Oh, and another thing they "hunted" for was egg shaped sidewalk chalk. We love sidewalk chalk around here.

Oh wow..... Oh wow! Hmmm!

The things my kids got from the Easter egg hunt from church were: tattoos, stickers, bouncy balls, pencil sharpeners.

Our neighbor grew pumpkins that came into our yard, so we got the ones that grew on our side. I still have 2 of them on my front porch. The third, the biggest and best looking I buried (after chopping the top off) and hopefully I'll have a nice crop of pumpkins. They do las a long time if yu don't cut them. So, my suggestion is to bury it and see what comes up.

I'm sorry! I know what it's like to wait. We waited and waited and waited, too. I hope you get chosen soon.

Thanks for reminding me. I love making hot cross buns! I just make up my own recipe. I use my zwiebach recipe, add an egg or two to make it richer, add a little more sugar, some cinnamon and raisins and then put a frosting cross on top when they're done.

I shop at Walmart, but carefully. I used to think they had great prices on Farmer John bacon. Until I noticed that while the packaging was the same, it was 12 oz. and not 16. Now I wait till my local grocery store has sales on 16 oz. packages of Farmer John bacon and stock up. Not everything at Walmart is as good as it appears. Their Hanes products have terrible elastic (not great for a pair of sweats). I do shop at Walmart, but I'm getting more and more selective.

I have to add a success story here. They aren't all bad. We adopted 5 children from the foster care system. Our oldest is almost 10. We had three adoptions - 2 sib sets and one single. We got all the children under the age of three. Not all children in the system have horrific stories. Yes, many do, but not all. We've had our oldest boys for almost 9 years now, and haven't had any significant problems. Sure, there are issues, but more due to personality types (strong willed children with two very compliant parents) than adoption problems. I'm not trying to "talk you into" anything, but I would like to raise a voice for positive fost/adopt stories. They do happen.

I love that show, but we never watch it. We don't watch much tv. It's becoming tiresome. But, I do like that show. I used to love NCIS:LA, but then I got tired of all the lying and undercover stuff, it really started to get to me on a moral level, so I quit watching that one.

When you say behind, what exactly does that mean? Behind in washing? Or just folding and putting away? I do we'll with the washing. But the folding and putting away.... Now that's a completely different thing.

Ha! Does that answer your question? I am never caught up. Never ever ever. Laundry is the bane of my existence. And the kids are even supposed to do their own (well, the three olders do) but somehow, I just have waaaaay too much laundry.

Are all the teachers parent-volunteers? Or do you pay for the services of outside teachers? Or both? I'm just curious. This is the first year we've had an organized co-op. we do pay for a coupe of writing teachers, but I taught three science classes and only charged a $5 fee per kid for materials. The writing classes were about $60/kid per semester. I'm not overly thrilled by the writing classes, and frankly, I take the kids for socialization purposes. Besides, I have friends among the moms, too. But, I'm just wondering if it's common to pay for classes or ate most co-ops volunteer run? It's just getting to be a bit of an expensive way to socialize.

Oh, lots.

No, I agree with you. Easter is the worst since we have church EE hunt and then 2 family ones. Fortunately at one of the family ones sil informed us she was putting crackers in the eggs she was bringing, and I've decided to put nickels in the ones I'm bringing. So, that should cut down on candy there.

I'm in the planning phase right now. ABeka has a display in our area next week, so I'll go to that for a few things so I can get free shipping. Other than that, I'll probably wait till Easter is over and co-op is done and I can get a chance to think about things

I am not planning today, I am planting. Dh got the rototiller and tilled up the garden plot (working around the peas and raised beds of onions and lettuce), working in compost. I got my new herb garden in this morning. Started babies from seed. We'll see how that goes. They don't look that great. I also planted a long line of sweet peppers in my herb garden. It should be interesting. And I planted a pumpkin. The whole thing. Fall 2011 our neighbor forgot about one of her Haloween pumpkins decorating the yard and all the sudden one day last summer we noticed a big vine invading our rose garden. It was the pumpkin. We let it go and it produced the coolest pumpkins. We've had them sitting on our porch since fall and today I dug a whole, whacked the top off the biggest pumpkin and buried it. We'll see.

I voted "other" even though there is no "other" because none of my kids call me one or the other exclusively. My little ones call me "mommy" only, but my older three call me both and I don't know when that began.

I voted "read a book" because that's what I'm planning on doing today.

Oh, I would love to. But, we just finalized the adoptions of numbers 4 & 5 and DH says we're through. He's right, of course. I'm kind of overwhelmed as it is. But then, I see posts like yours and I wish we could. Oh well, I'll just live vicariously ....

We have an itemized budget that is published every January and we have a congregational meeting about it. We know everything - how much the pastor makes, all the staff, how much the electric bill is, everything. It's a big deal. And we know how much money comes in and from where (not who, but rather...if there's other sources of income besides tithing, like weddings - our church is very picturesque so people who don't go to our church often want to have their wedding at our church, so we charge them for it)

Congratulations. What a happy day! I just had a chance to look at your pictures and your blog. Beautiful pictures. What a sweet little girl. Makes me want to go, too!

We're working on reading fluency, basic math, writing a sentence with a subject and predicate, capitaized first letter and period at the end. We do basic science and history. I held off on starting her on SOTW1 because I wanted to start her next year when the boys will begin their second round of the history cycle and I just wanted to do it altogether. We're going through FLL as well.

I saw this on a comic strip - "He doesn't have issues. He's got a full subscription!"

It's going in on Saturday. Whoohoo! DH has put a strict limit on tomato plants. Last year I went a little crazy. However, I still have my spring garden in full force, so it's going to be difficult. I'm in the middle of harvesting peas, lettuce, spinach and kale. My fennel isn't quite mature and my cauliflower is still.... not there yet. But, I'm planting tomatoes - both for eating and Romas for canning. Cucumbers, peppers (sweet and jalapeno), canteloupe, pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash, strawberries and my herbs are ready to put in as well. Oh yeah, and green beans. And I have a whole bed of green onions that is kind of a perpetual thing. I love growing green onions. They smell so good.

It is genetic. My cousins and I all have it relatively mildly. We just lived with it.