Thank you for sharing your experience re: 4G. That's been one of my biggest hang ups in deciding. I'm fairly confident I'd end up in the same place as you regarding it. May of just saved me $100.! Great, great tip on the Stylus as it pertains to the Otter. Never would of thought of that one.... Thanks!

I greatly appreciate this. I don't know what I don't know at this point. Though one immediate question I have is if the 4G advertised is only for the AT&T plan? Is there any value in getting the non-4G one and saving some bucks or is there indeed a true benefit.

Kindle Fire. Glad to know you're a happy user. Thanks!

Thanks so much. Believe it or not, I have the Otterbox and the bluetooth keyboard saved in my Amazon Cart. Glad to know I'm thinking along the correct lines. I greatly appreciate your insights.

Hi all Kindle users. New job is going to require traveling (normally a week at a time). I own nor have ever owned anything more than a simple Tracphone and am not looking to beef that up. Kindle should help to pass my time in airports and hotels for the weeks I'm gone, not to mention time I'll use it at home. Strongly considering going all the way to the top and getting a Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G. Any comments on this one in particular and thoughts on 32GB versus 64GB? Any and all input and comments are most welcomed. Thank you.

My mother and father in-laws are the best! They know how to keep their distance, yet "be there". Since my parents are both passed away, they are the sole grandparents to our child. This puts them in a special category for me. They don't have a mean bone in their body. My sister-in-laws are nice for the most part (one of them is incredible), but one is into herself so much I don't have much in common while another is nice but... well.... nice.. I leave it at that. One of my brother-in-laws is my best friend. The other is nice as well.

Comforting to know I'm not alone with this feeling. The answer for me is a resounding NO. We lived in our first house for 10 years (almost to the day) and within the first 2 years of being there, I began disliking it. My wife finally caught up to me about 5 years later. Never felt like home and the extremely large tracked neighborhood we were in had way too many kids without parental discipline. When we finally decided to sell we had to select between moving to a "better" neighborhood (based on various criteria) or staying in a similarily kind of place (but much smaller) and due to life circumstances with employment, etc,,,,,. we decided to play it safe and went with the similar place. It's been 4 years and though I'm ready to leave today, I'll be here for at least 2-3 more years. It's not just the undisciplined kids but it's the surrounding environment, tone, etc.... I'm very unhappy and dread the good weather and longer days coming as I know what it brings. As the saying goes, do the same thing - get the same results. Hopefully will not do the same thing next time. Will hope for different results.

We share the same philosophy.

Here's my take. He's 14, which it's, not uncommon to question almost anything by this age. No matter how many times you brought him to church, this could still happen. I went to a catholic grammar school in the 70's and can tell you of all of those I still stay in contact with only 2 people still are involved in the faith - my family included. Time will tell but at this point, I'm not sure you can do much. My suggestion is not to push it because if you do, from all the experiences I've seen, end up pushing them farther away than bringing them in. I was sort of pushed and can tell you it turned me off so much that for about 15-20 years I didn't go to church at all. Additionally, I think it's natural and healthy for people to begin to explore what else is out there other than what they were born into. I'm a catholic by default - not by choice. As an adult with my own mind, there's so much I question about the practice and don't participate in. I'm not sure I even belong catholic. I do belive in God but don't get me started about some of the ideals and practices about catholicism.

For the moment (as in the last 3 years) we've owned our cars outright. That being said, I predict within the next couple of years, that will change on one of them.

I've been tracking our finance life for the last 19 years almost to the penney. You don't mention if you have a trackable budget currently. If you do - great! If you don't a free spreadsheet program included in OpenOffice (if you don't have excel) can work wonders. Don't forget a budget needs to be flexible to work over time. Also if you really want to get serious - look to Quicken. Information is very powerful and after a few months of working with it, you'd already have the answer to your question. I can tell you at any second what I've paid for almost any category in our life and to whom. Though I haven't keep all 19 years, I do have the most recent 5 years. Once the "system" is set up, it can take as little as 15 - 20 minutes a week to maintain or as much as you want once you begin to see what's possible. I can reconcile about 8 fairly active accounts in about 5 minutes. Just a thought - take it or leave it. For me, I could never be without.

Because you asked.... Click on the pic to enlarge. These are the shelves I built. This shows how most of the overall room is set up.

You may or may not be familiar with the National Museum of Play. We happen to live right near it and have been taking our daughter there almost on a weekly basis (we're members) before she was 2 years old. It's an amazing place to visit if you can do so at some point. It's almost a 100% hands on place where kids and adults can have a great experience. Anyways... Here's a link to some really interesting articles from the American Journal of Play on the role and importance of play: http://www.journalof....org/issues/5/1 If you decide to follow the link, you'll see all the archived Journals from Summer of 2008 - Fall 2012. Each issue is fairly in-depth and you're almost always certain to find something interesting to read. Just thought I'd share.

We view this as a two-folded issue. What do we have and is there a spot for it. Anything that is no longer in the appropriate age range - we seem to clean out about 3 - 4 times per year and donate. In fact, we get our child involved in the process of clearing out so there are no surprises. The trick for us has been to ensure what we have is within her interest and can be used in many ways. Two examples, a Step 2 Art Table has been the largest used item in the playroom by far. It's open ended and is used for soooo many activities. Art is her favorite thing to do. The other is a Mellissa and Doug wooden table / chair set which again serves for all the "tea parties" in addition to writing activities and have actually had snacks at it. The other element is storage capacity. It must be able to be put away properly or we think twice about keeping it. Sick and tired of not having storage, I went to Lowes one day and purchased what I need to make an ample storage facility which, so far, has done the trick of keeping things tidy and accessible. It holds pretty much everything including hooks for all dressup stuff, games, bins with various items sorted by "category" and all the art supplies. For about $250.00, it's been an incredibly valuable piece of furniture. I'll try to post a picture of it when I can.

