We freeze a lot of soups - taco soup, three bean soup, veggie italian. Just thaw, heat & serve with tortillas or bread. I'm going to add chicken quinoa stew to that (never done it), and just leave out the quinoa until its thawed/heated (noodles would work too). Meatballs are a favorite too (more prep involved for a whole meal though). Mini meatloaves might be good for her - add one of those micro potatoes (PotatOH! I think) & bag salad, not much prep. Sometimes we just brown ground beef with onions & celery so we can toss that in something - tacos, slumgullion, "burritos" (we're too lazy to roll burritos, we just make a casserole lol) - again though, those require a bit more prep for a full meal. If you want recipes for any of that, lmk. We freeze everything in ziplocs.

There's more rinsing involved with prefolds (unless the baby is exclusively breastfed...that doesn't need rinsing). The fleece of the fuzzi bunz "releases" a little better. But we never rinsed in the toilet. We attached a "mini shower" (handheld bidet) to the back of the toilet. When it was time to rinse (we kept a bucket w/lid if we couldn't get to it right away, rinsed at the end of the day), we would put our "spray bucket" on the rim of the toilet. It was just a big 5 gallon bucket with a hole (drilled with a hole saw). We kept it on its lid to catch any drips when we were done spraying everything down. At the end of the week, we'd put the 3 "pails" in the tub with a little bleach. It was a pretty easy and "clean" way to get it all done. I have to admit the spray bucket grossed me out a bit (it was rinsed clean, but I'm sure was not germ free) - that could be easily remedied with a handy spray bottle of bleach water, give it a spritz before rinsing it and putting it away. Thought I'd add...the reason we came up with the spray bucket is the hand held sprayer created a little bit of splash.....I couldn't deal with that lol

Bummis Super Whisper Wraps were my favorite PUL wrap. For newborns, we used Proraps with the umbilical notch. But my absolute favorite diaper cover was wool! If you knit, you could even get a pattern and join a co-op for a better price on wool. Wool can be very bulky under clothes too, so I always just used longies in the winter, and shorts/wraps in the summer (or just went coverless). Of course, I think its the cutest option too :D (here are a couple of pics of my dd in her wool longies & matching hat)

I voted 'not sure'. I'm pretty sure its what ran through our house in Sept. We just never went to the doc to confirm it.

What about sticky-backed felt? That's what I planned on using for DD2's cow costume, but I couldn't find white sweats anywhere. We almost had Princess Peach and Mario & Luigi, but my oldest daughter decided to be Juliet instead. DS is going to be Luigi. And dd2 wants to be a "stunk" :lol: A stinky "stunk" (skunk, in case that wasn't obvious lol).

:iagree:

I read that both parents used to live in CA aspiring to be actors, met in acting school. I get the feeling they are after their own reality show, like Jon & Kate. Except, their oddity is storm chasing and science experiments. It would certainly explain the "show" comment from the little boy. I feel so bad for the kids :(

I had something awful at the beginning of September. I don't know what it was, but it didn't feel like anything I've ever had before lol Phase 1: severe headache (if one symptom freaked me out enough to go to a doc, that was it), exhaustion (spent probably 90% of the day for a week in bed), muscle/joint pain, and my skin hurt like I had a fever (didn't register one though). I had just a hint of nausea and very slight sore throat. Phase 2: Everything started to let up a little for a couple days (after a week). Phase 3: Evening fevers (over 103). Started tapering off at about day 8 or 9. I never got the runny nose, sneezing, cough, or crud in the chest. Sometime in that second week I had some uncomfortable chest pressure (could have been indigestion though lol). It was another week after the fever before I started to get back to normal. My 2yo & 5yo got sick that last week I was getting back to normal. It was pretty much the same except they started out with fever, weren't nearly as exhausted (or in as much pain...headache/aches, hard to tell though), and they did get the cough & chest crud. Their fevers/symptoms lasted 7-8 days, the cough a bit longer.

I use Madhava (raw, organic). You can get pretty decent deals on Amazon, free shipping too.

I make no guarantee it'll taste good (or melt!) :D It has been a while since I tried that particular brand. I've tried several soy cheeses that taste perfectly fine to me. The issue was always with texture (like the one I tried that tasted and melted fine, but stuck to my teeth :ack2: ). I know what you mean about at least trying to replace it though. There are a lot of foods that can be made without cheese, but sometimes I'd rather just give them up lol

The Vegan Gourmet....had to look that one up. I know I had used a casein (and rennet) free cheese before. You can find it here http://www.followyourheart.com/.

