Check your local public library's website for Overdrive! This is a FREE lending library of kindle and other device compatible books and audiobooks. Our small library has over 14,000 titles available, and larger libraries have more. It works on phones, kindles, etc. I have used (mostly lurked on) these boards since the first days of the original ones and am not advertising anything. This service is free through your library.

We like the New Yorker game. You have cards with New Yorker comics without the captions which you then supply. It's hilarious with family members and those who share inside jokes. We also like Bang! The Bullet; Bohnanza; and a variety of card games.

Years ago, at our first visit to an Ikea, my children called it "Pirates of the Carribbean," after the ride at Disneyland. You twist around, following a winding path with too much too see the first time through. Truly a tourist attraction.

We are big fans of Subway and Jamba in this house. I voted other.

62--including most of the more sketchy titles.

My son's plane just landed at LAX! He is on his way home from his 2 year mission in the Ukraine! We will greet him at our local airport tonight. I am over the moon!!

leventy-jillion muchisisimos

my LDS missionary son comes home from the Ukraine! I am too excited to say more.

Yes. We make them and live happily on California's beautiful central coast.

Our library had a literary peeps diorama contest this year. Some of my favorites were: "The Peep of Monte Cristo," "Harry Peeper and the Deathly Mallows," "Little Peeps on the Prairie," and "Go, Peeps, GO!" Lots of sugary fun!

Apply and defer. My youngest is on his mission now in the Ukraine. He will be home in June and back to BYU in the fall. It has been hard for him to register, much less apply for college while on his mission. Missionaries' time is very limited on the computer and access is restricted. With the deferment, he got his updated ecclesiastical endorsement from his mission president (all online, easy) and all of his accounts, registration, scholarships, housing, etc. was reinstated and he was able to get his classes right away. If you go to the BYU website, there is detailed information about deferment, leaving password information and class lists, and parent access permission, etc. with the family so the parents can help with the registration while the missionary is out. The system works very well. Note: My son had completed a year at BYU before his mission, but the deferment works the same way for new students. Regarding the community college stuff: You just send a final transcript after the last class and they will evaluate it. If you contact the school, they can help you make sure the classes are transferable. We found that BYU had a list of transfer equivalencies for our local community college, so we knew what would be accepted. One great thing about BYU is that you are a freshman, and eligible for all the freshman orientations, dorms, helps, for your first semester, and then the transfer credits kick in and you get your advanced standing--as long as you go directly from high school to BYU--the semester after graduation or after your mission (if you applied and deferred). Lag time after high school graduation plus transfer credits mean you are no longer a freshman when you enter. My sons' situation were much like yours, homeschooled grades 1-12, lots of CC credits, missions. BYU really understands this. Best Wishes

I read them all a few years ago and am starting over this week. I have to request them from our library, so the timing isn't always the best, but the books are! Love, love, love.

There is an introductory book as well. We used Grammar of Poetry very happily in grade 5. Each of my sons saved the poems he wrote, can still remember the ones he memorized, and can still scan accurately. It is a quality program, excellent choice of poems, with meaningful assignments. Later, they took a Great Books poetry class which integrated meaning, structure, word choice, etc. into long discussions and analyses. Infinitely worthwhile.

So, on the topic, what do y'all think about the name Mahonri? (ma-HON-ri with a long I sound on the end, like the grain) I would think his brother would be named Jared.

This year, I'm in! This week I read: Beyond the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo and I am half way through David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell. Unfortunately, neither is as I had expected and I am a bit disappointed at my first selections. Onward and Upward, though, I have several things on hold at the library and a huge family communal bookshelf of other people's choices which I have not yet read. Does most everyone choose the list ahead of time? I am selecting as I go, from a variety of sources, particularly Mental Multivitamin and the 1001 list. Also, these were traditional books, but I am including my CD commute books, too. Is that legit? I am doing this to establish a better reading habit with better quality reading material. Happy New Year!

My husband does TONS of community service and projects loosely tied with his work. He enjoys service clubs and organizing projects for the food bank, various health related charitable organizations, and anything else he can find. He also plays the bagpipes, complete with kilt, for parades, funerals, etc. He also enjoys church and historical research. We do Toastmasters together, too.

I get a "junkover" like that from eating restaurant food.

I firmly believe there's no place like home! I abhor that foam stuff that replaces cardboard in craft projects--lurid colors, icky texture, general fake-yness and over-simplified projects. It must numb its users to real sensory experience. One of my favorite resources is Alfie Cohen's Punished by Rewards, and I offer few extrinsic rewards other than genuine enthusiasm and praise. I think that some level of oversight for homeschoolers would benefit everyone, but that finding, setting and then maintaining the limits for this might be impossible. I am a fan of good poetry whatever the structure.

This is called "little piggies" at our house and is a traditional breakfast food for all holidays. Ours are small, cocktail sausages wrapped in 1/3 of a crescent roll from a tube or some similarly shaped dough conjured in the bread machine. The sauce in the photo looks to be red, but we serve three types of mustard. Eggs to order, little piggies, and "fruitsie drinks" (AKA all-fruit smoothies) complete our go to holiday morning offering. I'm attempting to make this for a party this weekend:

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a selfish, Godless, travesty of a song. 'If the fates allow," in a Christmas song, indeed!

I know for a fact that vision therapy changes lives for the better. I am a vision therapist and see incredible results on a regular basis. That said, vision therapy is not for central language processing disorder--that is why we have a comprehensive evaluation before prescribing it. Vision therapy fixes disorders of the visual system---other collateral benefits depend on the needs of the individual. I adore John Denver and went to several of his concerts. I love early music and play recorders. I never read or watch any sci-fi---no Dr. Who, Star Wars, etc. ugh. I detest creamy salads--like fruit stuff with marshmallows and goop, or macaroni salad with a mayonnaisey dressing. gag. I do not recognize the names of most of the "celebrities" mentioned in this thread, and I don't care.

I play recorders with a couple of early music groups. I want to enjoy gardening and drawing, but I am just not good at these.

Here is an excerpt from the speech JFK had planned to give in Texas the evening of his assassination: Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom. So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation's future is at stake. Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause -- united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future -- and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance. Words for us today...

I was in first grade. I walked home for lunch to find my mother hunched over the radio in tears. My baby brother was crying in his crib and my 4 year old brother was trying to console my mom. She told me what happened, and when my dad got home for lunch she told him and we watched it on TV. My grandfather came over to be with my mom for the afternoon and dinner. I went back to school and told my friends who told the teacher. The teacher accused me of making it up. When I insisted, she went to the office where there was a radio. She came back crying. I remember watching the funeral and seeing the children just the ages of my brother and me.

How DID the teacher illustrate or explain this? Kudos to your dd for standing up for reasoning!