taping things off and just slapping paint on (thinking the taped off area will absolutely protect the under-tape area from paint! It doesn't always). A couple of paint jobs ago I decided to try cutting in instead of painting and am so glad I did. It takes time, but it looks so much better and is actually kind of fun (lol). You need a good slanty brush for cutting in. Just. get. it. done. I'm of the opposite mindset of a previous post-er. I just go and go and go until I'm done with that color/room. I don't want to clean up and get it all out again. Have hubby do the ceiling if at all possible. That's the one I absolutely don't like to do. The big walls seem daunting, but they actually go fast. I like doing the big walls! I'm a big "put a LOT of paint on the roller" (not dripping) kind of gal. See above: just.get.it.done, lol. What else? Oh, this one and I don't like to say it: But once you're all done, what if you don't LOVE the paint color after all???? Ack! I've had this happen. I picked out a "linen" color that I wanted to be a light, light brown but on the wall it ended up looking *pink*. I lived with it -- hating it -- for a year before I finally painted it a chocolate brown. I loved it after I painted it and kicked myself for waiting so long to repaint. Hope this helps!!!! Have fun!

Well, I'm happy to report that dh and I assumed too much (and you know what they say about you when you ASS-U-ME). 8yos *was* upset, but not because he had to throw the big fish back. He was upset because there wasn't time for him to catch another fish and he did want to catch one that could be eaten. So older ds and dd had to talk him down from *that*. He had a huge smile on his face this morning when he told us about the fish he caught! And the photo my dd took with her digital is awesome. Thank you all for your replies!!

I need some bean dip to pass around when my mom comments on how many kids we have! When I casually said something about possibly being "done" she said, "You've talked about being done?" as if this is just amazing and she's so glad I finally thought of it. So I kind of gestured to the kids that were near us and said, "Which one should we toss back, mom?" She got all stumbly and said, "Well, no...." and I guess didn't have anything to say after that. I said that we LOVE our large family and we'll see just how/where it ends up. Moms can be tough!!!!

My dh brought home a bouquet of flowers and a pair of earrings! He'd tried to find ones I'd admired at an art gallery about a week ago, but they were gone. So he chose a different pair. I didn't love them -- and he *asked* if I did so I was honest. We went back to the gallery together and I picked out a different pair. So technically I did pick out my birthday present, but he DID think of it on his own. We've come a long way from the days when I would cry and cry because he'd forget me on my day (wait, that happened most often on Mother's Day, but still).