LL doesn't have to be complicated. There are suggestions for printing it out and filing it in different sections of a binder. This makes for trickier printing because you can't always print front & back (and its a BIG BOOK, I can't imagine it printed one side only). For us, it worked to just use it all in order and keep it that way as if working through a workbook :) It is open & go. With the audio, I moved it to my daughters mp3 player so she could practice anytime. I just got LfC to try out. Try as I might, I cannot find a way to justify doing this LOL We liked Lively Latin and it was working great, I guess I just thought the grass might be greener lol Its the DVDs that draw me to it I think. Its what drew me to Prima Latina, but I found that, well.....dry and boring :D I also couldn't get past the southern accent :o LL is definitely worth a try if LfC isn't working for you.

My 11 yr old dd is going through it. She likes it and it does challenge her. It seems like a solid program (although, if something were off, I probably wouldn't know it :o). My husband feels its a solid program (he teaches biology at the community college). There are plenty of labs too (2 lessons, 1 lab per week). For us, it requires about 1 - 1.5 hrs a week of "teaching". My dd reads, writes out her vocabulary, does the exercises at the end of each lesson, and takes the quizzes throughout the week on her own. Then on Saturday morning, my husband sits down with her and discusses her answers and does the lab. While it is definitely written from a Christian perspective, it's not overly religious at all (nothing like Apologia Exploring Creation series...which I love :D). It's hard to quantify how religious a book is, so being the nerd that I am, I looked in the index for religious words :lol: God is mentioned on about 20 pages, Creator on 9, Designer on 7, Darwin on 3, etc. And I'm sure many of those overlap. So out of 300+ pages, its not too overwhelming.

I wasn't too fond of the Moby. I think I would have liked a woven wrap much better. The Moby has WAY too much stretch for me. I did like it when I had an itty bitty newborn though (few weeks old) - it was like carrying the baby in a very tight tshirt. You can imagine though, with a heavier baby, a tshirt won't cut it. I can't imagine using the Moby in a rucksack type carry (not even sure if thats safe?), but thats really the only carry that would work for me if I was wearing the baby in order to get stuff done during the day. I'm so short that a baby on the chest really restricts my movement lol I'm also a big fan of the Ergo and Babyhawk Mei Tai, but used those with older babies.

Just thought I'd mention I asked in August and was told they expect it to be ready for home use in January. Hopefully its not much later than that - we're waiting on it too :)

Three Bean Soup 1 1/2 tsp. chopped garlic 1 can (28 oz) tomatoes, cut up 3 cups water 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste 1 tsp chili powder (I always skip this and it still tastes great) 1 Tbl. Dijon mustard 1 tsp. dried basil 1 tsp. dried oregano 1/2 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 tsp. pepper 1 can (15 oz) kidney beans, drained 1 can (15 oz) black eyed peas, drained 1 can (15 oz) garbanzo beans, drained --- 1 can (15 oz) corn, drained 1 cup chopped carrots 1 cup chopped zucchini or celery 1 medium onion, chopped Combine first 13 ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 min. Stir in veggies & simmer covered for 10 min. more. Taco Soup 1 lb ground beef or turkey 1 medium onion 1 can (16 oz) tomato sauce 2 cans (16 oz each) tomatoes, cut up 2 cans (16 oz each) pinto beans, undrained 1/2 pkg taco seasoning Brown meat w/onion. Add remaining ingredients & simmer 30 minutes. Both of these recipes are very forgiving....I rarely actually follow them lol A lot of the time I sub a 28oz can of tomatoes for the two 16oz cans and it turns out fine. With the first recipe, I usually add more veggies than it calls for. Or toss in a can of green beans, etc. You could also make chicken noodle soup - just leave out the noodles. When you're ready to make it for dinner, thaw, boil & add noodles (we use quinoa instead of noodles...very good).

I used to work in a child care center several years ago and we had a biter (about the same age). Really, the only thing that will work is preventing it from happening in the first place. You've got to be RIGHT there, always watching, always within reach to stop him from biting. If there is a situation where you won't be within reach just take him with you and explain to him why. If that won't work, I'd have to agree with your husband that it isn't working out and his mom will need to find a more "one-on-one" arrangement for him.

