I would guess you need to discount further than 20-25% off. That being said, I feel your pain. I used to sell on the board here but find it no longer worthwhile.

Another option is to try Becky Higgins Project Life - it's smiler to Shutterfly in that you just drop photos into the albums and write your caption (or not). I will be moving to those for our family books (I used to scrap it all, now not so much).

I hate it when I have clothes that fit in that "too small for older boys - too big for younger boys" lot. Typically what I do, is box them in rubbermaid and label the outside - Open September 2011 / 4t/5t fall clothes for Sam - or similar. Then they go to the garage. I do keep a list of those boxes to make sure I don't forget they are out there though. I love love love when we totally outgrow stuff and I can take it to the local clothing place. :D

108. I'm surprised it's that high.

I am seeing them in firefox. But not the latest 4.1 version....maybe I should download the update and see if they are still there.

very helpful. thanks for sharing.

None of my 6 kids would ever take a paci for any length of time and none sucked their thumbs either. I think *I* was the paci lol.

I abhor the top spiral LOL. I am surprised people like it! We always get confused flipping back and forth looking where the last lesson was done - it sounds silly typing that out but I can't even count how many times I've had to flip those workbooks back and forth and I can't find the right spot. Perhaps I am top spiral challenged. :) My oldest (almost 11) is nearly done with GWG5. I looked at the samples and scope/sequence and I'm not sure I'd want to start him at level 6 on the writing - it looks like there is some good content in levels 4 and 5. For my 9yo level 3 of the writing seems a bit light so I'd start him on level 4 (which would be on grade level for him in the fall). For my 7yo level 2 would work fine. All this is moot though cause I have all these other writing programs right? I mean I don't need to do WWE/WWS/Bravewriter/IEW/WWW right? :D

for spacing, have him put his finger between each word as a marker to remind him to leave space. as far as lowercase goes - some kids take longer. I had a couple that really didn't like to write lowercase for a long time.

It seems like almost everything at walmart has the cross contamination warning on it. Sometimes I suspect they just put it on everything to cover their bases. My son is anaphylactic to milk so we have different issues. Whether or not to allow food that is manufactured in the same facility as an allergen is a very personal choice, we do allow it and haven't had but one issue so it hasn't been too much of a problem.

Our library lacks nothing if you are looking for biographies of Justin Bieber or Hannah Montana. ;)

This made me cry and I don't even know him! Well done, Mama. I pray my boys will grow to be men such as this.

I tend to knit with higher end yarns and comparably I don't think knit picks are as nice but I don't think they are bad, by any means. We're not talking dollar store or anything. ;) There are some great yarns at http://www.yarn.com (the name of their business is Webs) in their Valley yarns line and they are inexpensive and very nice. I particularly like their superwash for sweaters. The problem I run into the most is that the less expensive yarn lines don't have the most current or freshest color palettes - I am all about color. Oh and the I'm another knitpicks needle user - I *love* them!

A FB friend just posted this link to a free kindle download - thought I might pass it on in case it's a help to anyone here. An Expose on Teen Sex and Dating: What's Really Going On and How to Talk About it

I have a one page generic to do list for each kid, but it's just for school and doesn't include chores and general stuff. I have thought about adding those things but I didn't want to dilute their school list and I also felt that a comprehensive list of everything looks pretty overwhelming.

Hey mamak - fun to see you posting here. :) I went from FLL3 to GWG for all my kiddos when I was pg with my twins - I needed student led, not mommy led. It's not been too bad. I sometimes don't think it's as deep as FLL but then I've also been surprised at how much they are getting out of it. I would imagine it's not nearly as rigorous as rod and staff but I'm not sure that *I* am as rigorous as rod and staff so it's working for the moment. I will probably choose between FLL (and the next level up that is due out this fall) or GWG for this next year.

We are year by year people and we probably do sit around each spring second guessing ourselves. :) Some of that second guessing is because we always seem to be in the middle of some big "life thing" and some of it is simply me hitting burnout each year. This spring is one of the first times in several years that there was no second guessing. I feel like we've hit our groove and I'm starting to really see the fruits of our labors, so for this year at least, we didn't really discuss it at length.

