Adding tomatoes and potatoes will open more meal options. Baked potato in the microwave Roasted or pan fried potatoes with any meat - french fries! Tacos with corn tortillas and salsa Spaghetti with gf noodles Tomato and egg fritata Sounds like she's taking this seriously. That's a GREAT step in the right direction.

I don't know how truly important they are. I imagine it makes diagramming/analyzing sentences that much easier, when the time comes. That said, I downloaded the FLL Audio Companion from the Well-Trained Mind store, and the prepositions song is super catchy and easy to memorize.

Mystie Winkler recently did a Break Week webinar thing where she had a different definition of Break Week that helped me: it's a break from school, but not a break from life. It is also not a vacation; vacations are a separate scheduled event. I tried the break week thing and it didn't work. This break week we're going camping, awesome! But then where'd my planning time go? Now I'm not ready for the next 6 weeks, so we take another 3 days for me to get my head on straight. I love the idea Mystie put forth that Break Week is not your vacation time, but a time for school planning, bigger house chores (kids get more chores too), and other "life" stuff like dentist appointments and cleaning out the closet. But at the same time, I don't think my family has enough time to do that sort of 6 on 1 off and then ALSO do the 5 day camping trip, random family visits, and mom's "personal day" to shift gears, etc. But I think that's more a family scheduling issue than anything (DH sees break week on the calendar and thinks that means "available"). Anyway, it's another take on the concept that helped me realize why it wasn't working how I thought it should. Hope that helps!

DH and I started up Country nights based on what we're eating for dinner on Sunday. The last two were some of our normal fare that can be attributed to a different country. But today was France and I branched out and made Coq au Vin with mashed potatoes and french bread. Tasty tasty!

Very mixed reviews! Y'all aren't making this decision any easier. ;) Actually, after watching some youtube videos, I might tear into the washer and see if the drain is clogged. You can hear the motor trying to work, so I don't think it's an electrical issue. DH just doesn't want to take the time to fix something that may need to be replaced soon anyway... Wish me luck!

Our 8 year old washing machine won't drain, so DH and I decided to go ahead and replace it. It's a basic Whirlpool top-load agitator. We have 4 young kids with many years of mud and stinky teenagers ahead. We need our clothes to be CLEAN. We'd like to stick with a top-loader. We have a laundry closet, so the machine itself cannot be bigger than the basic standard... 27-28 inches deep. DH read one review that said the new impeller top-loaders (the high efficiency ones) dont clean as well as the ones with the traditional agitator. What experience do you all have with impellers? Any specific suggestions? We plan on going to a big box store tonight to buy whatever they have in stock.

Strawberries, blueberries, and oranges gave my babies bad rashes. So disappointing...

Yes, we do that. And pay it off every month. We can use our reward points for hotels, select gift cards, and other goods like tv, tablets, golf clubs,camping chairs, alarm clocks... bunches of stuff. We do not use credit for our car loan and mortgage - we use a local credit union for those and they will not let us "pay a loan with a loan". But I can see if we added in those major expenses, our reward points would jump quite a bit. ETA, our rewards financed our hotel for our 4 day trip to DC last fall. But it'll be a few years before we aquire that amount of reward points again.

We adjust a half hour. So right now the younger go to bed at 730, and the older at 8. When the time changes, it'll be 8 (old 7) and 830 (old 730). They'll be going to bed "earlier" but it will LOOK later. But that trick may not last forever....

I use FLL and WWE with my first grader. All writing from both programs is put into a composition book (you can use 3 lines for a letter instead of just 2, if that makes sense). That way you have have the FLL and WWE PDFs on you kindle, and all writing goes into one comp book. We're also able to fit spelling lists and tests into the same comp book, so ALL LA writing is in one book.

Have you run a car fax on either of them? Ask the dealer for his copy.

That's awesome! It's like knowing a celebrity! It's so fun to have a personal attachment to technological history. My grandfather designed the floatation device for the Apollo capsules for when it landed in the ocean on reentry.

