This is exactly what my daughter is looking for. We have a house overflowing with books, and many classics she has never read. But you know, we want what we want. I get the craving for a certain kind of book too, and don't feel like reading the mountain on my bedside table.

I read it back in high school and found it fascinating. But I recently read several articles that are making me doubt the entire premise of the book. http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9706/articles/finn.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201004/bruno-bettelheim-psychotic-savant

I've been trying to find one, as they recommended a social skills group for my 6 year old with autism. But everything is over an hour away! Could it be worth the drive?

I've read Lang's fairy tales to her, but she likes the more modern take. And I have to say, when I read those old fairy tales, I can't keep my mouth shut about the sexist and wrong stuff. To quote Frozen, "Wait, you got engaged to someone you just met that day?!"

Monica, there are novels for kids and YA as well as for adults, with stories based on fairy tales. She's read Princess of the Wild Swans, which got her started on this kick. https://www.amazon.com/Princess-Wild-Swans-Diane-Zahler/dp/0062004956/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492780537&sr=1-6&keywords=Swans Snow in Summer by Jane Yolen Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede And others I can't remember.

I loved all of Sarah Mackenzie's talks. I left feeling so refreshed and hopeful. My husband got a lot out of Cythia Tobias's lectures, and we both learned from Beth Mora about handling conflict in the home. Now to use what I learned.

My daughter has really been into fairy tale retellings and fairy tale style fantasy. For the first time, I find myself censoring her books, and asking to pre read first. There is a lot of content that is just not appropriate for an 8 year old. I've enjoyed fairy tales retold, but there is often romance, complicated situations, etc. that seems too old for my baby. Do you have any fairy tale fantasy books you would recommend for this age? I'm lucky to have a reader like me and she could devour a book in a day.

Homemade cards from my kids. The house cleaned the night before and for it not to get trashed for that one day. A walk in the woods with our family. Board games where nobody cries if they lose.

I've had media mail books take 6 weeks to arrive, especially if shipped across country.

I would say age 13. While they do have some dark themes, murder, affairs, revenge, etc, the reader is removed to a safe distance from the horrors of this. There is little graphic detail, with the focus more on "whodunit" than horror. I would consider Christie to be a cozy mystery author. (I'm a fan of the genre.) "Cozy mysteries, also referred to as "cozies", are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery

We use the raspberry lemon. My son who has autism takes it for the calming and also keeping things regular. And the rest of us take it too. We have it at breakfast, a mostly full glass, plus an inch of orange juice on top. The kids won't drink it without a little juice.

:( We love camping at Hunting Island. I'm trying to keep an eye on when it gets fixed up so I can jump in and reserve a site.

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery It's wish fulfillment fantasy of the best kind! Time for a reread.

After reading all this, I feel you really need to switch vets. Call around and ask for prices. I know it's awkward. But it's saved our family a bunch of money. The cheaper vets are no less caring, but they understand when your pockets aren't so deep. We switched to a vet that has old "wood" paneling and faded prints. It's so so much cheaper than the vet with the shiny new office. And they get that we're not here for premium care when we bring our old dog in for shots. When I bring my dog in for shots I don't want to come out with a $300 bill!

Yes, like people have already said, benches! I know a family with an old church pew for their bench. It's nice because it has a back, though it's a climb to get in and out, so only kids sit there. A little climbing won't hurt them. Another family has 2 handmade benches, a handmade table, and just chairs at the head and foot of the table. Don't give up meals all sitting together. It's worth the hassle.

