Casey said that Caylee's father died in an accident. Someone has come forward, asking for a DNA test on her and her husband. Their son (I forgot his name) died in a motorcycle accident and, before he died, he said that he was dating a girl named Casey and that her parents' names were Cindy and George. So she's speculating that her son could've been Caylee's father. I think they're waiting until the outcome of the trial before proceeding with DNA. Casey supported herself by stealing money from her parents and her friends during this time of supposed employment at Universal Studios. She never had a job at all after Caylee was born. So for almost 3 years, she stole tons of money from her mother. I've heard that hundreds of checks were taken from her mother, and that she stole money from her grandfather's nursing home account. Her best friend (I forgot her name but she testified at the trial) spent a month in Puerto Rico and, while she was gone, Casey drained her bank account. It was her money she was spending a Target in those surveillance videos they collected to show what she was doing during those 31 days that Caylee was missing. She's been arrested and charged with numerous counts of theft and bad checks, etc., but they weren't allowed to introduce that at her current trial.

I'm following it on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/CaseyAnthonyTrial

I have cable and the station In Session ran live coverage of it from 9am to 3pm and then HLN covered it from 3pm to 5pm. Your best bet if you have cable is HLN (Headline News Network). They broadcast live today and showed clips from the closing arguments and are on verdict watch now. I'm sure there are online sites, but I haven't watched it online, so I can't recommend any of those.

I'm curious as to what others pay. If you will, please specify your child's age/grade_____ 11 / 7th teacher's qualifications (degree, etc.)________ homeschooled senior in high school Lesson length _____ (30 minutes, 45, 60?) 30 minutes Lesson frequency(once/week?)______ once a week Monthly cost $ ______ (per child) $40.00 ($10 per week) Region where you live______ Virginia

There are several things that have come out surrounding the gas cans. First - George said that it was very common for Casey to come and get the gas cans when she ran out of gas. I think that when he noticed they were gone (the gas cans), he called the police because they hadn't seen Casey - or Caylee - in quite some time and perhaps he thought that the police would investigate the theft and find Casey / Caylee. Second - When Casey showed up at the house (and she wasn't expecting to find George there), they got into an argument and she wouldn't let George near the trunk of the car. She reached in and pulled out the gas cans and then quickly shut the trunk. The prosecution's theory is that Caylee was either in the trunk or, if she'd been removed from the trunk already, she knew it smelled and that her dad, being an ex-police officer, could potentially identify the odor quite easily. Third - The duct tape on the gas can is the same duct tape found on Caylee. I agree that if it was in the house / garage, anyone who had access to the home - including Casey - could've used it.

I don't think they'll deliberate long because they've been away from their families for six weeks. But...all it takes is one hold-out...one person who has made up their mind and won't budge. I don't want a hung jury. I don't want to go through the entire process all over again. The prosecution needs to do a excellent job in the morning during their rebuttal argument. If they do that, and tie everything together, I don't think it'll take long for them to reach a decision.

I don't know if they'll go after Cindy. On the one hand, they may feel that she's suffered enough with the loss of her granddaughter. On the other hand, they already have the evidence they need...just have to file the paperwork. And this entire process is costing the taxpayers a ton. I think I heard around $1 million. I don't know. I could see it going either way. I've followed this case from the beginning and I think that Casey's refusal to tell what really happened is why folks are so angry. Yes, Susan Smith lied about being carjacked when she drove her car into that lake in South Carolina (I remember being SOOO upset about that because my 2 oldest children were the same ages as her boys when it occurred), but, when presented with the inconsistencies in her story, she confessed within a few days. And Andrea Yates (the mom who drown her 5 children in the bathtub in Texas) was truly mentally ill. She confessed to the crime immediately. I can't believe that after all this time -- 3 years -- she hasn't cracked and confessed. That's why I was rather surprised that she didn't take the stand. Your defensive team has nothing. What have you got to lose? Although, if she gets convicted, she can certainly appeal on the grounds of ineffective counsel. Which is why I think her attorney (Jose Baez) came across as such a buffoon. I believe that has been intentional.

Yes, that's the one!

Oh..and an interesting twist no one had thought of until her mother lied on the stand. Cindy said that she noticed the dogs were sleeping a lot and she thought they were eating something in the yard. People are now speculating that Casey experimented on the dogs with the chloroform before she started giving it to Caylee. I don't think anyone would've connected the two events w/o Cindy's testimony on the stand. Something else to consider...Caylee was a few months shy of 3 years old. As she grew older, she would've grown more verbal...and she would've started to tell folks (like her grandparents) that there is no Zanny. Perhaps she would've started to talk about how her mother puts a rag over her face and makes her go to sleep. If there was any "premeditation" involved, it could've been a timing issue for that reason.

I don't think she set out to intentionally kill Caylee. I think that she chloroformed her in order to have her sleep when she wanted to go out and party. With no job, she couldn't afford to hire a babysitter. She made up one because she couldn't tell folks, "Yeah, I drugged her and she's home alone." So the fake nanny was to explain where Caylee was when Casey was partying. Some people have speculated that Zanny is a nickname for Zanax, which is a sleeping pill. So Zanny the Nanny would be an inference to giving your child something (not necessarily Zanax) in order to put them to sleep. One night, she gave her too much and she died. She couldn't call 911 because they'd detect the chloroform pretty quickly. She then applied the duct tape and made it look like a kidnapping. The computer searches could reveal nothing more than a fascination with death or gory stuff. For instance, the 'neck breaking' search lead her to a page on martial arts. Just as there are people who enjoy horror movies like Saw, there are people who have rather macabre tastes in all sorts of stuff. As for the drowning theory...if the child drown, either on purpose or accidentally, she'd have called 911 and played the hysterical mother and we'd never have heard of it in the national media. Unfortunately, drowning is very common with young children in Florida. :( I think she's extremely self-centered and used to getting her own way. She certainly thought that her parents would lie for her -- and they caught her mother doing so on the stand. But her father wouldn't do it. He wouldn't lie and say that he was there for any accidental drowning. I think she'll be found guilty, but I don't think she'll get the death penalty. I think she'll get a lengthy prison sentence though.

