I just used the rest of our spinach up in lasagna yesterday. I'm not even going to dig the package out of the trash. Although I'm pretty certain that was the brand. I'm going to just rest assured I cooked it and killed the germs. :p

If you're having the you gets clean up Saturday to prepare for the sabbath on Sunday, then I would enforce that the older do her preparing on Friday. She needs to get her chores and preparations for the next week done the day before her sabbath. That's personal responsibility to plan ahead for what's going on in the coming days. Good luck!

2/8 pizza $32 2/9 $0 2/10 $27 for breakfast and dinner out $24 for wrestling tournament fee and admission 2/11 $130 for groceries 2/12 $11 late lunch after co-op 2/13 $0 2/14 $9 lunch and $8 supper $15 for 4H fees, $3.50 llbean purchase after discount and coupon $$ :) Not too bad of a week. I knew it was busy and we'd have a few days of eating on the road but all in all not bad!

Ramsey says 25% of take home pay. I think it sounds like a little too much. Is it possible to wait a year and save like crazy? By bringing more of a down payment, it'll lower the monthly payment. I honestly don't see rates going up that dramatically in the next year. I also wouldn't advise putting yourself in a tight position now out of fear of future costs of the project. The increased risk of paying so much more monthly is far more dangerous than the risk of increasing costs IMO.

Funny story. My dd is 6 and in first grade. And i also have a ds9. We just stared using mystery of history. Last week we did a chapter on the Tower of Babel, I explained how God changed their languages and if we were to be surrounded by people who speaks German, French, Spanish, Chinese, etc, it would sound like they were babbling. Fast forward to yesterday, we were at ds's wrestling practice and I told dd, to not get kiwi juice on my iPad (don't eat and play). She said "yeah well you speak Spanish, I speak English and it sounds like you're babbling." And then she giggled. I started laughing so hard. Sometimes I really wonder if she understands much of our history and science that we do all together. I think she got that lesson dead on.

2/8 pizza $32 2/9 $0 2/10 $27 for breakfast and dinner out $24 for wrestling tournament fee and admission 2/11 $130 for groceries 2/12 $11 late lunch after co-op

Just to add, My husband broke his nose and got a concussion from bull riding. We are okay with wrestling and football, but my husband might draw the line at bull riding. I've been informed mutton busting!?!? Would be okay though. Basically a kid hangs onto a sheep for dear life.

2/8 pizza $32 2/9 $0 2/10 $27 for breakfast and dinner out $24 for wrestling tournament fee and admission Wrestling was fantastic though and after a first place finish, my son's grin made the day!

My son is 9 and has played tackle football for 2 years and has wrestled since he was 6. He did a couple wrestling tournaments early on, but then only did practices for a year. Last year he was more mentally ready to go back to tournaments. I have worked in health care for a long time and am hyper aware of concussions. I had a concern last football season when he dished out a pretty hard hit. We let him play because these are the only sports he likes, and he doesn't have interest in much else recreational. He's not super passionate about either sport yet, and as long as we homeschool, he will not be able to play middle and high school football, where it gets dramatically rougher. (Unless state laws change, which I doubt). We simply are aware and make him aware of the risks of hitting wrong. I wouldn't hesitate to make him stop playing if he were to get a head injury or I thought the risk of getting one was higher.

I really would like to go. Mainly to curriculum shop. I went to a conference in Illinois last year and enjoyed it and even went to see a few speakers. Has anyone ever taken their kids with and done the children's conference? We were thinking about making it a vacation between Columbus and cinncinati for a few days each. I'm trying to decide if we should do that and have the kids do the optional kids conference, or just the two of us go and leave the kids with grandma for a couple days.

My totals for last week weren't so bad, except for eating out. Gets me every time. :( Grocery - around $90 Eating out - $108 School items - $27 Gymnastics for the month - $87 No spend days - 3 And for yesterday 2/8 - pizza $32 I have a feeling the eating out might be worse this week. It's a very busy week out of the house.

My ds 9 has a blogger account, but he uses Microsoft live writer to do the composing. It's very similar to Microsoft word and simple to use. Bonus, it's a free download and one click to upload it to their blog.

Well, add $16 for lunch for me :(. My husband wanted us all to go with him to look at a job he's bidding tomorrow. It was 1:00 and dd and I hadn't had lunch yet. He proceeds to say him and ds went to subway for lunch. So I made him take dd and I to jimmy johns. Lol. We all got a cookie, and dd and I each got a sub. I don't know how much they spent at subway, as long as DH uses his weekly cash and not the debit card, I don't care ;)

Updating.... Friday - went to museum, but we have a membership. Ate at Fazoli's $20 Saturday - $20 for Steve Spangler science experiment books at hobby lobby, $60 for dinner out with DH ( I refused to share my cheesecake, so we had to get 2, hahaha) and $7 for a piano guy kids book total $87 Sunday $0 Monday $0 Tuesday Burger King with kids $12 Wednesday $0 Thursday $87 for gymnastics ... Hopefully nothing else today.

My dd is 6.5 and her brother is 9.5 in 3rd grade. Here's what I use with the first grader... Everyday Wwe1 Logic of English - 1 lesson a week broken over the 5 days Math mammoth 1B - we only have one chapter left and she will move onto 2A History - (with ds) mystery of history Science (MWF) - with ds, I put this together. Right now we are finishing up a human body unit and then we will move onto chemistry unit. Geography (T TH) with ds, we already worked through the 50 states location and capitals, now we are working on the countries of North America. Art (M and if needed W) with ds, Home Art Studio 1 both kids love this! Life of Fred - we use as a read aloud a coup,e days a week and the kids write their answers in a composition book. We are on Dogs right now PE - she is in competitive gymnastics and practices 5 hours a week. That coupled with kids club at the gym I workout at once or twice a week is more than enough. All together with ds's separate subjects it takes us about 3-4 hours total, but there are breaks in there when I'm working with one or the other individually.

