Totally acceptable (though I won't bother guests with it!!). Can't pass up the free meal. :)

We adopted a baby boy from Ethiopia and he came home at 6 months. Definitely possible. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by intrusive or more intrusive?? In any adoption process your entire financial and personal life will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Your social worker and adoption agent will know EVERYTHING about you. :) All for a good reason! :)

I was very regular my whole life until I became pre-menopausal (at 41). For the last 3 years I've just skipped a period here and there. It's a peculiar divide to stand on, when you're not sure if a missed period means you're pregnant or entering menopause. :lol:

We always pack 3 days of clothes each, no matter how long we'll be gone. Makes it much lighter to cart around luggage for 6. Then I just do laundry... every 3 days! :) Also, I make sure that everything matches everything else so you can wear any combination. When we do that on vacation, it makes me wish we did it at home that way too. Very simple! :)

Sounds like our house! I have kids in 4th, 2nd, 1st and K. I think the challenge is that they're very close in age and none of them are independent yet. It's very challenging. :)

We started doing that this year. I have a section for every subject, and every Saturday night I fill up their notebooks for the week. I ripped apart workbooks and hole-punched them ahead of time. The first time it took a while to rip and punch everything, but now it only takes me about 30-40 minutes to fill 4 notebooks each week. LOVE IT! Sometimes we'll decide to take all our work to the library or the park. Each kid just has to grab a single notebook (pencil pocket included) and I take whatever teacher books I need. It's so much easier!

That's exactly how my legs look all summer from gnat bites. :glare: I think I have an allergic reaction. They're MUCH itchier than mosquito bites. Do you live in gnat territory??

:lol: That was my first thought too! We're seriously into biology around here, but that question made me say "HUH?"

I basically do it in order of age. Our math period takes about 60 minutes. I start with DD9 for 15 minutes to explain it and work 1-2 sample problems for each concept, then she works on her own. Then DS7 comes, learns for 15 minutes, and goes off, then DD6, then I walk around to each and make sure they're still on task. Finally, I do whatever time is left with DS5. So far, so good.

If you're not allowed to make copies, you could slide a sheet protector over the page and use a dry-erase marker to answer all the questions, thereby leaving the page unmarked.

You can definitely still go swimming in October, even as far north as Savannah, GA. We're going camping for a week on the gulf coast of Florida in mid-October. Can't wait!

We used to use Spelling Workout (for 1-3rd grades), but this year switched to Sequential Spelling. LOVE IT! Every day, it's a 25-word "test" which the student self-corrects as we go through the list (they spell it wrong, I hold up the correct spelling and they write it the correct way right away). It builds up from a single small word (like "in") and adds in ever more complex words (ending with "beginning" at the end of week 1). The words essentially evolve from one to the next in a very natural manner. It's very efficient and logical, and is supposed to be especially good for dyslexics (which I don't have). I like it so much better than the exercises in Spelling Workout, and I find they internalize spellings very quickly.

DD9 uses Math Mammoth and does 9 pages/week. This averages about 15 minutes per page.

We like to travel light at the beach. Swimsuits, bucket/shovel, and boogie board for each kid. I carry the towels, but they have to carry the rest (except I'll help DS5 w/his boogie board). FUN! Chairs are just too much for me to handle on top of the other stuff. I'm usually in the water with them anyway, or sitting on a towel.

DD9 who now reads easily 4-5 hours a day by choice couldn't ever have read that long at 6.5. With all my kids, I've done 5-15-minute reading lessons daily, plus they had open access to books. That's it! And so far, they're all reading monsters.

I'm finding that true for most of Florida! I'm a new puppy owner, and I didn't realize it was such a challenge! :)

And just to clarify, Dennis Prager is Jewish, not Christian as the article title might suggest.

From reading the article, I would side with the dog owner. Off topic, but here's why: http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=737ea17a-7201-45cf-abdf-d76a533b4c6c&url=better_answers_the_case_for_judeo-christian_values He valued human lives more than canine ones and made the best choices he could. I adore my puppy, but I would put the life of any stranger over his if I ever were, g-d forbid, in such a situation.

With a lid on, my PhD microbiologist husband doesn't have a problem with that. :) And he's extra-cautious!

Definitely! Thank you!!!! :)

They will go away when it gets down to freezing. Unfortunately, in coastal GA we never got down to freezing long enough to kill them this last year!! Aargh. My arch-nemesis. Hoping we get there this year. Usually we get 2-3 gnat-free months.

When I was building up students in a new city, I worked out a deal where I would provide X classes per week in exchange for free rent for my own music studio. I supplied the piano. It was a great deal for the school, since the space was otherwise unused after school let out for the day. Eventually, I taught 14 classes a week there for the school (all the $ earned went to pay my taxes!), and had around 50 private students a week. Parents LOVE the convenience, so I always had a waiting list. It was a really good income, and eventually I hired other teachers and had a bonafide music school there. It was great!

I usually throw all the bones into the crockpot on low. I'm lazy, so I just add onions, garlic and water. When it's done I discard all the solids and salt to taste. For dinner, I heat it up, and stir in 8 beaten eggs. For my soup, I add rice vinegar, chili sauce, and cornstarch. Either way, it's good. I feel like it's a free meal! :)

Same thing happened w/my 6-month-old puppy today. This morning I was pondering his 2-week lack of accidents, when I heard two very excited children race into the room and announce that he had just peed on the trundle bed. Of course, earlier that morning I had removed ALL the sheets to wash them. :glare: Seems pretty normal to me! :tongue_smilie:

I've been searching for a nice place to camp with a beach and campground that allow dogs. My first choice is the gulf side of Florida, but anywhere that is 5-6 hours away from where we are in Savannah, GA would be fine. We'll be going in mid-October for a week. Any suggestions???? Thanks!