Emma turned 8 yesterday, and Abbie turns 7 tomorrow. Abbie also lost her first tooth today. She's been waiting for that to happen for so long! We have a picture of her "toothless" smile on dh's phone. We're currently at a hotel near the mountains in NC because we're going mining for emeralds tomorrow. We like rocks, and my parents are here and wanted to take the girls on an "adventure" for their birthdays. Schmooey is here too and I found a really nice baby backpack at the consignment shop yesterday for $43 - woo hoo! So he will be riding along in style. The comic strip "Baby Blues" has a series this week called "The days are long, but the years are short." That is so true. I can remember feeling that the girls were going to be toddlers/preschoolers forever and I was SO tired. Now they are so big, I can't believe it. We've been watching some of the videos my dad took of them when they were itty bits and I could cry sometimes. My heart just breaks over how precious they were. I don't know exactly how to explain it. Anyway, thanks for listening to my mommy ramblings. I hope to get pictures on the blog after we get home from our mining adventure.

and my paper cutter. I got one from Stampin Up that has a smaller base than one of the big school-sized ones but has the chopping arm to cut paper and I love it. It makes my life ever so much easier.

But, for me, I love having a duplexing color laser printer - man is that nice. We got it free from dh's work when they were getting rid of all their "old" printers. Also a white board is wonderful. We use it for everything. And, for my girls, lots of arts and craft supplies are essential. We use them in school but they love to come up with their own projects too and it keeps them entertained.

Also the use of child labor for dusting. My girls are so cute - whenever anyone is coming to visit, they want to "clean the house," which involves dusting. That's the only thing they ever think of. I'm not sure if it's because it's the one thing I never do, or what. They're cute about it though and they even do the ceiling fans with the long-arm Swiffer thingy so it is a good deal for me. I hate dusting.:D

Oh wait, this kind of trawling involves nets. I've been trolling with my dad and it's very, very boring. Needless to say, I'm not a fisherwoman. I like to go with the kids and catch all the little tiny fish when there's lots of action - but I get bored, bored, bored on a boat with nothing to do but watch the water go by. Oh yeah - this thread had nothing to do with fishing, did it? ;)

Ewww! I am not an adventurous eater and, well, EWWW! I stopped reading after the baby octopus in the soup. Ack.

I would not let anyone play with that neighbor. E needs to be reminded that her sister's feelings are more important than someone who will blatantly lie. I have so much more I would like to say, but I think I'm just getting worked up on poor M's behalf. I am a very loyal person and would most definitely have a talk with one of my girls if I saw them leaving their sister out that way. I wouldn't be able to stand it.

I don't know what I'd do, honestly. Part of me thinks that the right thing would be to go talk to the mom and find out what's going on. I am not sure I would really be able to make myself do it, though. It's nice, I suppose, that the mom is willing to take the fall for A when she doesn't want to play, but when your other daughter is allowed to play and then they involve yet another child? Come on! How rude is that? I'd definitely talk to E about why she's willing to play with this little girl who will not play with her sister. I don't like to see siblings allow other siblings to be treated poorly. Having their own friends is one thing, but I don't think that is what I'd call this situation. I would tell E that leaving M out is not OK, and that letting A get away with lying about is is REALLY not OK. And, whatever else happens, I think I'd call M in for some special just-with-mommy time. I don't have the best answer. I am so sorry though.

Seemed like the easiest solution to me! I haven't tried to print one without doing that.:001_smile:

I figure by the time he's sick, I've already been exposed, so there's no point in sleeping somewhere else. I have come to the conclusion lately, though, that I'm not as cautious about germs as I could be. There really isn't anywhere else for me to sleep though because I have a lot of noisy clocks.

I have serious post number envy - I have no idea how people have time to post so much. I don't get here as often as I'd like so I feel like I have no idea what's going on so I don't even have anything to say when I do get to pop in! Alas, I fear I shall never sit among the royalty. :D

My mom used to call people rubes when I was a kid. It's so funny that you use it too! What a great word.

I have never heard of omphaloskepsis, but it might have to be my new favorite word just for the meaning! :lol:

We're having a drought. Very little mud and almost no rain days! 7 guineas.... hmm.... would you take KinzCash?:willy_nilly: (loving these crazy smilies!)

I don't remember needing to give it to them when they were under 2. What I preferred was the nose drops that would unclog their nose, like baby Afrin - the Little Noses Decongestant Drops. I don't give medicine for every little thing, but I'm not opposed to using it. If the kids are congested to the point of being unable to sleep at night, I will give them something. When Schmooey had the flu, our ped told me I could give him Motrin, even though he was not quite 6 months, because he weighed over 20 lbs. He hated it so much that he threw it up on me every time I tried to give it to him, so we just stuck with Tylenol anyway. I've tried Benadryl for traveling and found that it didn't help the kids sleep any longer in the car, so we don't use it. It did cut down on the whining but that's not a good reason to drug them, lol. I don't think there is anything wrong with careful usage of the correct medication.

