I've never seen those. Where do you get them?

I have done something similar to this before, so that might work. I would love to get frames and mats for them. But the smallest of the frames is 8x10. The largest print is 16x20 (not sure how big the frame is but several inches larger than that). Frames that size are usually so expensive. Although our Big Lots often has framed art for pretty cheap so I might be able to get a larger frame that way. Or poster frames, maybe. If not I guess I'll just put it on hold and try to find something at the thrift store before next year. Dontcha just love it when a plan that starts out so cheap and easy ends up being expensive and complicated???

Dd9 wants spare parts to fix her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures (which are, shall we say, well loved). Not new action figures. Extra heads and such so she can repair the ones she has. I said, "Well, honey, I don't think they make repair kits. I'm sure Santa could just bring you new turtles instead." She cocked her head to the side and replied, "Mom, the elves can just box up some of the parts they use." Silly me. Fingers crossed that the surprise kitten overrides the lack of turtle pieces...

Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that. Oh well. Sigh. Thanks for the info.

I have three framed and matted prints from local artists hanging in my living room. And so I got this brilliant idea this year -- why not take some of the adorable photos I have of the kids with Santa when they were small and blow them up and put them in these frames as holiday decorations? Cute, right? Then after Christmas, I'll just stick them behind the artwork in the frames and they'll be there for next year. So I order the photos online and dh picks them up for me yesterday. This morning I go to pop them into the frames and... There is brown paper glued to the backs of the frames. Duh. :glare: Can I take the paper off without harming the frame? I'm not sure what's underneath or what the paper does exactly. I don't have money in the budget for different mats and frames just for the Christmas photos. And I hate to have wasted money on having them printed (they weren't cheap; one was BIG).

My DH does this too. And he is so nosy; he has to know the content of every conversation I ever have. "How's your Mom? What did you talk about?" "Did you have a nice time with your friend? Did you talk about anything interesting?" :banghead:

My MIL still talks about how she used to nurse her kids while driving around. And then she laughs... like it's so cute. I can tell it annoys her when I refuse to let ds ride in her car without the proper car seat (she wants to use the booster seat she has but he's not big enough and still needs a 5-point harness). I couldn't care less. My sister was in a car accident. She wasn't wearing her seat belt (which was always the rule in our house growing up, so she knew better). She was ejected and died on impact. Nobody in my family goes a yard without a seat belt on.

My sister loves to cook with unique ingredients. For her birthday I got her a tasting box from Hatchery. They send a sampler of unusual or gourmet items, along with recipes, etc. There is a monthly subscription option, but I just got her one month (there was a deal on Groupon). She LOVED it.

I've only had 2, so you have WAY more experience than me! But just wanted to throw out that there are some OB's who deliver their own patients, even if they work in a practice that doesn't necessarily operate that way. My OB made it a point to deliver his patients unless he was out of town. The other docs in his practice rotated. So it might be an option at one of those offices near you, if that makes the decision easier for you. May be worth a phone call/asking around. Otherwise, I agree with others that the midwife + hospital option sounds like a winner. Congrats on #9!!!

That was another one of my sister's mistakes. Oh, and my mother swears that when she was a teenager my grandmother thought CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" was about a "bathroom on the right."

My sister was notorious for these as a kid. We had... "We all sing Matilda" (Waltzing Matilda) "Cheetahs never win" (followed by a sad look and "those poor cheetahs!") And my personal favorite, a combination of Chantilly Lace, Frosty the Snowman, and the Hokey Pokey: "Chantilly lace and a curly face And two eyes made out of coal A wiggle in her walk and a giggle in her talk That's what it's all about!" There are probably others. I'll add them later if I think of them.

Most weeks, I wash 3-4 loads of clothes on Tuesday and another 3-4 on Friday. I wash sheets and towels on Thursdays. I usually wash/dry/fold and put away mine, dh's and ds's. Dd puts away her own. I will probably start teaching ds to put his away next year, but I am rather picky about how clothes go in the drawer/closet so I plan to wait until he has the motor skills to do it properly. I still have rounds with dd on occasion over cramming wadded up clothing into her drawers. :glare:

Have you looked at a regular umbrella stroller? Sometimes you can find them for $5-$15 at places like Big Lots. It would be easier for her to push

Now there's a tradition I could get behind!

Chicken Caesar salads with toasted French bread. :drool5: We're running a 5K in the morning and then heading to our annual family feast, so we didn't want anything too heavy. Plus, quick, easy and little to no clean-up!

Coming out of lurkdom just to say I read this piece by Voddie Baucham this morning, and it offered a unique perspective that I hadn't seen in any other discussions. Thought it might of interest to some here. Take it as you will. http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/thoughts-on-ferguson Retreating back into the shadows now... :leaving:

My grandma used to make a Chinese salad that was awesome for this kind of thing: 1 head lettuce, shredded (or use the bagged kind to save time) 3 small green onions, sliced 3 T poppy seeds 3 oz can chow mein noodles Dressing: 4 T sugar, 4T vinegar, 1/2 c oil, 1 t salt, 1/2 t pepper You can mix the dressing ahead of time and just shake well before you use it (I dress it to taste and don't usually have some left over). Everything else can be prepped ahead too. When you're ready to serve, just toss it all together and top with the chow mein noodles. And it's easy to double or triple. It gets gone every time I take it to a pot-luck. In fact, I'm making it for one at ds's preschool on Monday!

