I'd like to buy the LOTR books on audio for my kids for christmas but there seem to be different options available. I had heard that there was a really great one out there - anyone know which one that is? :001_smile:

Your baby cannot be 5. I refuse to believe it.....:D

I delivered my twin girls vaginally - one head first and one breech. The breech one was about 5ish pounds and I will say as small as that is - it wasn't easy to push her out, it was pretty hard. I was fairly determined to avoid a c section and my OB has tons of experience. I would ask about your OB's comfort level and experience, IMO it would not be worth it to try a breech delivery only to have it go emergency c section midway. I would rather have a calm c section than stressful emergency one.

I don't. I find it silly. But one of my best friends uses text speak as if she were a 13yo. Totally cracks me up. I wonder if she sits waiting for my responses drumming her fingers impatiently because she knows I have to type all the words out as opposed to abbreviating everything. :p And yep, I even capitalize and use punctuation. And smilies. :)

I think Logic Stage Language Lessons with a subtitle indicating the grades or middle school or whatever. Glad to hear it's in the works! :D

The feeling passes, it really does. I never had it really bad, but I certainly had some twangs of disappointment at my 4th son's big ultrasound - it was more of a "wow - I'm never going to have that" type of feeling than being disappointed in the child I was getting. More than disappointment in any one of our boys we just experienced "girl pangs" when we'd help at the toddler class at church and all the little girls looked so cute in their sundresses and sandals or when we'd cruise by the girl toy aisle at the store. Of course our story has a bit of a different ending than most since we got surprise twins in the end....but I have been where you are and understand the feelings, they are totally normal.

I'm just sitting here impressed that your kids take a bath every morning. You rock. :D

As a relatively new mom of twins (my girls are 10 months) it makes me sad to read the semi negative comments from moms about twins. :( My twin girlies have been the best icing on the cake that I could have ever asked for!

For the sake of your kids, I would respond. My MIL has been known to make a comment or two - when she does, we call her on it, i.e. - INSERTNAME, c'mon, that's not appropriate, kids - Grandma doesn't mean that, it's unkind and we don't say things like that. It's all we can do.

that sounds really good! I wonder how much tortellini you'd need for 5 people...did you buy a couple packages? My kids are such big eaters.... (btw the poppyseed chicken recipe? you could post that...)

very helpful! :tongue_smilie: I think I'm struggling cause my first inclination was potatoes of some sort (roasted or potato salad or whatever) and my dh was all - really? Won't that be too much starch with the buns for the sandwiches? And I thought hmmmm is there such a thing as too much starch? :tongue_smilie: So wondering what others do. And btw - we are having friends over for this meal which is why the thought process. Were is just my family I'd not put so much thought to it LOL.

suggestions for a fun side dish to go with italian beef sandwiches? What do you usually serve with them?

I pretty much feel like I'm failing everybody - but yeah the youngers are getting the short end of the stick. My 6yo desperately wants to do more school and I don't have enough time or energy (my oldest 2 wear me out during school time). My 4yo is terribly behind from where my other kids were at age 4. My twins get way less snuggle time than I want. I am really starting to realize that I can't do it all.

I would just file a paypal complaint - you are getting close to the 30 day mark and you don't want to lose your money. If she comes back and questions why you filed, simply explain that you were protecting yourself as it was nearing the 30 day mark and you still had not rec'd your items.

our liquor store has those tiny bottles - that is probably a better way to go unless you want to sip bourbon in the afternoons for the next couple months lol

this is really interesting to look at - I am never quite this organized and end up being a bit haphazard or relying totally on wwe. Are you doing Sonlight 3 this year? (just asking based on your book selections)

I prep stuff for history if I'm not ready, or I work with my 4yo if I can do so without being distracting (he's kind of loud...), I piddle on the computer, and I knit. I try to do housework but that doesn't work very well because I'm running about too much.

Knowing you somewhat personally Darcy, I highly doubt you come across that way. :grouphug:

I am loving reading about how everyone eats - it's great to get ideas from other people. :) It also cheers me a bit to be reminded that I'm not alone in my imperfect diet for my kids - we try and honestly eat healthier than many of our friends - but then there's occasional frozen pizza...lol. :p ETA: it is also inspiring to see how healthy some of you eat and snack! :)

