Make sure you know the cost per pound to move (assuming you're hiring movers), and look at the cost of the storage unit as well. For many books, it would be less expensive to make note of the ISBN and donate/sell, then buy it again later if you miss it. Of course it may not be that simple for rarer books, but a look at AbeBooks or Amazon will tell you whether a book is easy to get used. I haven't moved in several years now and have bought a lot in the past few years, so I can't give a box count, but I would probably dump nearly half what we have if I were moving now.

IIRC, you put the repeating digit(s) over a number with as many 9s as there are in the repeat. 0.6666... = 6/9 (reduces to 2/3) 0.636363... = 63/99 (reduces to 7/11) 0.678678678 = 678/999 (226/333?) etc.

If you know anyone who has a copy of Math-U-See Primer, borrow it and show her the lessons on counting. The instructor teaches that, for example, "nineteen" is a nickname for what should really be called "onety-nine."

We switched from nap (which was a daily battle) to quiet time when DS turned 4, and frankly just skipped a lot of evening events for a year or so because he needed to go to bed. By that point, if he did nap, he'd be wired until 10 PM, but if he didn't, he needed to be in bed at 7. (I had been forcing naptime really since he was one and a half just to get through dinner without meltdowns; he's not a kid who would ever just fall asleep.) To introduce quiet time, I made it sound like a privilege for him. Guess what? Now that you're four, you don't have to take naps any more! Instead, you will play quietly in your room until your clock turns yellow [30 minutes at first]. I will get out different toys for you to play with every few days. If you stay in your room except for bathroom breaks and stay quiet, you get a sticker! When you get three stickers, you get to pick a treasure from the treasure box! Then I was able to stretch the rewards to a week and eventually drop them, and also expand the time (maybe 5 or 10 minutes a month) until he was in there for 90 minutes. He only ever fell asleep during quiet time a handful of times.

DS was a preemie born in winter, and we were warned to keep him away from people who might have colds because of RSV. I think we went to the grocery store, etc., the second week, but he was in his car seat and/or sling and nobody bothered him. We did have guests visit in small numbers, including schoolteachers, but no kids other than my youngest sister. I guess the church thing is going to vary. I think we went back at three or four weeks. Nobody expected to be allowed to hold DS. I don't think new moms should be told they have to stay in the house with the blinds closed for six weeks, nor that they should bounce back like nothing happened and pass a newborn around like a Cabbage Patch kid.

My mom used disposables on my siblings, and I remember the stink of the diaper pail from that. For DS, I had washable PUL diaper pail liners, so I just threw them in the wash with the diapers. I also didn't use a lid unless we had company. MIL was an early adopter of disposables (snowy climate, no dryer), so I guess the early Pampers were out by the late '70s?

LOL, glad CDing is a bit easier in the 21st century! Yay for the diaper sprayer, prefolds, velcro and snap covers (though yes, those Snappis will get you).

Look on the school or district's website for a parent handbook--a lot of schools have a dress code and other rules you may not have thought of.

Oh, and have you seen what elementary teachers do the last week before winter break? A lot of it is count-the-snowmen math and word searches and other such busy work. So don't suppose that the PS kids are cranking out real work this week. A Pinterest search for December elementary may make you feel better.

What I've read says that there is a compulsory schooling law, but no homeschooling case has been through the courts and either validated or rejected. I think it's up to whether the local authorities feel like pushing it, which they seem more inclined to do with citizens and less with foreigners. That said, depending on what's available, I might want my child to get a chance to try Japanese public school.

DS is not quite 7 and definitely still a little kid, although a large one. He would *say* he's a big kid, but I don't see him becoming "no longer a little kid" in spirit for another year or more. He just last week noticed that he is too old for Dora. However, some 7yos are not little kids. My mother says I was born 35, so I guess I wasn't a little kid. :)

Do you have Microsoft Publisher? That's an easy way to do custom work; I've made myself planners, calendars, etc., and printed them. If not, you could still probably manage it (with a bit more frustration) in Word or Excel. ETA: Or it looks like you can get something fairly customized from a site like this: http://www.planmyplanner.com/collections/lesson-planners

At the end of thirteen years of K-12 education, will anything you'd do this week be evident? If you're otherwise making steady progress and since your kids are young, I'd suppose not. Take the week to celebrate.

Are your kids happy to do nothing, or will they get on each other's nerves?

Yes. I'd be shopping for Japanese CDs and getting DS's passport at once, and looking into putting our house on the market. However, I'd also want to make sure we could budget for one or two trips a year back to the US. (We live on the East Coast, so we might want to see if we could pay for the grandparents' costs to meet us in, say, Seattle for a week.)

Since you can't do it without imperiling your own financial situation, and since they don't seem to have a plan for not running into the same problem again in a few months, I don't think you should do it. If other people solve this problem for SIL in a way that keeps her comfortable, why would she do better next year?

It's a 24" artificial tree that is generously lit by a single strand of white lights. I let DS pick the ornaments to use and put them where he pleased, and it looks it :) . Every year, I make a new star out of white cardstock. The tree is on a table in the living room; it shares the table with our nativity scene, which is a rustic little stable with only animals so far. Occasionally DS will bring the little donkey over to admire an ornament.

Our enormous, fluffy cat napped in the sunlight next to us while we had school today.

I think you could just say, "My oldest is 12."

Nothing big. We finished MindUP and are moving into Lollipop Logic starting today, and his PE class starts in January.

The concept behind it is fine for an adult furthering his/her education. I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole for a K-8 student.

We went Christmas caroling, wearing glow bracelets and jingling bells and just alternating between the two songs we all knew (not that it sounded so great on every note...). Then we had cocoa. It was nice.

GIngerbread cookies are not too sweet. Also, eggnog is less sweet if you put a little ginger ale in. (Can't help with rum, sorry.)

We're alternating books--right now, one Miquon followed by one Singapore. When we run out of Miquon, I will probably replace it with Beast Academy. I like that the curricula have different approaches; I think flexible thinking is important in math. Also, we do about 230 days a year of school, but DS is not advanced enough to just barrel through more levels. (We've just started SM 2B, and he's finding some of it challenging.)

No, I was more concerned with making sure it was an unabridged version and didn't really consider illustrations. (I bought all the books online.) I went with the Oxford Children's Classics version.