Or, as my husband often says, "Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut." :) I read the books. Katniss irritated me, so did Peeta, but I enjoyed the books anyway. :thumbup1:

This made me chuckle. I've eaten popcorn for breakfast before. :lurk5:

Sometimes we eat cereal. :D

We had the same problem. We quit buying pencils made in China and only use those made in USA. No problems with those. Also, can eliminate sharpening by using mechanical pencils. :)

We love books on tape/CD! We're listening to My Friend Flicka now. We've listened to almost all of the appropriate Listening Library books our library has on the shelves! We rarely turn on the radio when we're in the car anymore!

Never. Primetime TV isn't family friendly. I love DWTS and quit watching it when my then 7yo said, "Wow, Mom, they don't wear many clothes." Out of the mouths of babes. I actually banned Nickelodeon and Disney too. Too many smart alack kids sneaking out of windows with no intelligent adults in the shows.

:lol: Love it!

Mozilla Firefox is the browser we use. We get no advertisements on the websites. I haven't had a problem with SPAM in my yahoo account.

I use Mozilla Firefox, and downloaded the "adblock". We get NO advertisements.

Sue Patrick developed this system for her autistic son with much success. If I'm not mistaken, he's now driving. I use it for my kids, and we get a lot more work done in much less time. More info below. I recommend using the system exactly as she's set it up, it works. http://www.workboxsystem.com/

We worked the food pantry at church during the week. My kids learned a different kind of compassion by doing this. They (unfortunately) learned that sometimes people take advantage of these programs, but we love them anyway. They watched as a pre-fab home was delivered, unloaded, roof unfolded (very cool), set up, connected to electric, the well put in, sold and moved into! They've learned to get along with and play with children of ANY age and they can carry on an intelligent conversation with an adult. They've learned that asking questions is a GOOD thing! My DH teaches a trade in PS. Many of his high school students can't read a ruler or tell you how many 16ths are in an inch. They don't know how to convert decimals to fractions in simple measurements. Example: .25" = 1/4" He actually had to explain this one to a POST GRADUATE student! Very sad.

iPod games my boys LOVE: Presidents vs. Aliens (they've learned a LOT of different information about the presidents on here) Rocket Math Stack the States Stack the Countries Hangman, Doodle Hangman Fractions Kitchen Math vs. Zombies (I don't really like shooting or zombie games, but I *grudgingly* let them get this one, you have to select the correct answer and the zombie gets blasted, turns green, and melts) They like it. Elementals (Periodic table) Freddy Fraction (converting decimals to fractions to get Freddy to the end of the maze) Math Add (it's like hangman with math) My Math App (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division)

:iagree: I felt the same way. Having read them all, I would recommend you read them before allowing your child to read them, and then DEFINITELY discuss them afterwards. This is a great book to use for a character study. I told my 12yo he could read them, if he really wanted to, but that we would be discussing them. He changed his mind. I think that "discussion" might have been what did it in for him. :001_unsure:

I've frozen BBQ many times, it's always good after you thaw it. The chicken might cook better if you bake it while it's still frozen (unless you're cooking it before you freeze it) I froze mushrooms once, and they were awful when I used them. Maybe they were in the freezer too long, I don't know, but I'm afraid to try it again. I use canned mushrooms instead, and we eat ALL of them. :D Oh, I do freeze my onions and peppers after they're cut, but before they're cooked. They work fine.

That additional info definitely changes things! I'd have hubby tell her it's not a good time, unless she's coming to help you out or staying in a hotel.

:iagree: "Backyard Ballistics" is a great book.

I was just on a thread that suggested making it into baptismal gowns. Love that idea.

I like the idea of making them into baptismal gowns. My daughter's (step) getting married on the beach, so her dress may be "trashed" unintentionally. She plans to wear it all day! The year after I was married, I dyed my dress blue, added some black lace and ribbon, and wore it as a Southern Belle halloween costume! It was my dress, I made it myself, I certainly wasn't going to save it for 20 years in the hopes that my daughter (if I had one) might actually be the same size as me, or even want to wear it. I gave birth to 3 boys, so I was glad it wasn't taking up valuable closet space.

:iagree: The Grown DD in my signature is my stepdaughter. She lived with us for 4 years, and hated me at that time too. However, she's now 25, and I'm planning her wedding, not her mom. Her mom hasn't really been very nice. I always encouraged her to try to show her mom grace. That being said, perhaps this would be a way to get close to her, or try to understand what's going on. Maybe she needs a mom as much my stepdaughter does. I'd definitely call her ahead of time to see if you can find out what's going on, and also lay down some ground rules about who can come along. Having come through on the other side, my daughter is such a blessing now. We talk almost daily, and have since she's been out on her own. Don't get me wrong, this relationship didn't happen overnight, it was hard work. I often felt like a doormat too.

I actually had a makeover with my daughter, as well. I didn't buy her the makeup though. I did buy her the products to take care of her skin.

My guys are dawdlers too. When I implemented workboxes, I told them they must do them in order, they must do them completely, NOT finishing was not an option, and when all the boxes were empty, they were finished with school. They started to realize that playtime came quicker if they'd just do the workboxes. It's kind of weird, but something about emptying those boxes and moving them over to the "completed" side, gave them a real sense of accomplishment, and they finished much quicker! It took me almost a year to decide to use this system, and I wish I'd done it sooner!!

I have 2 boys who behaved the same way. This year, we implemented Sue Patrick's Workboxes, exactly as she recommends. http://www.workboxsystem.com/ MUCH less whining and complaining, and our day goes much smoother. They really do get twice as much done in half the time! It's a little more work on my part up front, but once the system is in place, it takes no time at all to load those boxes.

I posted parts of this in a previous thread. I found timeline pages in pdf format on this site for free. http://www.allsewnup.com/2008/08/27/timeline-template/ There are only dates on the timeline, even though she's labeled the sections "Creation to Jesus' Birth", and there's a page with an overview of the evolutionary timeline. It's in landscape format (which I really like). I printed mine two-sided onto ivory cardstock (to give it an "old" feel) and purchased the notebook and a timeline figures CD from Homeschool in the Woods. There are many free timeline figures on the web you can use too, but I really liked the look of the ones they offered. For the actual timeline dates, Veritas Press has timeline history cards that have Biblical history interwoven. Classical Conversations has put a timeline into the new Foundations guide.

We used it until 4th grade, then we joined Classical Conversations. They use their own, and it's very thorough.

I found the pages in pdf format on this site for free. http://www.allsewnup.com/2008/08/27/timeline-template/ There are only dates on the timeline, even though she's labeled the sections "Creation to Jesus' Birth", and there's a page with an overview of the evolutionary timeline. It's in landscape format (which I really like). I printed mine two-sided onto ivory cardstock (to give it an "old" feel) and purchased the notebook and a timeline figures CD from Homeschool in the Woods. There are many free timeline figures on the web you can use too, but I really liked the look of the ones they offered.