I agree that you either love Saxon, or hate it. I happen to love it. It keeps concepts fresh in my dd's mind. She will tell you that she doesn't enjoy math, but she is good at it. We do not do the timed drills because they stress her out (this is where I think her dislike of math began). Still, she knows the facts very well. She is just not very fast. Today I went back and did all of the oral assessments (you are supposed to do them at every 10th lesson). I am glad I waited. It showed me that she really did retain a lot this year. I was also able to see that she truly understood the concept of regrouping in addition and subtraction (more than just knowing how to work the problem). I feel that this understanding is a direct result of both the individual attention she gets because we homeschool and because of the way Saxon teaches these concepts. I didn't supplement too much this year. I did use the One Hundred Sheep tape to help her learn skip counting. HTH

I hadn't planned on going, but found out recently that I can make it. I am going with some friends from here and hope to see some of my old friends too! :001_smile:

I had thought about Four Corners, but ruled it out because it is too far out of the way for us. Thanks for the suggestion though!

No offense taken! :) Actually, we did pick these places because of distance. We estimated at what times we would need to stop for lunch and for the night as we travel. We really won't have time to see everything anyways, but would like to see as much as we can when we do stop. Even in our very little town that I would describe as full of nothing, has a nice little pioneer settlement to tour. We are taking I-10 on the way to Tucson. Our stop in Prescott, AR is because we have friends that live there. Thank you so much for the suggestions. I'm sure that we will have to have plenty of potty breaks in between our official stops since we are traveling with our children. So any other suggestions for stops along the way are greatly appreciated as well. :001_smile:

I just saw this option in a travel guide today. How long does it take? We have only one day to see the canyon. It sounds like a lot of fun though! Thanks for the input!

We will soon be driving to Tucson and the Grand Canyon. I have a few ideas for places to visit while we are there, but would love to have suggestions for places to eat or sights to see at our stops. We won't have very long at each stop, but want to get as much out of our trip as possible. Here are our planned stops. Baton Rouge, LA Katy, TX Fort Stockton, TX Deming, NM Tucson,AZ Williams, AZ Gallup, NM Tucumcari, NM Lawton, OK Prescott, AR Vicksburg, MS Spanish Fort, AL I would appreciate any suggestions you have. If you know any allergy friendly restaurants in these towns, I would love to know that also. TIA! :001_smile:

Harveys Supermarket doubles coupons up to 50¢ every day here . The prices there are not great. Every once in a great while I get a good deal. A few years ago WD and Publix tried doubling or tripling coupons occasionally. I haven't heard of them doing it lately though. I really wish they would.

We have also had problems with our phone line that seem to be related to the weather. Except that it only has to be about to rain for the problems to start. When I have trouble with the DSL, I restart my modem instead of restarting the whole computer. Do you have a separate box for your modem? There should be a button on the back to power it on and off. This usually fixes the problem for me. HTH

Our English peas are almost at an end. We still have a few onions left to harvest. We have the beginnings of the largest grape tomatoes I have ever seen, some crookneck squash, and zucchini. Our cucumbers aren't looking too good for some reason. They didn't do well last year either. Dh plans on planting butterbeans later. He asked me just today if I wanted him to plant anything else. Maybe I'll get some ideas from all of you. :001_smile:

I have two yard sales a year (fall and spring). Whatever money I make after tithing goes toward curriculum. I look for the best deals, and try to make the money stretch as far as possible.

Mine is an audio NIrV Bible on cd in mp3 format that covers most of the major Bible stories. The scripture is dramatized and some stories are followed by an appropriate song. It is put out by Faith Comes by Hearing. My parents gave it to me after receiving it at their church (They couldn't use the mp3 format). It is my understanding that these were distributed through the Church of the Nazarene last year for free. I don't think all churches took advantage of the program though. I did find where you can buy a preloaded mp3 player for the Kidz Bible here for $29. HTH

There are two different versions of the game. The small card game is a little bit easier and doesn't require the players be able to read as much. We really enjoyed playing both versions of this game. HTH

I grew up in North FL (aka LA-Lower Alabama).:D

The rest of us love rice. I can be frustrating for me because it is one of the few things that my ds with allergies can eat with us. Sometimes I make rice anyway and then feel bad because dh has less to eat than everyone else. He does at least tolerate flavored rice. I prefer plain white rice, especially with gravy. Some foods just go better with rice IMO. I find that I don't prepare those foods very often because I don't want to eat them with anything else.