I have found that when they do play with the neighbors, they come home with some.... interesting things. I've had to have more than one discussions with them saying things like "Just because they do this does not make it OK, and I don't want to hear you saying things like that." And then we talk about why it's not appropriate. Thankfully, the neighbors aren't around much. None of them are homeschooled and all come from divorced parents so at most we see them every other weekend. I love the kids, I really do, just not what they bring home from school, if you KWIM. My girls do dance, gymnastics and horse riding lessons. We didn't do co-op this year because of when Schmooey was born; we wouldn't be doing so many other things if we were. They see friends at church on Sunday. We have one standing play date per week, and one other family we try to see fairly often. That's all though. We're considering Classical Conversations for next year, and that will mean cutting back on the other activities. I don't like tons of playdates and I don't like to run around like a crazy person. The baby needs naps and I need to make sure he gets them. That necessarily limits our schedule for the next couple of years. My kids are occasionally bored, but truly, they have more toys than they know what to do with and I remind them to play with them. Also, they can go outside. Living in NC, it's rare that there is a day that's too cold or whatever for being outside. I feel so blessed when I talk to people in Chicago who are fighting the winter blahs! I guess what I'm saying is, IMO, let the kids have down time. If they are bored and choose to spend their time feeling bored instead of finding something to do, that's their choice. You shouldn't feel guilty for wanting some time at home.

for the great ideas! Closeacademy, I LOVE your ball-throwing math facts practice. I'm going to give that a try for sure. Also, we will be revisiting concepts with manipulatives. Right now, we're putting together our math facts lapbooks from Knowledge Box Central. Hopefully that will be a good aid too.

We just finished up review 1 in PM 1B. I don't think the girls really get the concept of subtraction. How do I help them with this? They've been using the 100 board to answer problems, and sometimes beans. Is that OK? I can tell they need math facts practice and I know I need to add that with Singapore. We're about to take the rest of the week, at least, and do that. Someone had posted on the boards, before they switched to the new forums, about Singapore and practice. I think they said that the Intensive Practice was better than the Extra Practice. Does that sound right? Are the Challenging Word Problems also worthwhile? I need to get the HG, I already know that. TIA! Beth

My girls love books, of course, like everyone's here. :) My oldest, especially, likes to wander around with piles of books and leave them all over the house. Naturally, it's usually books we need for school that wind up missing, simply because those are the ones I'm looking for, if you KWIM. I have a shelf in our bonus room for school books, and I try to discourage them from taking those away, but you know, I love books too and it's hard to tell them they can't have a book they'd like to look at. As per my spelling irritation post, it's my fault for not teaching them to put things back where they found them. Heh. So anyhoo, I'm considering putting things away where they will not be mislaid until after we've used them. The exception would be the Little House books; they're on the roster for MFW Adventures next year, but we've been reading them together and I won't stop just because we'll be using them again. They will like reading them another time, I'm sure.

I have the 3x5 boxes for the cards, and that's OK. I wish I'd laminated them, but oh well. It would have required a bigger box and I didn't want to bother with that. The thing is the spelling tiles. I have them in snack-sized baggies that are supposed to go in our rolling crate of "teacher stuff." I do not wander around with them, because I like to find them where they are supposed to be. However, when I went this morning to find dd6's bags so we could replace an "l" that is missing, they were nowhere to be found. I have looked everywhere. I've taken the very messy school area apart trying to find them, and even looked in places I thought dh might have put them if he'd come across them while picking up. I can't find them and I'm so frustrated. I know this is my fault for being disorganized and not teaching my kids to put things back. I just wondered if you have a container that effectively holds your cards, tiles and tokens in one spot so you don't have to keep looking for the rotten things when it's time for spelling.

I LOVE languages. Love them. Studied linguistics in college. I still have most of my books and love to read grammars for different languages. I have tapes and books to teach myself Gaelic (dh didn't think I should teach the girls, something about needing a more practical language for them) and someday I will learn it. I collect books. I adore old books. I have some of my dad's books from when he was a kid and I could lose myself in a good used book store for days. I have other stuff, too, like tons of cross stitch patterns, but books are my love. My dh thinks we might have too many, but really, that could never be true. I love homeschooling most for the excuse it gives me to indulge in my passion for children's books. :) My most recent purchase that I LOVE is an old, old copy of Midnight Folk by John Masefield. It's got cool colored pictures, with tissue paper over each one, and I've actually had to separate some of the pages with a knife to read the story. I know that reduces the collectability but I have the books to read, even the old ones. I also got a an old copy of the Burgess Children's Book of Flowers - I just love the way old books smell.

Dana, can I ask where you go in Michigan? My parents live in the Upper Peninsula right on Lake Superior. Dh's parents live in the Detroit area (Dearborn) with a cottage in the northern Lower Peninsula. I'm from the (very rural) Lansing area, and I have lots of friends & relatives over on the Lake Michigan side too. Just curious. :) We go to Michigan every summer. Last year the kids did horse camp, but it was planned around our Michigan trip (and my pregnancy, LOL). I am not sure we will make the drive this year with the wee boy, but we're already talking about my flying up with the boy and dh driving up with the girlies. I can't picture a summer without some time in Michigan.

Dh forwarded this to me this morning and it's hysterical! I hope you enjoy it. (I'm thinking many of you have already seen it, but I haven't been able to get here much so I'm posting it anyway.)

At least, the kids' ones are. We have too many. I was ready to get rid of some of the toddler/preschool ones, and then along came Schmooey. :-) So, perhaps some of them can take a trip to the attic for a few years or something. I feel overrun by everything, not just games, so it's clearly time to downsize. At least I don't have to look at the pile of games very often.

I decided to use it as an update for family & friends since we're long distance from most of them. I don't get to post as much as I would like, but I do like to rattle on about my kidlets. :D I kinda wish I hadn't told my family about it because I would like to write about other things that I would not want them to read, necessarily. Not that I would slam my inlaws on a blog or anything, they just don't "get" me and I don't feel like publishing my opinions for them to read. And yet I would post them for anyone else to read.... I guess I am strange. Anyhoo, my blog is for family to read about our homeschooling and other stuff.