Am I the only one who hates to leave the house to shop? Call me selfish, but in my purchases, I'm looking out for me. Maybe I'm shortsighted. I suppose my community needs the business and tax dollars to not turn into a ghost town, and to support public services. But in a free market, I spend on what has value to me. I buy everything that is a better price on Amazon. I will even pay a few dollars more to not leave the house. It's stressful for me to shop. My middle child has trouble in most stores, except Aldi and the discount grocery store which are small. He frequently has meltdowns. In my ideal world of the future, everything would be delivered to my front door. Those little independent bookshops never introduced me to even a fraction of the books that the wide world of Amazon did. And I can buy 5 books for the price of one. If I go into a bookstore, I will buy something, as I feel I need to pay for the "bookstore experience." But I almost never do, even though I loved "You've Got Mail." In my old town, there was a shoe store that measured your foot, watched the way you walked, etc. They would find just the right shoe for your foot. We bought shoes there, even at twice the price of the Internet, because we were paying for the service. But the only shoe store I can find here, they have no service, seldom have my size, etc. It's easier AND cheaper to buy shoes on Amazon and return (with free shipping) the ones that don't fit. Why should I put myself to the hassle of driving to 3 or 4 stores to find one that has the item I want in stock, when I can click and buy? I do get a CSA, pay more per pound for produce from the farm around the corner, and get eggs from the couple down the road. But anything not perishable, I'd rather buy online.

This is good for younger kids too, but DH and I enjoyed it: Gregor the overlander series by Suzanne Collins.

I will differ from other opinions to say, yes, you should be annoyed. Stomach bugs are soooo contagious. When anyone in our family has thrown up, we quarantine ourselves for 3 days. As in, 3 days after the last person has thrown up. The CDC says: People with norovirus illness are contagious from the moment they begin feeling sick and for the first few days after they recover. Some people may be contagious for even longer. Hear that?!!!! The first few days after they recover! You are still spreading this thing, people, even if you are done barfing! https://www.cdc.gov/features/norovirus/ The Mayo clinic says you are contagious 3 days to 2 weeks after you recover. Now two weeks is too long to stay home. I know. But think of other people and stay home 3 days after the last person vomited. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/viral-gastroenteritis/expert-answers/stomach-flu/faq-20057899 Nobody wants to be throwing up for the holidays. There are hardly any commitments that important. You can miss church and karate and ballet. Skip volunteering at the homeless shelter. Call in sick to work if you can. At the family get together, everyone will NOT be thanking you for the "gift" when you share that stomach bug. I was put into early labor by someone who shared. In a new town where I knew no one. My MIL, DH, daughter got it too. So I was stuck caring for everyone and feeding them when I just popped out a kid and was shaky from blood loss. A baby who should have had a few more weeks inside, and was miserable. Can you tell this is a hot button?

Yes to this. A long time ago, a mom in our church had a preemie. Some of the breastfeeding moms in the church pumped milk for her, since she couldn't make enough yet. If you have a breastfeeding friend who is willing, this could be done even if your hospital doesn't have donated milk.