We always start thawing ours in the fridge the Friday before. It's a little bigger, but still.

I have met the fiancee exactly once. She seems like a very nice person. In fact, I feel a little sorry for her because I'm not sure she knows what she's getting into with these folks. Theirs has been a whirlwind romance and she just moved all the way across the country from the west coast to be with him a couple of months ago, after they'd only known each other online for a few weeks. They seem very much in love, and I genuinely wish them a long and happy marriage. I think in this case, it's the bride who is out of the loop, though. My cousin (and his mother, I expect) knows exactly what that date is. He is a control freak (see examples above), and there's no way he's not heavily involved in the planning. And besides, they (my cousin and probably his mother -- not necessarily the bride, who really doesn't know very many people here) are telling other people we know that they are getting married ON MY SISTER'S BIRTHDAY. Not the date -- ON her birthday. I do really believe, as some have suggested, that they think of this as a tribute to my sister. My complaint is that they unilaterally made this decision without a single thought as to how it might affect us, her immediate family, who have suffered her loss the greatest. THEY decided this would be a nice thing to do, without consulting anybody else. They did the same thing right after she died when they tried to co-opt our family vacation. I know they loved her. And she loved them. But until you've lost a sister (or, God forbid, a child) I don't think you can understand that it is NOT the same as losing a cousin. And now they will get all kinds of accolades for this wonderful tribute they are paying to her from outsiders, which is exactly what they want. And it makes me angry. I can survive this. Like I said, I just won't go. But my mother has been through enough. They shouldn't get to make these kinds of decisions for her when she is the one who has suffered so much.

My parents live about 5 minutes from us. The wedding will be out of town. My parents can easily make the same excuse that we can -- that they aren't able to travel/get off work/etc. We will have just returned from a family vacation at Disney so it's likely that my mother, at least, will have to do some maneuvering in order to get off work. I expect my dad's sense of family obligation will ensure they attend, however. My dad jointly owns our house with my aunt, so I am not concerned about being evicted. He can be a pushover, but he won't let that happen. Or so he assures me. They will just have to wait -- probably a couple of years.

I appreciate this. I really do. It's probably even the way they see it. And if they had approached my parents and asked for their blessing, I am certain the answer would have been yes. I could have lived with it in that case. It would have been like a tribute. As it is, it feels as though they just TOOK, without asking or even considering our feelings, one of the few threads of her that we have left to hold onto. FWIW, dh and I named our son after my sister's boyfriend, who was killed in the same accident. We adored him and felt sure they would have gotten married had they lived. We first went to his parents and asked for their blessing, which they freely gave. If it had made them uncomfortable, we certainly would not have done it. In no way did we want to compound their suffering. We wanted to honor both their son and my sister. March 7 must be reserved as a birthdate for very special people. :)

Once we laid down the law on his intruding in our home, that stopped (thankfully). We do want to move, badly. We had hoped to build on some land that my parents own, but we've been trying to get it to perk for years. We just recently exhausted our last option. It's not going to happen. Without the collateral of the land, that puts us even further behind on a down payment. And dh's company is facing a huge merger at the beginning of the year, so we're not doing anything until we see how that shakes out. They will just have to wait. Did I mention they live next door? :glare: And they are the type that everyone thinks are SUCH WONDERFUL PEOPLE. Until you have to live with them. DH wants to have it out with them. My sister was only 5 when we started dating so she was like his little sister too (and he can't stand for me to be upset). I just don't want to do anything to make it harder on my parents than it already is. I am dying to talk to my (remaining, obviously) sister about this, but she is going through a crisis of her own right now and I don't want to upset her any further. I know this will crush her. Thank you all for the sympathy and encouragement.

