We've pretty much always used Sonlight, which has daily reading assignments. My rule of thumb is that they are given a 3-chapter-rule. If they really don't like the book, after reading 3 chapters, they can drop the book in favor of another one from the bookshelves downstairs (I have a ton of books!). On average, they only drop around 2 books per year out of their Sonlight core. For their own independent reading, they can read whatever they want. Right now, Star Wars books are a really big hit! My oldest son is into reading all the 'ship technical manuals' and my youngest son is reading the novels based on the movies.

Same here in Virginia -- and the same price, too!

LOL!! :lol: I have one of my own!! I was driving home from visiting my mother with my two oldest children -- my daughter was 3 1/2 and my son was 4 months old. It was a good 4 hour drive and, about an hour and a half away from home, my baby couldn't wait any longer! So I pulled off the road and parked between the edge of the road and a cornfield. Really in the middle of nowhere. I got my baby out of his carseat and brought him into the driver's seat with me and sat down. So I'm nursing him and my 3 year old is just talking a mile a minute, asking me all sorts of questions like "How long do cows live?" and "How high is that corn?" etc., So I didn't hear the policecar pull up behind me. The officer walks up to the car, sticks his head in the window and and his first comment is, "Do you need any help, Ma'am?" -- and there's my son, just nursing for all he was worth, Then the officer turned bright red, yanked his head back out of the window, adjusted his hat and said, "Well...I suppose not." :blushing: I reassured him that we were all fine, while trying not to laugh my head off, and my 3 year old proceeds to climb on top of me, and her brother, to strike up a conversation with the poor officer, as if she were his long-lost cousin. "Hi! My name's Elizabeth! I'm 3 years old! How old are you? Do you have a gun? Can I see your gun? This is my brother. He's 4 months old. We're on our way home from my Nana's house......" The poor guy hurried away as fast as he could. :lol:

I doubt any president's stand on homeschooling would impact anything because homeschool laws are determined by each individual state. Just my opinion!

Can't mention Dr. Hook without this one!!! This song came on the radio just last night and the dh and I were singing it at the top of our lungs -- much to the chagrin of our children!! ;)

:lol:

I voted "until they have me committed" :lol: I've been homeschooling for 13 years. My oldest is a senior and my youngest is a 1st grader ... so I have many years left ahead on this wonderful journey! :)

*Whew* I don't have to change my avatar!! :D (I did agree with McCain on two quotes, though!)

LOL! I forgot "Swill"! My all-time favorite SNL skit of the "later years" is Alec Baldwin's Schweaty Balls. An absolute hoot!! Impossible to even watch with a straight face -- how they filmed it without cracking up is beyond me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzDtTF4rlc (Parental guidance is, of course, highly recommended!)

Excellent article!! Thanks for posting!!

HWOT is the only handwriting program I've used for my younger 3 kids (two of whom have special needs) and I think it's fantastic!!!!! Anyone who has a child who struggles with handwriting should try this program!!!

We've been doing the same thing!!!! Everytime we see Sarah Palin now, one of us will say, "And I can see Russia from my house!" :lol:

LOL!! We do alot of classic SNL at our house!! Everytime my hubby uses the blender, he refers to it as a "Bass-O-Matic" Whenever we do something and we don't know why we did it, someone will use the Church Lady's, "Oh, I don't know...could it have been...SATAN?" When we were studying ancient Egypt, my hubby sang Steve Martin's "King Tut" and the kids thought it was hysterical!! "Absolutely mahvelous" is heard around our house, complete with Billy Crystal accent. Whenever the doorbell rings, someone says, "Candygram" (from the skit with the shark from Jaws that Candice Bergen did) -- boy, we're showing our ages with that one! Emily Latella's "Nevermind" comes up quite a bit, too!

I would LOVE it!! :party: I was a bigger supporter of Hillary than I am of Obama and, nothing against Biden - I think he's fine - but I'd love to see an Obama / Clinton ticket!

Nope! It makes you a realist! :) My hubby and I were discussing this just last night. The difference between a Great Depression back then and a Great Depression now is just huge!!! Back in the 1930's, I believe some 30-40% of folks lived on farms, so they could at least survive. I believe only some 2% of Americans (and that seems high to me) live on farms today. I don't know how people would find enough food to feed their families. I mean, we get 3" of snow in our area and you can't find milk anywhere in town! It wouldn't take much to set everyone in a panic, and then they WOULD be coming after what you have. That's why the Fed's action was so necessary. The American lifestyle has changed dramatically since the 30's.