What kinds of things do you usually eat? Here are our usual meals - and I am being totally honest here, no trying to hide the stuff that I'm not proud of ;) Breakfasts - usually cereal with milk (maybe 2x a week), toast with peanut butter & a banana or applesauce, waffles, eggs with toast (sometimes potatoes), or oatmeal and a hard boiled egg. To drink: milk (kids drink between 1-3 glasses per kid), orange juice (not every day but most days), coffee (for parents) Lunch - peanut butter/jelly or sunbutter/jelly sandwiches or lunch meat sandwiches are typical. occasionally mac & cheese or spaghettios (only when I'm really desperate please don't judge me lol), sometimes the kids eat crackers and cheese and hot dogs. Alongside the sandwiches they always have fresh fruit (grapes, apples, bananas), baby carrots, and either milk or apple juice to drink. Parents typically eat leftovers from previous dinners. Snacks: granola bars (not homemade), cookies (most of the time homemade), fruit, graham crackers, applesauce, sometimes fruit gummies from Target (I *feel* the stares of judgment on that one trust me lol), occasionally the walmart generic oatmeal creme pies (cause they are dairy free for my milk allergy boy) Note: we do usually have fresh fruit (grapes or bananas or apples) on the table and the kids are able to eat those whenever they like. For beverages - the rule is milk only at meals, water between meals (that is my version of cutting back) Dinners: this one is harder to describe. The kids love ham potato casserole, spaghetti with italian sausage or lasagna, tacos, turkey burgers (almost all of our meat is ground turkey rather than beef), meatballs in grape jelly-chili sauce with rice or potatoes, taco soup, grilled chicken with rice or potatoes. I always serve meat with potatoes (5 pounds for a meal) or rice and we have a vegetable (typically frozen peas or corn or green beans), if we are having a non meat centered meal (like a casserole or lasagna) then we just have bread on the side. We sometimes have a bread (rolls or garlic bread) but not typically. We have dessert a couple times a week (ice cream or brownies). For the most part portion sizes for my kids are not contained - my 8yo will eat 2 full size turkey burgers at dinner (more than me) and we will consume an entire 10x15 ham potato casserole in one meal. None of my kids are overweight at all - on the slim side actually - so we have never limited portions as long as they are eating proportionately veggies and fruit etc. A couple times a week DH and I feed the kids "kid food" and we eat a yummier grown up dinner (Pioneer woman's hot wings recipe, or Rachel Ray steak sandwiches, etc). Probably once a week we resort to frozen pizza (or $5 pizzas) typically because I wasn't organized and dinner crept up on me. ;) Ok - so enough details from me - what do you eat? ETA: my 4yo son is dairy and peanut allergic so he has soymilk rather than milk, and his own special versions of some meals.

I have 6 kiddos - age 10, 8, 6, 4, and twin girlies 9 months old. I can't really estimate the girls into my groceries - they don't really eat much food yet. So say 2 adults and 4 kids. I don't buy what I'd consider to be super pricey groceries - I've really had to scale back in the last few years (example: we used to eat frozen waffles umm... alot...now it's once a week) and we spend probably $900-$1000 a month on groceries. Life is hectic and I do think I could do better than that - I think with more effort I could get it to $800 a month, but I cannot imagine getting to $600 and still providing milk, fresh fruit, and our typical portion sizes. Sometimes I think it would be helpful to see what people eat. I'm going to start a separate thread about meals people usually eat.

Presumably to "save" a certain email address for them. Like if I wanted to make sure Susi.ourlastname at gmail.com was available for my little Susi, I would register it. Seems a bit much to me LOL.

The next time she tries for a playdate (not you watching her son while the rest of her family has plans) I would find a way to say that the "playdates aren't a good fit" between the boys. Pass it off on the age gap. There is a big difference between 8 and 11. And then the next time she asks to leave him at your house while her family has other plans, just be unavailable. "I'm sorry that day won't work for us, hope you can figure something else out".

I would make the conversation about the future separate from the issue of not setting the table for breakfast. For that issue - I'd probably casually remind her after supper about setting the table. As for the future - I'd just sit down with her and say you'd like to talk about her plans now that she has a good paying job. Ask her what her goals are? Does she enjoy living with your family or would she like to move out on her own in time? Now, if she says she wants to stay forever you might want to have an answer ready LOL....but I'd want to at least start the conversation from the point of, what do you want to do now that your circumstances have changed? Based on her goals, I'd try to come up with a plan "mutually" where she saves for an apartment (she'll need a security deposit, first month's rent, money to buy a bed and kitchen essentials etc) *and* where she makes a contribution to your household. I'd probably say $300ish or possibly you want to let her pay less if she's willing to take on more chores.

Rather than our usual routine of hitting the 3 r's right after breakfast, then finding we were totally out of steam shortly after lunch, today we did school in reverse. We did the fun stuff - that we typically never get to - first. Here is how our day went: - started with doing a Bravewriter "freewriting" session (kids *loved* this) - went outside to look around the yard and work on nature journaling. This extended into art time as we each chose a tree to sketch and then color in with pastel pencils. We labeled our trees, and wrote a brief description of how they looked today. (we though we might sketch the same trees weekly over the next few weeks as they change from fall to winter) - read history together and talked about it - worked on activities from The time travelers New World Explorers cd then, we had lunch. Which takes an hour. We are slow. :) After lunch we attacked the seatwork. The kiddos got a pass from handwriting since they had done so much writing already today. So they did: spelling grammar math typing (just the older 2) and phonics (just #3) It was a really cool day. I don't know if I could do this everyday but it was such a great change of pace to actually *get* to the fun stuff. :D