This is such a good thread. Whenever a curriculum doesn't work for our family I always feel that it is my fault; that I have failed somehow. It's a nice reminder to see that some things just don't work for people - we all have to find the right fit. The only thing that didn't work well this year for us was doing mindbenders on the computer. I bought them for the pc because I thought it would be cheaper over the long haul than getting workbooks at 10 bucks a pop. But it didn't really get done - I think we would have accomplished more if we had had the workbooks in hand.

So, I am planning for next year. My current 3rd grader (so 4th grade this fall) is whipping through his work currently. He does MUS (on next year's book already), Growing with Grammar, Soaring with Spelling (don't love this), Reason for Handwriting (he started cursive this year) and independent reading. Then he also does SOTW and read alouds with me. He typically completes his seatwork in 45 minutes or less. Reads his current literature book and then he's done except coming to do history later in the day. Oh - I do work on WWE with him as well, just not every day. Anyway, he's just not engaged long enough IMO. He's extremely bright and works diligently to get through his work quickly and it's typically all correct. But I have been feeling like he needs more. So I bought the literature guide from Memoria Press for Farmer Boy and have had him doing some of the pages from there. He does well with it and it does challenge him in terms of writing his answers neatly in a full sentence. And definitely the vocabulary aspect of it challenges him - that is good. But....I just feel like spending time to do 2 pages of question and answer on one chapter is overkill. Kind of kills my love of the book, kwim? I'm trying to plan for next year - this boy needs to be doing more and digging deeper, but I'm not sure where to go. I'm thinking I'll add Latin for him next year. And maybe more writing. Thoughts? Are literature guides worthwhile?

You should back up all kinds of things from your computer - photos, financial info, tax records, etc. You can burn to dvd, or store on an external hard drive, or back up to an online service.

My dh and I do this a lot. Dinnertime is just not that peaceful all the time. And sometimes we want to eat something that we know the kids won't like, and honestly we do not get a babysitter and get time to ourselves much at all. So we will often feed the kids, then after they go to bed or when the younger half are in bed and the older half are reading...we have our own more fun dinner. I don't feel bad about it one bit. They still get a "family dinner experience" - it's not like I just send them into the kitchen to wolf down a sandwich while leaning over the kitchen sink. :) They sit together, me and sometimes dh with them (when we aren't refilling drinks, grabbing the ketchup, feeding the babies, etc) and we chat about our day and all that. We don't do it every night but probably twice a week at minimum. When we had 3 kids under 5 our boys ate really early - they would eat dinner at 4:30 and go to bed by 6:30. Then we ate separately from them nearly every night.

The dark side of having some distant wise person making a schedule for you is that you have a schedule and when you fall behind, it will make you stress. Schedules are to-do lists begging to be completed and if you don't check the boxes, it's easy to focus on what didn't happen instead of what did happen. I really prefer doing my own thing because if I don't have some arbitrary schedule in front of me, then I am never behind. We just keep moving forward and it's fine. I think there is a security in being able to say - my child completed sonlight core 4 vs. we read and discussed books all year and did some projects on the side - but if you can find the confidence to do the latter, it is so much easier with a big family.

So are you thinking she would go to PS and then you'd bring her home again for jr high? Cause that could backfire and she might loooooove it and hate you for bringing her home later lol. And then she'll be full of hormonal angst too. I don't know if it makes sense. Yes, it gives you a break from the sibling rivalry but that will get better with time, and if she's doing 3rd this fall she will probably be making the transition to more independent work (which frees you up for #2) this next year. That being said, my oldest is a high needs kid and he takes far more of my time than he should - so I understand your reasons. BTW I am totally qualified to answer your question because I have tried PS (twice:tongue_smilie: - for about 9 weeks each time).

I know 2 families that have adopted multiple kids in the last 18 months that brought their number of children up to 7 and 8. Both had more than 4 to start. I wonder if a lot has changed in 7 years because it doesn't seem to be a huge deterrent to the adoptive families I know.

I would send a generic-ish card with no mush. That way it's done and there won't be any questions or confusion over whether you forgot.