I make a big batch of sauteed veggies at the start of the week. The current batch has cauliflower, kale, zucchini, mushrooms, onion and spinach. This morning I had it for breakfast with chunks of ham. Sometimes I put it in a baking dish, top it with an egg, and stick it in the oven for 15 minutes. Other times I mix in small chunks of cheese with it. Another thing I love to eat is Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts. I have 1/2 cup of full fat Greek yogurt and then cut up whatever fruit I have and top it with a mixture of shredded, unsweetened coconut, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and almond slices.

I'd go with the bigger house. I'm in a pretty big house right now and I love having the extra room. I love it the most at Christmas and in the summer when my family comes to visit. Ours is the only house that has room for everyone so this is where they come :)

My 10 and 12 year old boys still play with Playmobil.

Thanks. I read Sarah's Key and The Book Thief at totally different times and enjoyed them both although it took me about a year to finally decide to read The Book Thief. I'd pick it up and read a couple of pages and then put it back down again. I have read Alan Bradley's books, except for the last one. The other suggestions are books I've never heard of before. Thank you!

Thanks, I haven't read any of those.

I loved it, too :)

I really need a new, good book to read. I've read State of Wonder (and a few other Ann Patchett novels) and Cutting for Stone and I'd like another book that is just as good. If you read either of those books and loved them, what are some other books that you loved just as much (or more)?

Same here! I hated cell phones and barely used my old ones. Then I got an iPhone and my world totally changes.

I think this sounds totally sensible. Maybe dh could let the employee know what kind of work habits (big work weeks, travel, etc.) lead to a bonus. I also agree that if the employee has taken on extra responsibility then he should get a raise in what he is paid regularly.

I'm thankful for the morning time slot. I am a brain-dead slug by 5pm. The problem I'm facing now with working out in the morning is that the morning used to be my creative and productive time alone. Now I'm at the gym and by the time I'm back and showered the kids are up and ready for me. No quiet productive morning time anymore :(

I love getting flowers so I think flowers would be great. However, during the Christmas season I usually do something special, especially if we're not the only people being invited. We have a walnut tree, so I'll bring a bag of candied or chocolate coated walnuts. I also make pretty good rum balls, so I'll bring a tin of those for the host.

I got up and did my 5:45am spin class at the gym. It just about kills me every time.

I am continually surprised by how much they know about random things from Minecraft. My mil was here last month. She was reading a book and it mentioned obsidian. She asked whether anyone knew what obsidian was and she got a big earful from the boys. I think she was pretty impressed by their knowledge. I didn't tell her they learned it from Minecraft ;)

You're right - the teamwork has been neat to see. When we're at the music school the kids have about an hour where they're in the waiting room with about 4 or 5 other homeschooled kids - most of whom have iPads or iPods and play Minecraft. On first glance it looks bad - a bunch of kids sitting there staring at screens, but they are talking together the whole time, working together and showing each other things. It's actually a really dynamic time. The kids know that I can sometimes be convinced to allow them extra time on Minecraft if they're working on something that I think is cool - like the setting of a book or a historical reenactment or a historical structure. That's about as much encouragement as I give - plus, I guess I'm more willing to have them show me what they're up to when it's something I think is cool. For our co-op class I had five kids in our TOG class who all love Minecraft and bring iPads to co-op so I allowed them to work on their historical building while we had our dialectic discussion.

That's really cool! What a neat way to make writing come alive.

I have some serious Minecraft concerns - mostly around how obsessed my boys are with it. However, they end up doing a lot of what I would consider to be educational without meaning to. For instance, older ds has created a number of different settings from novels. He created a whole underground city from Gregor the Overlander. He has one world where he's created the Hunger Games. A couple of weeks ago, the two oldest boys were playing in the same world and they had created a whole feudal system with a castle, peasants, farmland, knights, etc. They explained how one ds would grant land to another and the other would give him knights and they had the peasants working, etc. As much as Minecraft bugs me I don't think I could have come up with an activity that would help make the concept of feudalism stick that would have been as effective as their Minecraft game that day. I've used it a big in co-op as well - but more intentionally. I had the kids build the Hagia Sophia. Have your kids surprised you by how educational Minecraft is turning out to be?

I dislocated my knee a few years ago and my physiotherapist said that a lot of knee problems occur because there isn't enough strength in the surrounding muscles. He felt that strength training would help me avoid another dislocation. Perhaps (and I'm totally guessing) one of the reasons people end up having knee injuries is because they do things like running or high impact aerobics without a lot of strength training to go along with it.

It's pretty comprehensive and nicely categorized: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24470331/iPhone-iPad-and-iPod-touch-Apps-for-Special-Education

I don't mind it but dh hates the smell.

The church we have co-op at has a storage room that we're allowed to use so we don't cart a lot back and forth.

We loved Zoombinis and played it for years and years - until we didn't have a computer old enough for our CDrom to play on it.

If he's really reading strongly and he's a natural speller I wouldn't bother. My eldest learned to read with 100 Easy Lessons. That was all the phonics she had. I didn't do spelling with her. When she got older she wanted to compete in spelling bees and that was the first time we actually worked on spelling. She came 3rd in our regionals three years in a row. She really didn't need any spelling instruction. If she didn't know how to spell a word she would ask me how to spell it. Once she spelled it once she didn't need to go over it again. IMO a spelling program would have been a big waste of her time. My boys on the other hand...

I just checked online to see what my carb intake has been. I log all my food on BodyBugg and it calculates the nutritional totals. So, grams of carbs per day have been, 99, 112, 173, 65, 85, 105, 87, 177 for the last 8 days. I looked to see what I'd been eating on the big days and I could not believe how many carbs are in dried prunes!! No fair! Those were my dessert :( My yogurt meal is 34 g of carbs. I don't know what to eat if I have to cut down on fruit and dairy. Ugh.

Me, too!

My yogurt/fruit/nuts/seeds combo is my actual breakfast. My classes start at 5:45 so I just eat something small as I head out the door. I eat my regular breakfast at about 7:30. I've actually been trying to think of other ways to add beans in. The chili I made was my first attempt. I think beans and eggs sounds great. Thanks.