LOL! No argument there! ;) If you really, really want to live independently, then look into homesteading. Some friends of ours had the same mindset. They bought 20 acres of land in West Virginia for next to nothing back in the early 90's. They saved their money -- I mean scraped together every dime...had their kids recycling cans, etc. -- paid off all of their debt. They built their own house on that land, bought farm animals, and planted a *huge* garden, quit their jobs, and they're the most self-sufficient people I know. They basically 'disappeared from society'. It's more radical than *I* could handle, but they truly aren't dependent on the government for anything. The entire economy could collapse and they wouldn't have a clue (they don't own a TV, subscribe to a newspaper, or even have internet access -- I hear about their adventures via letters in the mail) I was a late baby, btw, so my parents (who are now deceased) grew up during the Great Depression. My mother had a terrible time (her father was a car salesman and they lived very 'high on the hog' during the 20's, and he lost everything -- so they were in the lines at the soup kitchens just to survive. Her father was soon selling oranges to make ends meet). Now my father lived on a farm and he said that they really didn't have it bad at all. He used to say that he was just as poor during the Depression as he was before the Depression and after the Depression. They always had food and, if they needed anything else, they could exchange their food for what they needed. And I've never forgotten that difference between my parents' childhoods, so we've always had a garden -- I grew up with a garden (my father insisted, which makes sense, considering what he grew up with), and my mother washed and saved Reynolds' Wrap and plastic bags until the day she died). We've forgotten that way of living in this 'I want it now and then I'll throw it away when I'm done with it' modern society.

Depression is NOT coming. That's what Friday's move by the Feds prevented. The last thing the American economy needs is a run on the banks and everyone pulling their money out. Live within your means is the best advice.

Here are my kids' favorite movies: Mary Poppins Sound of Music Finding Nemo Toy Story And anything Veggie Tales! They are really, really cute movies! "Dave and the Giant Pickle" is a favorite in our house!

I hope it changes alot of mindsets!! We've bought 3 homes during our marriage and, every time, we needed 10% down and excellent credit. We would never agree to a "no money down, look at this low interest rate for 2 years!" sales pitch -- but many, many folks did accept it. So the mindset of the everyday American needs to change as much as the corporate mindset does.

Dave Ramsey is right and, one of the things the Feds did on Friday is to insure your money market account (which is huge!). It's now insured, just like your bank account. My hubby has never allowed us to have credit card debt -- his economics degree has been very useful in that respect! We have a mortgage and one car payment and that's the extent of our debt.

Here's an article from our local paper (The Washington Post) about John McCain's role in deregulation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091603732.html?hpid=topnews

You're so right, Drama Queen!! This will definitely cause many folks to re-examine their priorities! But I can tell you that my hubby was really a worried man on Thursday!! He told me that the entire US economy was on the verge of collapse - literally. And that would have caused a domino effect that we'd likely never recover from. Now we need to do some major belt-tightening.

Awesome news!!!!! I'll be praying here for continued success!!!! :grouphug:

Here are the two charities closest to our hearts: Special Olympics (my 14yo son *loves* playing for the SO .. he's so proud! so we want to make sure they stay around for a long, long time so that more and more children get to have that wonderful experience!) http://www.specialolympics.org Autism Speaks (also in honor of my 14yo and 6yo - we need more research and resources for parents) http://www.autismspeaks.org/

According to my husband, who has a degree in Economics, what the federal government did yesterday was done to prevent a Great Depression and he says that, while we'll be paying for this one for awhile, it was a good decision. I'd often told him that I was worried that we were headed for another Great Depression and he always told me that it would never happen - that the Federal Government wouldn't allow it to happen. And they didn't. That's what this is all about. (If you listen to most economomists - Suze Orman, that Mad Money guy; I forgot his name!, or my hubby - they're glad to see the Feds step in) It should stop the cascade of foreclosures and, if the housing market ever turns around, the government should make a killing off of this deal (which they would then use to pay down what it's going to cost us right now to fix it). What my hubby does want is more regulation, so this doesn't happen again. He said that McCain was one of the champions of de-regulation for all of these agencies -- maybe he's learned a valuable lesson...one he needs to learn if he should win the White House.