Here's an example of a lapbook of the five senses. Perhaps it will help give you more specific ideas! http://ourlapbooks.blogspot.com/2007/10/five-senses.html

Fun challenge! I'm in! I'm currently reading A Suitable Vengeance by Elizabeth George. Next up will be P.G. Wodehouse.

Is there a reason you want to wait until just before you get on the train? Why not tell them as you're hopping in the car? I imagine the 5 hrs of excitement will be quite enjoyable! I think if you are going to hide it for longer, it would be nice if you could tell them something that is true rather than lying to them. I don't like giving kids mixed messages about lying as I don't want anyone else ever convincing them it's ok to lie to me for "good reason". Also, my kids might find it disappointing to not get to go to the fake destination! Is there anything else you'll be doing on your trip that you could tell them about, but it wouldn't give away the big surprise? How fun for them, and for you! :D

My 7 year old daughter loves math and will often spend hours a day going through workbooks. We purchased Math Mammoth and she easily works through it independantly. (We do not schedule math studies, and if I had to oversee it all I'd often spend entire days doing math!) If your son reads well and enjoys the subject, he should be able to work through MM with very little help.

I really loved the first three (I think?) books in this series, but couldn't even make it through the last one I attempted to read. And considering I rarely abandon a book, that's saying something for me! I have thought of picking the series up again to see if it's more palatable to me now. Also, the s$x in this is pretty explicit, and there is horrible abuse inflicted on Jamie in one of the books. (I rather wish I'd never had those particular scenes imprinted on my brain.) Just pointing that out in case anyone else is considering these books for themselves, and is sensitive to this type of thing. :)

Oh, I just love this!! We have similar pockets that run the length of the door, and despite my best intentions they end up with bits and bobs of everything stuffed in there. Plastic jars would be a perfect solution for that! Now we just have to increase our peanut butter intake for the year. lol!

If it's a static site with no need for a shopping cart, then I *highly* recommend using self-hosted WordPress, which can be used for a blog, a more traditional static site, or a combination of both. It is by far the easiest tool I've seen for non-techie users, which is especially important if you will need to have people with little to no web experience do content updates. There are thousands of free WordPress templates available online so designing from scratch is unnecessary. Modifying templates is easy with a basic grasp of CSS, and the number of plugins available make the platform extremely customizable -- if you think you want a feature, chances are good someone has already designed a component that will do it for you. I have designed, coded, updated and supported many sites over the years, on a variety of platforms. Based on what is out there right now (that I'm aware of) I would hands down choose/recommend WordPress.

Thank you all for the fabulous suggestions! All of the descriptions I've read so far have hit the mark perfectly! I've been on the library website and reserved copies of I, Claudius, The Sparrow, The Dragonbone Chair and The Squire's Tales. I'll be adding the others to my wishlist for the next round(s) of borrowing. Carmen, to answer your question, some books I've really enjoyed include: Septimus Heap series (I think these books are great for Harry Potter fans!) His Dark Materials series (I believe there's some religious controversy around these) Wise Child by Monica Furlong Tai Pan by James Clavell (it's been years since I read this, but I have fond memories of enjoying it immensely!) The Color of Magic (Disc World series) by Terry Prachett Good Omens by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman Various titles by Elizabeth George The Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse

I'm looking for recommendations for my 2010 fiction reading list and I'm hoping the hive will have some great ideas for me! Some comments around my preferences... I like historic fiction, sci-fi, fantasy and mysteries, and am a big fan of well-written young adult fantasy fiction. I don't mind mild violence, but prefer nothing too explicit, and most definitely like to avoid anything that touches on crimes against children and/or s&xual abuse. I enjoy books that make you think, but am not looking for anything that is too serious or contains depressing subject matter; I much prefer being uplifted. Extra points are awarded for characters that are witty, and plot lines that involve some humour. So with all of that said, does anyone have a brilliant suggestion to recommend? :D

My baby's middle name is Knight. His first name is Declan, so his cousins have started calling him "Dark Knight", as in Batman. My husband is thrilled to no end about it. lol! We were thinking of Stone for a middle name for the baby, as my other kids called him Pebbles all throughout my pregnancy. At one point we were considering Ronin as a first name, and it was a while before I clued into how Ronin Stone sounded together. That could have been a lovely accidental name! And we had a similar thing happen with our choice if the baby were a girl -- first name Ivory, middle name Hope. I think this baby just happened to want something a little different for a name. ;) My daughter's name is Fallon Rose. A couple of years ago a woman I know wrote it as Fallen. Until then, it never occured to me that people might think we named our child "fallen rose". Oh well. My mother knew two older women named Ima and Ura, and their last name was Payne. I never did know if that was a birth name or name by marriage. Hopefully no parent would do that to their child on purpose!

I think you're so kind and sweet to think of your nieces and their future! Regardless of what you do, I'm sure they will know how much they are loved and thought of, and that will be so much more valuable than anything else you could ever give them. :) I do want to say that I had a similar start to life as you describe; I started out on my own with a two plates, knives, forks and spoons and a frying pan from the dollar store. 16 years later I still only have a cheap set of dishes (that I really like) and not much else that would be considered valuable or worth collecting. However, I am completely happy about this! I feel burdened by too much stuff, and dislike the idea of having an attachment to physical things. Even the few items I have from my childhood feel like a weight to me, because after you keep something for 30+ years you feel like you need to continue keeping it simply because it's old! (Though I'm actually pretty ruthless and recently got rid of some clothing from when I was a baby. Shh. Don't tell my mother.) I will say that regardless of my feeling around the actual 'stuff', I would most certainly feel loved if a kind relative did something like this for me. So do go ahead and follow your heart, and I know those girls will adore you for it whatever you decide. :D

I completely agree on all counts! I am really enjoying the Southern Vampire books and also think they're better than the Twilight books (which I also enjoyed). However, Charlaine Harris' Shakespeare's Trollop tops my list of worst-read for the year.