I don't really have a recipe so much....I kind of toss stuff in without measuring lol I usually roast a chicken in the oven (olive oil, seasonings, onion, garlic - covered cast iron dutch oven at 350 for 2-3h), pick off the best bits of meat, then boil the bones for the broth (5 lb chicken is usually enough for 4 meals). I go kind of heavy on the seasonings because this is the only seasoning the broth gets. I saute 1 onion, 1 bell pepper (red adds a nice color), and a couple stalks of celery in a bit of olive oil (I usually use the olive oil that is on top of the broth as it's already seasoned - probably not the healthiest though because I'm sure some of it is chicken fat). I probably add 1qt of broth, chicken, & frozen peas. Then I slice up 4-5 carrots and steam them (I don't like how they turn the soup orange if they are boiled in it). Once the broth is boiling, carrots are pretty much done, just toss them in. Then I add about 1/2 C of rinsed quinoa and cook it until it spirals out (15-20?). Salt to taste. It's nothing fancy, but it is definitely a healthy comfort food :D It's also one of those meals you almost can't mess up, so toss in anything else you like. The only tricky part is quinoa never seems to stop soaking up liquid lol So it should be served right away, and it doesn't save well. What I listed above is enough to feed the 5 of us (3 kids).

We had Chicken Quinoa Stew (this has got to be one of my very favorite meals!).

Rather than using packaged soups/broths/bullion for a sick person, it would be best to make an actual bone broth with a chicken carcass. What I typically do is prepare a chicken to roast (seasonings, olive oil, onion, garlic), stick it in a cast iron dutch oven and set it in the oven at 350 for a few hours. Then I take the best bits of meat off (leave the squidgies) and simmer the carcass with a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar. I can usually get enough stock this way that I fill up canning jars and stick them in the freezer (that way I don't have to do it all the time or while taking care of a sick kiddo). Other than that, I think your list looks pretty thorough. I would agree with a previous poster that investing in immune boosting now would be good idea. This has been half of my preparations for this Fall. After last winter being so ugly (pneumonia, pleurisy, and constant colds) I have been really good about making sure everyone gets their vitamin D, C and multi-vitamins. I ran out of D for myself and I am the only one who's been sick the past week with what I believe is the flu :ack2:

I read that the reason people use diet is because of the sticky factor, and that regular soda would work just fine. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109

Another vote here for something other than Gerber. I loved the unbleached indian prefolds from granitesmith on eBay. For newborn covers, I liked the newborn proraps (also sold at granitesmith) and bumkins (a little pricier). As baby gets older, I prefer the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap mentioned above or their Super Brite. And I don't think I could have used prefolds without a snappi - I'm not the pinning type lol More than the nylon covers though, I LOVE wool! It can be quite pricey though. For me it was worth it.

We use rice and almond milk. We tried switching my son over to just rice at one point (he was probably 2-3 yrs old) and it really constipated him, so that is something to keep in mind if you notice any issues. After that we used almond for drinking (which wasn't often anyway), and rice for baking and cereal (almond tastes nasty on cereal to us). Another thing to keep in mind is fat content. You'll probably want to make sure to work more healthy fat into the diet. The milk alternatives don't have much at all. The easiest way for us was to just add a tablespoon or so of walnut oil to oatmeal or farina. I'm not too worried about nut allergies here, so we went with walnut because it hardly has any flavor, but any healthy oil (high in omegas) will do the trick.

I guess I could, but it wasn't exactly an ideal setup (getting the projector set up is cumbersome and not a good mix with my 2 yr old, not sure how to store the massive maps, etc). It was also tracing outlines where Mapping the World teaches drawing. I think Mapping the World would really appeal to her, but I would like to know before buying if the art portion of it is substantial. It would also be great to know if any TOG'ers have tried using it.

Would it work to use this curriculum only for additional reading and mapwork? We are using TOG and I don't feel the mapwork fits my daughters style. We had tried Around the World in 180 Days before and she loved the mapwork we were doing with that book (I would set up a projector to make a large map outline on the wall and had her trace it onto brown kraft paper, then she took it to the table for labeling & details). Has anybody tried combining this with TOG yet?