Pinkmint, I read your post and can't stop thinking about it. I will try not to write a book. It sucks to not have to money to give people that you love the gifts you want to get them. It also sucks to have that money stress hanging on in the background, like a weight dragging you down. I hope and pray that you can put off that stress and have some peace and rest, if only for a little while. We've been in that place, where the ends are not meeting. Where we had $15 per kid to spend. Where the grocery budget is tight enough that we could only make 3 kinds of cookies, because of the price of butter, sugar, chocolate. And you know, it was fine. I grew up with not much, and previous generations of my family had even less. But we all LOVE Christmas. All the things we did that made memories, that's Christmas. Reading about the prophecies of Jesus, and those Christmas devotionals. Getting out the chipped nativity. My grandma's old tacky decorations. Going out in the snow on national forest land with our $3 tree permit to cut our own very imperfect Christmas tree. (That's something we can't do now, because we live in the wrong state.) Baking cookies together. Making homemade ornaments and decorations with things we have on hand. Like paper chains, snowflakes, cinnamon ornaments. No trips to the craft store. Free printable nativity coloring pictures. Taking time with the old hymn book (or YouTube if I have a cold) to teach the kids all those old Christmas carols. Dancing around the house with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" at full blast. Caroling to our neighbors, and caroling with friends in their neighborhood. Getting tons and tons of Chistmas books from the library, and having the time to sit on the couch under a warm blanket and read them to the kids. Getting free tree trimmings from Home Depot and using wire (or that baggie of twisty ties in my junk drawer) to make a fresh pine garland. Then snipping bits off trees at parks surreptitiously to add to it. Lighting candles almost every day in December. Taking time to hold my smallest child and picture Mary, giving birth to that most special baby, rocking him... Going to some free Christmas concerts at local churches or in the square in town. Hours and hours of card games and board games and cookie eating once we're on Christmas vacation. Driving around to look at lights. Buying only one container of eggnog, and really savoring it. Time is something you can't buy. No matter how much money you have, you can't pick up "2 extra hours in the day reading to children" or "4 extra hours for assembling that gingerbread house with your wild brothers". The gift you give your kids of time with them, messy and loud and imperfect, is something irreplaceable. I was talking to my Bible study ladies yesterday, and so many wish they could simplify Christmas. Most of them have money. But they are sick of the shopping and stuff stuff stuff. And one lady hates that Christmas is taken over by the American Girl Doll and accessories that her daughter is getting. But yet she can't stop. In a way it's a gift to be opted out of that. (Is that way too Pollyanna? I'm talking to myself here, too, reminding myself of how to think.) When I read Laura Ingalls, those Christmases where it's so exciting to get a peppermint stick and a homemade doll, it gives me a warm glow. By the way, my favorite Christmas picture books tend to be ones where people don't have a lot, but they discover the real magic of Christmas. Let me know if you want a list. I also read part of Simplicity Parenting recently, which is reminding me that less is more. The kids, and us adults, enjoy those little things more when we have less. We have room to play, mental space to treasure that one special doll, more than if we had 15 of them. I just picture all that crap on the floor, all those plastic bits. I picture myself decluttering, and wonder what I will be eager to get rid of in the next 4 years. Then I try not to bring it in the house in the first place. ;) Also, don't feel bad about spending time at home with your immediate family. If there are people in your life who will always be talking about what big things they are buying for their kids (and those kids who have to tell your kids about whatever cool loot they got), it's okay to avoid them a bit for December and January. Hang out with the people who want to just chill and watch movies and make cookies and make crafts out of their recycling bin stuff.

Story of the World is written by Susan Wise Bauer (author of The Well Trained Mind). It is a 4 year classical history cycle. The first year takes you through the beginning of history, through ancient Egypt, to the Greeks and Romans. There is an activity book that goes with the main book, with suggested further reading, map work, and all kinds of activities. My kids love it, especially doing the activities. The one problem I have is that just as we're getting really into a topic or culture, we're switching to another part of the world. I'd almost like to take 2 years for each book. Today we read about the Muslim invasion of Spain, and looked at pictures of Moorish architecture. They really want to see the Alhambra in person. Last year studying Egypt, we read about the mummification process and mummified a Cornish game hen, Nefertweeti. It mostly involved changing the special salt and spice solution til that bird was dry. We wrapped our mummy in linen strips and my daughter painted a box green and gold for the sarcophagus.

Make caramels, chocolate truffles, and cinnamon and anise hard candies. (I've made these and they are good.) Instead of a book, just read up on the Internet, especially for working with chocolate. It's not as hard as it looks.

Funny. I can't believe it's your first encounter with parenting police. I had several before my 1st was a year old, starting with when I left her in the car on a cold sleeting day to put my cart in the return at Aldi.

We've skipped the Chinese printing blocks, because we were given Chinese character blocks and ink from someone who went to China. And we've made cardboard armor before, but my boys love playing with swords and armor and cardboard doesn't last long. (You wouldn't believe how many foam swords we go through here. The plastic shields, helmet, and breastplate from the dollar store and holding up, though.) But I love some of these ideas. Painting lying under a table sounds memorable. Maybe I can take the seats out of the minivan and see if we can get a refrigerator box to turn into a castle. The kids always get excited when a really large Amazon box gets dropped off. And the medieval party sounds like a blast, although nerve wracking to pull off.

I like Athanasius! I'm familiar with the name from history, & think he is pretty cool. Nate would be a good nickname. But be prepared for the look on some people's faces. I know someone with an Aurelius and an Augustine. They got some looks.