My youngest son is reading it now. He'll be 12 in September. I think I read it for the first time around 7th grade age. You could start with The Hobbit as a read-aloud and see what their interest level is for the other three books.

There are 2 in Virginia. One in Culpeper (not far from Fredericksburg) and one in Virginia Beach.

16 years! I started when my oldest was 4 and she's 20 now! My youngest is 9. She has autism and she's working on a 1st / 2nd grade level now, so I have at least 9 or 10 more years to go!

I love my teenagers! I love spending time with my oldest daughter. She turned 20 in April so she isn't technically a teen any longer though. She's always been very even tempered and level headed, so we didn't deal with the emotional mood swings that I've heard some parents have to deal with when their daughters hit the teen years. She's a full-time college student, and she works part-time, so the time I do get to spend with her is precious. My oldest son is 17. He's sensitive and shy and he CAN be moody at times, but those a few and far between and have decreased a great deal over the past year or so. He's the one I turn to when something in the house doesn't work properly and he's a whiz at fixing my computer and other electronics. He's also well over 6' tall (I'm 5'4") so he's the one I turn to when I need something off a shelf in the kitchen! :)

We paid around $300 for our oldest daughter's black belt testing fee, but we were told what it would be, once she was scheduled for promotions, and I want to say it was a good 2-3 months in advance. So we did have time to prepare for it.

George is a retired police officer. With his training, would he say to his daughter, "Here, honey. Put the body in the trunk of your car, in June, in Florida, and drive around with it for a few days...and then dump it in the woods down the street from our house. No one will ever look for it THERE." :glare:

20yo - criminal profiler 17yo - video game designer 11yo - marine biologist 9yo - the next Lady Gaga ;)

Teaching Textbooks Prealgebra He used Math-U-See for Kindergarten and BJU Math for 1st through 3rd. Switched to TT in 4th Grade with TT Math 5. Completed TT Math 6 in 5th Grade, TT Math 7 in 6th Grade, and we're sticking with it all the way through high school. I wanted to add. TT Prealgebra contains a good deal of review in the beginning of the course. It goes through addition, subtraction, division, etc. before starting into the prealgebra topics. If he has a good grasp of basic math, he would do well in TT.

Check out The Old Schoolhouse. http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/

We just replaced our Whirlpool with a Bosch. Can't wait for it to arrive!! Installer will be here tomorrow.

Yes, you can use just the text and not the CDs. All the problems are listed in the book. For the younger grades (TT Math 3 through 7), the CDs are interactive, meaning the child can do all of the math through the CDs. They type their answer in and get instant feedback. It will tell them if the answer is wrong so they can do the problem again and it'll make a cute little clapping sound or something like that if they get it right. So my youngest son never used the book for the earlier grades... everything was done on CD. The only exception was for TT Math 7 where he did follow along with the textbook when it taught geometry, so he could use it to recall the various shapes. For the upper levels, the opposite is true (although they're in the process of redoing the upper levels and I think it's to make the CDs interactive for the upper grades, too, but I'm not sure). For Prealgebra and up, my kids rarely used the CDs. They would view the lecture for the lesson (15-20 minutes on average) and then completed the written lesson on paper using the textbook. The only time they pulled out the CDs was if they missed a problem and couldn't figure out the solution. Then they'd get the corresponding CD out of the case and watch as that exact problem was solved for them. I love TT. It's something that they can truly do completely on their own with very little help from me.

It depends on why she's babysitting. If we're going somewhere "routine" or "errand-based", she earns nothing. It's part of living in the family. So we don't pay her if we're going to the grocery store, Wal-Mart, Costco, the doctor or dentist's office, etc. We DO pay her if we're going out socially -- out to dinner or a party or something where it's just my husband and I. Usually we'll pay her $20-$40, depending on how long we're gone.

I'm pursuing my accounting degree online, so I do all of my studying on the weekends and early in the morning (I get up about 5am and have at least 2 hours to study before I have to start my morning routine). I couldn't do outside-the-home classes and keep the house straight and homeschool the kids! Something would have to give. My children are older, too, which greatly helps. They do their own laundry and keep their own rooms clean, and assist with chores around the house. And, while I draw up the daily schedule, they're responsible for completing their assignments. I help when they need it and correct papers. (My youngest is the exception to that rule, as she has autism and needs more one-on-one help and supervision, but the older ones help with that also). Another great help for me is that my hubby works from home, so he does at least 75% of the cooking during the week.

Singapore Math (http://www.singaporemath.com'>http://www.singaporemath.com'>http://www.singaporemath.com'>http://www.singaporemath.com) Singapore Science (http://www.singaporemath.com) Growing with Grammar (http://www.growingwithgrammar.com'>http://www.growingwithgrammar.com'>http://www.growingwithgrammar.com'>http://www.growingwithgrammar.com) Growing with Spelling (http://www.growingwithgrammar.com) The Reading Lesson (available on Amazon if phonics help is still needed) Oak Meadow 2 (we're using this now and loving it!)

We school year round. Our new curriculum begins in May and we do school all summer. We usually take a week off sometime in the fall for vacation (this year, we're going the last week of September). We take a week off at Thanksgiving and 2 weeks off at Christmas. I try to finish up my school year ... (36 weeks is a school year for us) ... by the end of February. I work for a tax accountant and need to have lots of time off during tax season -- my busiest months are March and April and I can put in 10-12 hour days, six days a week, during that time.