I was reading everyones posts and thinking, I haven't spent much and there have been days I've spent none. Ummm, not exactly. Not sure of exact amounts but I will guess. My goal is to save half of my husbands paychecks. We use cash for most purchases, but I did put some larger things on the credit card (paid off monthly). Our only monthly bills are electric, gym membership, gymnastics for dd6, directv, and the credit card (eta: I bought the kids coats and shoes this month so those will be on there for next month), so this should be doable. Friday - went to museum, but we have a membership. Ate at Fazoli's $20 Saturday - $20 for Steve Spangler science experiment books at hobby lobby, $60 for dinner out with DH ( I refused to share my cheesecake, so we had to get 2, hahaha) and $7 for a piano guy kids book total $87 Sunday $0 Monday $0 Tuesday Burger King with kids $12 The rest of the week should just be gymnastics fees for the month...here's to hoping!

If you have a local kids/science museum that is part of the astc, you can buy a family membership and then use it for general admission at science and industry, field museum, and the Adler planetarium. I live about 2 hours from Chicago and the $65 family membership at another museum an hour the opposite way has more than paid for itself with two trips to the field museum. Which is huge by the way. We spent 4 hours each time and probably only covered half if the museum total (just the general exhibits, no extra cost exhibits). Unless there is something extra you are really interested in, there is plenty to see on the free with astc membership general admission. http://www.astc.org/members/passlist.htm

I will tell you what we do, and you can take from it if you'd like :). I have a 1st and 3rd grader. They both use math mammoth as their main curriculum. We also do Fred once or twice a week, 2 chapters at a time out loud and just for fun. I honestly, have to say, we are in the Dogs book now and the most they get out of it is non-math things. They enjoy the story, and the loads of extra information...but for math alone...not so much. Beyond the dogs book, I can't tell you how much more math their is, but there is no way I would have used it as a stand alone up to this point, or even as a main curriculum. For us it's a fun supplement with a funny and cute read aloud story.

I love ikea for organization items I have the boxes that match these and love them for storage....inexpensive and simple http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90214426/

I wouldn't drop the grammar. It helps so much in enforcing how the words are put together in a sentence or story. That said, I don't push for total mastery on each grammar lesson. I look more for a basic understanding and then move on while looking back to review every so often. The program does a pretty good job of reviewing the grammar and building on it. The later lessons do get more in depth than an 8 year old probably needs like subordination conjunctions and such, so those could probably be dropped or let go if you try to explain it and get a blank look from him :). The basics of a sentence needing a subject then a verb and then some can help with reading fluency.

I used LOE at an accelerated 1 lesson every 1-2 days with my 9 y/o and at a slower pace for my 6 y/o. It has worked great for us. I modified it for the 9 year old by removing parts of the dictation and only occasionally doing composition together. We cut out much of tr phonogram review as well once he had them memorized and just focused on the new phonograms, spelling rules, and grammar. Now that he's finished all 40 lessons, I'm using the advanced spelling lists that are online for his weekly spelling list (they didn't have these the first time he went through). For my 1st grader we do 1 lesson a week. I like that its all in one place. Reading, spelling, grammar, dictation, etc. her success and improvement in reading is all I need to be sold on this program and method. Well worth the $ I spent. It's very easy to modify this for your child's individual needs in my opinion and this is our first year homeschooling.

I was trying to find a picture of the box I found but can't, so I will describe it. They are index card file boxes (small for game cards and large for phonograms, spelling and grammar). I bought them at staples and they were a little more expensive, like $15 for the largest, but super nice and shut tight in case they ever got knocked off the table or shelf. Not that that would ever happen ;) They are a smoky black plastic case with metal edges and a metal buckle on the front. It is slightly wider and taller like the cards and they all fit perfectly. I turn the game cards sideways to fit them so they are lined up left to right instead of front to back. I really like them.

I use it and I love it! My 3rd grader went through at a rapid pace. (A lesson every 1-2 days). I did that mostly for the spelling rules and grammar. I'm also using it for my 1st grader and it has made a huge difference in her reading abilities. She's on lesson 20 and we do one lesson per week. I space the work out over 5 days for 20 minute sessions or so. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. She has picked up the grammar so remarkable well it amazes me. I really love how its laid out and includes a sufficient review and covers all aspects of the language arts (reading, spelling, grammar, dictation, and composition).

I gEt them daily. Probably since I threatened one such operator that if they called back I would make it my personal mission to hunt down his home phone number and call him every hour on the hour. To add to the mix and spice up my life, I get automated calls a couple times a week asking if my business does tree trimming and needs immediate work to press 1. This week it has turned into if your business does remodel and home repair work. Now we do have a business which is ran out of our home. But we do water and sewer pipeline work. And I wouldn't rely on automated phone calls for business leads. It's just bizarre.

We had a difficult day today which ended in my kids kicking each other. I already told them if tomorrow is not better, they will not be having friends over Friday. Then DH went up and told them no electronics for a week! I promptly asked why is he punishing me. Lol I did take them away earlier today and it was fine, they don't really have a screen addiction, except for the occasional wave. But sometimes mom needs them to kill brain cells on the computer so I can get a break! Like to use the bathroom alone!