I've mentioned on the boards before that my youngest sister was killed in an accident in 2007. She was only 19, and it was, as you can imagine, an enormous shock to our family. Although they have handled it remarkably well, my parents still struggle sometimes, especially around the holidays. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. My cousin proposes to his girlfriend. She says yes. This past Sunday, my aunt (my dad's sister and mother of the newly engaged cousin) casually mentions to my mother that they've set the date for March 7. March 7 was my sister's birthday. She would be 27 this coming year. I knew from the get-go this was no coincidence. We are a small family; there were only 5 of us cousins and we grew up close. Add in the fact that my cousin's younger brother and my sister were born just 11 days apart and were practically twins, and I KNOW he knows when her birthday is. My aunt certainly does. It was all confirmed when I ran into a mutual friend this evening who squealed, "I hear {cousin} is getting married on your sister's birthday!" This family has a long history of entitlement and making everything about them. A few examples: When my parents attended my aunt and uncle's wedding decades ago, they were shocked to hear the bride and groom recite the vows that my parents had written for each other the year before. My parents had no idea they had copied their vows. A few weeks after my sister passed away, our immediate family (my parents, my other sister, dh, dd, and I) took our annual beach vacation. My aunt and uncle and cousins decided unilaterally that they would also show up, so that we could "all be together." The last thing we wanted right then was outsiders, as it was the first time we'd had just to be the few of us since the accident. My dad finally had to intervene before my sister and I went ballistic. My mother was a complete basket case. This particular cousin has lived at home his entire life (he's 32), even through college and running a successful business. He does NOTHING for himself around the house, including cooking or laundry. When his parents added on a room to their home a few years ago, war nearly broke out because he insisted on being consulted on every decision, despite the fact that he doesn't own the home and wasn't paying a dime for the renovation. DH and I rent my late grandparents' home, which is jointly owned by my father and my aunt. For the first two years we lived here, we battled constantly because this cousin insisted on keeping copious amounts of supplies and equipment in our basement, rent-free. Worse, he would throw open the (extremely noisy) basement garage door at any hour of day or night and let himself in. I had two small children (one a newborn) at the time. Even worse than that, he was prone to opening our upstairs garage door (it has a keypad entry) and letting himself INSIDE OUR HOME when he wanted to, whether we were home or not. When it became apparent that he was going to become engaged, my aunt had the audacity to ask me when we were planning to move, because he and his fiancee want to move in here! There were never any limits put on our living here. In fact, the house was offered to my cousin before we took it, and he declined. I could live with any of these things on their own (and there are many more examples) but as an ongoing pattern, they are becoming unbearable. But this new offense just takes the cake, in my book. I start to cry every time I think about my poor mother having to sit through that ceremony on the one day out of the year that she can't stop herself from thinking about the day she held her sweet baby for the first time and dreamed about all the milestones she would get to see as that baby grew up. And now she has to watch my aunt's child get married on the one day she can't stop thinking about how she will never celebrate a wedding for her youngest daughter. It hurts so much I almost can't take it. It would even have been one thing if my cousin and his fiancee had approached my parents and asked for their blessing. Then it would have been more of a tribute to my sister. But as it is, it feels like they have, once again, managed to make something that has nothing to do with them all about them. They have taken away one of the few scraps we have left of my sister's life. And every year they will celebrate their anniversary and we will have to go through this all over again. There are 51 other Saturdays in 2015. Why can't they pick one? I know my parents. My mother is in terrible pain, but she will grit her teeth and keep her mouth shut. My father hates conflict so he will pretend nothing has happened. But I've had it. At the very least, I will boycott this wedding (it's going to be six hours away, so if nothing else, I can just say we aren't able to travel that far). But I don't know if I can watch all this take place without saying something about it. It may destroy my relationship with this part of my family but at this point, I couldn't care less. Thanks for listening. :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:

My two are almost exactly 5 1/2 years apart. It was a little further than we'd initially planned, but not by much. Dh and I both came from families with wider age gaps. Pros: Each of them had their own time to be the "baby" of the family, which I really liked. I don't think *I* would have been able to handle more than one in the baby/toddler stage at a time (other people do this quite well, but it would have been too stressful for me). I think the gap helps some with sibling rivalry, but that may also be because of their differing genders, or just their personalities. Dd was a great help with the new baby, and very proud to be able to care for him. We didn't run into any jealousy/adjustment issues whatsoever. YMMV, of course. Dd still enjoys teaching ds new things, and he goes to her for help as often as he comes to one of us. She has been able to watch him, take him out in the yard, etc. for a couple of years. She looks out for him, and I am never anxious about leaving them with a sitter, etc. because I know she will make sure he's taken care of. Cons: It really is like starting over. We were long done with all the baby-stage stuff with dd (diapers, bottles, having to watch every second to make sure she didn't get into something, potty-training) by the time ds came along. Life had become so much easier in terms of being able to pick up and go, etc. We briefly discussed the fact that we might be one and done. But we knew deep down that wasn't true. Now that ds is 4, we are finally getting back to that easier phase, but I can understand why some folks prefer to have them closer together and not drag it out. I would not say my two are playmates; they are at different stages and have very different interests (again, not entirely age-related, but it's definitely a factor). They have become a little more-so in the past year as ds has been able to play on dd's level, but it won't be long before she's into the pre-teen, too-cool-to-play stage. However, they do enjoy some activities together, like watching movies, playing games, etc. Overall, I would say they enjoy each other's company. I certainly hope they will continue to be close as they grow up. Whatever your age range is, your family will adjust to it, and it will be normal for you. There are lots of factors that go into making the decision to add to your family and, for me, this one is lower on the list. I have one friend who is 12 years younger than her sister (none in between), and they are best friends. I have another who is 2 years older than his sister, and they can barely be in the same room. There are so many things you can do to foster positive family relationships, however your family looks; I wouldn't stress too much over the age gap for its own sake. Good luck!