Yes! The kids and I watched the live stream on youtube. I love all stuff space, but since having kids I haven't been following the news that closely. DH sent me a text earlier today about it. I figured, sure we'll watch it, it'll be cool. But, OH MY GOODNESS I GOT SO EXCITED! Truly remarkable. So glad I could witness it.

Are you using the WWE workbook or instructors guide? I'm going through the WWE level 1 workbook with DD6 this year. It has questions for the teacher to ask the student and sample answers of what the student might say. But for the entire level 1 program, the final "narration" prompt is: Tell me one thing you remember. It is NOT asking for a summary of the whole passage. This is an important distinction. Summarizing is a skill I'm working with DS8 on in Level 2. So the ENTIRE first level of the program is just whatever the kid wants to say about the passage. I'd use that same formula for the SOTW narrations. Sure, use the questions in the book if your child can remember those details, but then just ask for one fact he remembers, not a summary of the whole chapter/section/paragraph.

DD6 is an excellent, natural reader. We do spelling instead of phonics. She also reads out loud to me about 2 times a week so I can catch any strange pronunciations.

Alright, I'll comment because no one else has. I'm an MP fan... but in the general sense. In a "perfect" world with "perfect" kids, I'd use MP. But I'm lazy and my kids are perfect in their uniqueness. All this is to say, I've researched MP extensively, but only use pieces here and there. I have not used the copybooks. It is my understanding that the copybooks are just copywork books. The interaction with passages/lit happens in their content and literature subjects. I believe the copy books for only used in elementary. Maybe only through 2nd-3rd. Hope that helps! Now, I DO use WWE. WWE includes copywork passages and narration of passages. If you have any other questions about WWE, I'll be happy to oblige. :)

She has a 5 yo, but her school boys are 8 and 11.

So far - Language Arts: WWE 2 FLL 2, maybe starting 3 Spelling Workout C and D Pentime to learn cursive ...Some books to read for lit Math: Math Mammoth 3 Religion: Faith and Life book 2 Geography: Daily Geography grades 2 and 3 Science and History: No clue. I'm glad I've got the basics on autopilot for DD6 and her older brother, but I do something different almost EVERY YEAR for these two, and I don't like it!

Rain starts to pour

Correct me if I'm wrong...? But when we were shopping for a new fridge 2-3 years ago, the ones with a bottom freezer but just one door on top - the freezers were not drawer freezers, but just a door - as if they just flipped the traditional/standard fridges. So, we went for the French door on top, freezer drawer on bottom. I got a Kenmore, which is probably not a good idea since Sears isn't doing so well now, but I LOVED it (past tense, we sold our house and LEFT THE FRIDGE!). I don't know if it was just the size of that particular one, but I felt I could fit ANYTHING in that fridge, in terms of different sized pans or trays or what have you. Loved it, miss it. Now we have the older french door half and half. S'no good. (But it works, I should be grateful.)

What kind of writing is your 5 year old doing that makes you say she does not like it? Just handwriting practice? Or are you asking her to write sentences on a topic? WWE has two components: copywork and narration. Copywork has the child copy out well-formed sentences so they begin to learn what a good sentence LOOKS like. Narration is the sentence composition portion. You read them a passage, they will answer a few questions to help organize their thoughts, then they will dictate a sentence or two to YOU for you to write as their narration. So, in a 4 days a week program, the child is only physically writing on a paper 2 times. This not to say BW might not be a good option; I have no experience with it myself. I just wanted to clarify that this isn't "lots of writing" vs. "not much writing".

I think this would be best for a 6 year old. Accelerating WWE is not necessarily a good thing in the long term. Many people actually slow done with level 3 and stretch it out over 1.5-2 years.

I spell the words for them. WWE dictation is a writing lesson, not a spelling lesson. DS8 will ask me how to spell the word once he gets to it. If he misspell a word after trying to spell it on his own, I do make him fix it. But overall, spelling is not the focus of our dictation.

I got the Dover Thrift Children's version of Crusoe and the Classic Starts version of Gulliver's. The idea is to get them familiar with the story, so when they read the grown up version in the future, it doesn't seem so daunting.

I did photo postcards for my wedding thank yous, just as they were becoming popular. Everyone loved them, but I did write an actual thank you note as the postcard message.