It is easier for us now that ds is not allergic to beef anymore. We can usually order a hamburger patty for him and some steamed veggies wherever we go. When we are going somewhere that doesn't have anything safe for him, I have freezer meals ready for him. Either I heat it up before we leave or ask if they can do it for me at the restaurant. If I cook chicken at home, I always make enough for leftovers. Some go in the freezer, some in the fridge. If I know we are going somewhere that doesn't have safe food, I grab some chicken from the fridge along with a side. If we are traveling, I keep food him in the cooler just in case we can't find anything for him wherever we go. I do try to match his food with what is available at that particular restaurant when possible. Generally, we stay away from resaurants that don't have safe food for him. Sometimes we don't have that choice (like when we are eating out with others). One other thing that has helped is to visit the websites of chain restaurants. They will often have the list of ingredients or allergens contained in each menu item. I print these out and keep them in a notebook for a handy reference. I usually know before I arrive at a resaurant what ds will be able to eat. I have learned from experience to emphasize that we are dealing with food allergies so that the waitstaff knows we're not just picky eaters. I have also been known to call ahead (not during a busy time for them) to inquire about ingredients and how food is prepared. I too have cried in the middle of a restaurant over my ds's allergies. Once, after asking for turkey and sweet potato only for him, the waitress brought his plate with a heavily buttered piece of toast on top of his meat. It made me so sad because he had to wait longer for his food on top of being limited in his choices. Thankfully, those problems don't occur as much anymore. Our most difficult place to eat out is McD's even though their hamburger patties are safe for ds. I think they can't fathom why anyone would want hamburger meat with no bun. If they get ds's order correct, they usually mess up someone else's. Once, my dh received a Big Mac with no meat in it at all. I guess they thought he just wanted his meat on the side. :001_huh: Good luck with your search for safe food. HTH!

When I made the carrot muffins, I think I used part oat flour and part brown rice flour.

Great Foods Without Worry by Cindy Moseley. I've used the recipes for cake, muffins, and pancakes, with much success. I have also made the =6&allergent[]=9&allergent[]=5&allergent[]=2&allergent[]=7&allergent[]=3&allergent[]=1&allergent[]=4&mcourse="]carrot muffins from this website. I always freeze the leftover muffins. My ds loves them. HTH

I suspected an allergy to strawberries to my ds when he was younger. I asked his allergist to test him for strawberries when he was testing for everything else and was told that he didn't have a test for it. This may apply only to that particular office though. We have simply avoided strawberries just in case. If I were you, I would just call the allergist and ask if there is such a test and whether or not your child needs to have it done for documentation. It is my understanding that strawberries are highly allergenic. I would definitely avoid them no matter what based on the reaction you described. HTH

I have a google account, but can't comment on Blogger at all from home. I can comment from my dad's computer. I am anxious to hear if someone has a solution for this. I have several friends who use Blogger and would love to be able to leave comments.

I know she was already mentioned, but Lois Ehlert was the first to pop into my mind. Some others I thought of are: Ed Young Leo Lionni Ezra Jack Keats Kevin Henkes Robert McCloskey Maurice Sendak William Steig Chris Van Allsburg David Weisner Vera B. Williams Arnold Lobel :001_smile:

Faithful Bookshop It is in Orlando. I haven't been there in a while since I don't live in Central Florida anymore. I remember it as a very nice store though. HTH

When we lived in central Florida, we drove over a half hour to our church even though there was another church of the same denomination less than two miles from our home. There were others in that congregation who came from farther away than us and passed 3 churches from that denomination to get there. If ever I felt that I had a church home, this church would be it. We still make a point to visit when we are in the area and remain close with many of the families there.

The BabyCenter Food Allergy board is very active and contains a lot of helpful information. Kids with Food Allergies has a great message board. You can read the main board by joining for free, but can't post unless you pay a membership fee. There is a great recipe section there for paying members. Allergy Grocer is a good source for allergy friendly foods. You can search by the foods you are avoiding. Allerjenn is a website for allergy friendly recipes. Again you can search by the foods you are avoiding. Allergies, Intolerances, and Food has lists for several different allergies on what to look for when reading ingredient lists. I know it is overwhelming. Take a moment and breathe. Make lists of what they can eat. I made an allergy notebook that contained the lists of ingredients we needed to avoid. Any other information I found helpful also went into that notebook. I also made a binder specifically for allergy friendly recipes. HTH!

I just posted on my blog about what my ds said the other night. He had been watching an Our Gang dvd in which Alfalfa sang The Barber of Seville. My ds went around the house singing at the top of his lungs, "I'm the barber of the field." My dd8 still says fravorite instead of favorite. She even spelled it fravorite on a recent spelling test. You can add her to the list of children who used clo as a singular for clothes. She also used to think that socks and shoes were one word, socksandshoes, referring only to the shoes. One of my big brothers called the title of a songbook from church 101 Scared Hymns. I always wondered what was so frightening about those songs.

I was 9 hours away from a Master's when I got my first teaching job. I have no desire to take classes again, but would like to finish someday. If I had to go back to work, I would like to work on a degree in library science. If I knew then what I know now, I would have pursued that degree in the first place.