You might find this thread helpful: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94790 Here's a helpful blog post about beefing up SOTW with Canadian resources: http://farmschoolathome.blogspot.com/2005/07/beefing-up-sotw3-part-i-adding-more.html (Becky runs a secular CM Yahoo group, and she's absolutely amazing!)

WOW! Thank you so much for writing all of that out! What a wonderful resource!

Thank you! :D As soon as I saw it I knew it was my dress -- it was a perfect match for one I had sketched as a little girl! Now if I could just find an excuse to wear it around the house... lol!

Another no-sew way to use the fabric is to place the gift in the middle of the fabric and pull opposite corners together and tie in knots, or gather the edges and cinch together with a ribbon.

Cutting the edges with pinking shears works fine, and there's no need to bother with serging or hemming. It's not like the fabric goes through a lot of wear and tear, or even needs laundering, so unfinished edges are no big deal. Once upon a time I had intended to make fabric bags, but it ended up being so easy using the pieces of fabric like this that I probably won't ever get around to that! We also re-use gift bags and tissue paper from gifts we recieve over time. Between the gift bags (often used for outgoing gifts) and the fabric, I haven't bough gift-wrapping supplies in years!

I've often wondered why people put their screaming children through sitting with a stranger in a Santa suit. When you make that a drunk, freaky Santa who is so obviously out of it (as seen in some of these photos) then it makes me shake my head even harder. What a bizarre custom it is, really.

We use holiday-themed fabric for wrapping. I have pieces in different sizes and we fold it around the gift and secure with yarn or ribbon tied in a bow. Then come Christmas morning, I fold the fabric up as it comes off the gifts, gather the ribbon and yarn, and put it all back in the bin for the next year. We do all of our wrapping on Christmas eve after the kids are in bed. We usually don't have loads of stuff for them, and I try to choose things that have very little packaging in the first place. But this year my mom is sending MP3 players, so I will unpack those and load them up before hand so that the kids can use them right out of the box.

I had a long-sleeved dress as well. It never occurred to me that it was uncommon until reading your post! But you're right, it's not something I've seen often. (I just told my husband we'll have to renew our vows someday so I can wear my dress again. It's absolutely my favourite thing I've ever worn.) As for the original question... I could care less what the bride wears. As long as she's happy, I'm happy for her!

There isn't a nutritional benefit to cow milk over breastmilk. Look at it this way... would you tell the rest of your family that instead of dinner this evenning you're serving milk? Of course not, because milk is a beverage, not a meal. Breastmilk is a meal. The only acceptable replacement for breastmilk is formula (meal replacement) or a well-rounded diet of solids.

So he doesn't even go by the standard recommendation, which is to breastfeed for two years. It sounds to me like he just isn't in favour of nursing in general, and is using low weight as his excuse to support his opinion. That's bad doctoring, right there. And why in the world does it matter if she's on cow milk? That is not a substitute for breastmilk, nor is it necessary for any child to have. It's fine if she wants it, but it really shouldn't matter if she doesn't.

I had similar experiences several times as a child. The one that sticks out the most was when I went away to a friend's cottage for the weekend and came home to hear that the plane tickets were bought and we were moving out of the province in three days. Though I will say that for us it was always because of a last minute decision, not because my mother was planning something and not telling us. (That seems easier to swallow for me.) Are you sure he didn't know they were moving? Buying a new house is not something that happens overnight typically, so it does seem very strange that his mother wouldn't have even talked to him about it. Sending supportive thoughts for your son and his friend. I hope you can manage to still support the relationship from his new location.

I nursed my daughter until just after her 4th birthday. She was down to one nursing in the morning and I was very tired of tandem nursing (after 18 months of it). My son weaned at 3.5 when I was pregnant with our third. I really didn't want to tandem again. With both of my big kids weaning was encouraged by me, very gently and with lots of discussion, and they were completely fine with it. Though I think my girl would have hung in there a little longer if I was more open to that, and my boy wouldn't have wanted to stop if there was still milk! I'm soooo glad I nursed them both through the toddler years. Nursing is such a wonderful way to reconnect and sooth a big kid that is overwhelmed or over-stimulated!

If I had a pediatrician that told me to wean my baby because of slow weight gain (or for most any other reason) I'd take that to mean the doctor was not well educated on the subject of child nutrition, and I'd seek out another practitioner. If I had a child that wasn't gaining well, I'd be inclined to increase the amount of breastmilk rather than decrease it. In fact, if one of my older children were having health issues I'd probably start pumping for him or her. A previous poster mentioned the difference between foremilk and hindmilk, and I think that's very wise advice. I would try to increase nursing sessions to increase the amount of hindmilk consumed. I also want to add that cow milk is *not* a substitute for breastmilk. It is a beverage, not a food. The only acceptable milk replacement that would offer a comparable nutritional intake to breastmilk would be formula. I always hear of people weaning babies and moving them to cow milk, and it makes no more sense to me than weaning from breastmilk in favour of orange juice.