Interesting perspectives so far, thanks for sharing them. As with many things, there's no one correct answer here. People are going to do what they feel is best. Perhaps it's just our childs view on it, but she neither asks for them or are amused by her other close relatives and many of her classmates that have and use things like Leappads, Ipads and Kindles in front of her almost on a daily basis. Perhaps it's because we're not a media filled house. I don't know but we're not going to push them on her. Again, I see nothing wrong with them as long as it's balanced with other forms. Who am I to say though how other people should run their house.....

Topic states my question. What is your view on using things like Kindles, Ipads, computers, Leap Pads, etc.. for kids in this age range? I see so many parents who provide these kinds of devices claiming it's just one other way to helps the children to read, count, etc..... We currently only own one computer and no mobile device and no "gaming system". Our daughter has spent time with the computer and can work a mouse as well as can find her letters and numbers on a keyboard. I did purchaseher a phenonemal "educational" software package the she has enjoyed and benefited from. The focus is on weather, patterns, letters, numbers, matching, etc..... That being said once the novelty wore off, she really shows little interest in any of it. Me personally, I don't have much of a problem with the e-media stuff assuming it's done in tandem with more traditional stuff, serves a benefit and is used in moderation. What's your take?

I agree and we fit that label from the standpoint of wondering / curious of wanting to know where our child is at and want to be sure she doesn't fall behind. Part of it is because my wife is a teacher and has seen firsthand for the last 15+ years numerous kids who struggle each moment of every day to keep up and many unfortunately have little to no home support to help out. The other part of it is I was a struggler most of all my school years and know how it feels. On the other hand, we don't concern ourselves about keeping up many of the outside activities. She currently does one sport and is content with the one day / one hour a week that consumes. ETA... We are not homeschoolers. Actually, I didn't know this site was really focused on that. I'm finding this site to be great though none-the-less.

Hello and thank you for the warm welcome.

Gottcha and thank you for the clarification. Fortunately she's already writing sentences on her own within the context of her crafts (she likes to make cards). For example, this past weekend she came up to us with a card that said "I love you Mom and Dad." Every letter was legible and all words were correctly spelled. She has been copying and saying many of the words from the Doch Pre-Primer list for the last few months. She also knows many (not all) of from the Dolch Primer list as well. Again, I'm unsure what any of this is going to mean in K. Her preschool teacher really doesn't make mention of her current skills and though we question how she's doing, most what we get is "Oh... good..." Doesn't really give us much to go on. We hope next years teacher can provide a deeper level of insight. Thanks again!

Thanks again all for the reassurance... Your input and comments are highly appreciated. I'm going to have to sadly or embarassingly admit that I'm unsure what K level Lang is. Sorry.

Thanks!

Well, first to all of you, thank you for taking the time to respond. You have helped to reassure me (us) that she's in a good place currently. We do keep working with her on these skills but not every day to drive her crazy at this age. Our intentions are not to stop either though. Yes, shapes, colors, using scissors have all come together by way of really setting up her playroom centered around to her favorite activity - art. She showed signs of enjoying this before 2 years old and we gave her a Step 2 Art Table for her 2 year old birthday which she still loves to this very day. It's by far the most widely used thing she has. She understands calendar's somewhat. Meaning, she can name and identify the seasons and weather surrounding each. She knows days of the week and months, though I'm fairly certain she can't list the 12 months in proper order. Patterns are something that I think she may be lacking most. Thanks for bringing that up.

Not sure how to best ask / explain this but here it goes. What is an acceptable level for a 4.5 year old in regards to numbers and perhaps a little math? Here’s what our daughter can do: Identify numbers by sight 100% of the time up to 20 and some times (about 50% of the time) to 25. Can count up to 50 orally by ones. Can count up to 100 orally by tens. Can write the numbers freehand from 1 – 10 on her own when asked with no guidance. Can do various “small†math problems such as take one or two away and add one or two more. My question is what is an acceptable base line by your standards for someone this age? We are trying to assess where we (she) is on the baseline and if we need more emphasis on numbers and math. Language, she is fine and she is now capable of reading about 15 books on her own such as the ‘Biscuit’ series among others. ELA is not the issue we are focusing on but I’m giving the brief recap in the event someone is wondering. Any thoughts? Thank you.

We are getting ours done in a couple weeks and really hoping it makes a difference. Carpets are dust holders among other fabric things. Two of the 7 rooms in our house have carpet in addition to the stairs and hallway. The hard surfaced floors are much easier to clean, especially to the point of seeing and knowing you've actually removed the dust. Carpet - how do you know for sure you got it all? As we need to replace the carpets, it'll be with wood or laminate. Much easier to keep clean. Also, does your vac have HEPA filters on it? May sound silly but it makes a difference.

We have room darkening shades + room darkening curtains. Both are also insulated and do amazing wonders for our heating & cooling bill. We have them in every room but the 2 bathrooms. We got ours at Country Curtains.