Hehe...I'd be the only preacher's wife around with a hot pink do! :lol: Ah, who knows, I might get a wild hair someday.

I love the color! I keep threatening to do that. My family thinks I'm nuts to even consider it :glare:

My girls LOVE their knee high boots and wear them with everything. They are very cute with jeans, skirts, etc.

Just starting out last year for us.

The overall room is around 20x30ish. It's also our family room and my office, so only about 1/2 is dedicated to school.

One of our favorite is to marinate chicken breast in italian dressing, then grill and slice. Then toss the pasta with pesto (from the grocery store in a jar), parmesean cheese, garlic, and any veggies you might like. (A can of diced tomatoes is awesome if they'll eat it)

I like the look of them, but I'm not sure I'd want to pay $25 per child for them.

Not much scheduled, but I read constantly. (I have around 5-6 books going right now) I do have time set aside for my bible studies each morning, the most important :)

Prayers sent. :grouphug: That's such a hard thing, especially when you are too far away to help (went through that with both of my parents being over 4 hours away)

I wouldn't, but I'm paranoid that way ;) Btw, as my 5 yr old nephew was rattling off all the things that were GREAT about his hero Indiana Jones, one of his best attributes was that he never had to go potty! :lol:

Oh thank you!!

I've decided to teach myself Latin. Although I always made straight A's in English in school, as I am teaching my kids I feel like I've become very week in that area. My thoughts are that teaching myself Latin, I can improve that, and prepare myself for teaching the kids later :001_huh: Anyway, I've found Wheelock's Latin course at the library and will be using that as my text. Any good websites out there for supplementing?

We usually go from 8 until around 1 or 2 with a lunch break. The girls are fast readers though, and are pretty independent workers. Each day we do: Bible Study Science (my oldest dd listens in on the youngers lesson, Zoology I, in addition to doing her own, General Science) History (SOTW, with supplements) Saxon math, and drills. Writing Strands Spelling Handwriting We are in between grammar programs at the moment, but I'm having older dd read through Painless Grammar. And we do Homeschool PE.. Then over the course of the week we have Health and Art History independent reading. All of the girls also have independent reading assignments to do. We are about to add Spanish in once a week.

I don't know about genetics... My mom started when she was around 10 or 11. I started at age 9! My oldest dd is 12, and still hasn't started, but she's close!

After reading a bit, I found this: http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/summaries/102brief.html Which in it's rolling schedule says nothing about books. And in this one it's saying the CPSC is looking to amend it so that certain items are excluded. http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/4499

Here's a snippet from an article from the Keep Kids Healthy website: "Normal puberty in girls is a complicated topic. To understand what is normal, we need to start with some basic information. Before any visible changes take place, hormonal changes are occurring for a couple of years. These hormonal changes start in the adrenal glands, two small organs that rest on top of either kidney. These hormones send signals to an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus and the pituitary, in turn, send hormonal signals to the gonads, which in the case of girls, are the ovaries. This system of signaling takes a couple of years to become fully established, but once it does, then the physical, visible changes that we call puberty begin to take place." It explains the emotional havoc our girls go through at this age :)

Yep, that would be the age ;) We are just about to get there with our younger two, and the oldest hit it with force at around 9 or so.

We pulled our dds ages 11 and 8 mid-October of this year. My dd 11 was NOT happy with the decision because she's a very social person. However, after a month or so, she really likes being homeschooled. She's found that she can STILL see her friends (the ones that mattered anyway) she can still volunteer at the school's raptor center, and she can move at her own pace with schoolwork without all the unnecessary fluff. There are tons of 'social' options out there for homeschoolers. Even in our rural area we've been able to locate so many things to do, it makes it hard to choose. I agree though that a week is not nearly enough for a trail run. We've been at it for several months now, and I feel like we are just now getting settled enough to get an idea of what it's really like.

I did notice an improvement in moods with my dd after being taken off of it. It took a few weeks though.

My oldest dd was on it before they had their new side effect findings. And I took her off of it because of the very side effects they discussed. She went from a happy go lucky kid to one that would cry at a drop of hat and worried about everything. We took her off of it except for the winter season when her asthma/allergies were at their worst. After they released the new findings I took her off for good. She was entering puberty, and already having side effects and it just wasn't worth the risk. That said, my 10 year old neice has been on it for years without a single issue. :confused:

Yep, and he does just as good a job as I do when I'm gone....just different. And he likes to spoil the kids at mealtime by letting them eat things that I don't usually let them eat. But, that's just him being a dad..lol!

I've been plagued with nightmares for as long as I can remember. It's a rare night that goes by that I don't have a bad dream of one sort or another :glare:. They are often very realistic, and I have trouble waking up from them sometimes...which leads to me beating my dh because there are 'spiders in the bed' or waking him up from a dead sleep because 'there's someone in the room'. I have noticed that they get worse when I'm stressed, or if I'm eating poorly. I haven't found anything to make them go away though. I've never thought of the over heating thing. I can't stand being cool or cold when I'm sleeping, so I'm usually under a comforter AND a blanket. I think I'd rather have the nightmares than be cold though :tongue_smilie:

Yes! When each of my three were babies, I'd have those dreams a lot! I chalked it up to insecurity and stress.

What an awesome thing to hear! I agree, write as much down as you can. Having lost my mom at 41, and my dad just this month at 52, I wish we'd had more opportunities to do just that...talk.

Never lasts more than a year here :001_smile: Although I did just toss some tobasco that looked scary. I wonder if it got contaminated or something.