Before we had kids, I'm sure my husband would have thought homeschooling wasn't worthwhile. Homeschooling was all my idea and push. Now that I am homeshooling two first graders, I'm the one advocating sending them to school next year. He's opposed. He very strongly wants his kids to continue to be homeschooled. Opinions can change once kids actually arrive. And even once a decision is made, it can be re-evaluated often. That said, agreement on child rearing should be a huge priority before marriage.

I agree with most of what is here. Luck gives you a huge head start, but it's possible to start from zero. Also, I really think delayed gratification while young (20's) is key. Investing and saving and not buying the most house/car/furniture/dinner's out you can afford is boring when you're 25 but can make all the difference for the future. The slow and boring route almost always wins in finances.

BFSU didn't get done for us. RSO Life1 only barely gets done. But my kids love it.

I have two first graders (6 year olds). They both did Singapore in Kindy and finished 1A late last summer. At that point, my dd needed to do MUS Alpha because she just wasn't able to move on with Singapore 1B. My ds has just now finished 1B. I let him watch his sister's MUS videos, which he enjoyed and asked to do. It helped him with memorizing his facts. And I pulled my dd into some of my son's work such as time and money where MUS Alpha was lacking. MUS really helped my daughter. But it would have been pointless for my son. In fact, I just started them both on Xtramath. My daughter actually does better at quick recall of her addition facts. So. Not sure if that helped but I wouldn't backtrack to Alpha just because your daughter hasn't memorized facts. Find an easier supplement to fill that hole. If she did fine in Singapore, she doesn't need the entire Alpha curriculum. For your 5 year old, have you looked at MUS Primer? Or the Singapore kindergarten options? I'm a curriculum junkie and tend to jump ship too often, so I've tried a lot of different math considering I only have two (almost 7!) six year olds. I went through a phase where I thought my kids would use RS B for 1st grade. I bought the entire expensive thing. It was a bust with both of mine. Waste of money and time. But, it works well for some. I will say the card games were great. My still play Go To The Dump for the ten facts. They enjoy the game.

I would call in an instant.

I make stuffed mushrooms a lot. Very filling. It's usually a side around here but could easily be part of a full meal with another substantial dish.

A few years ago, my company went through a "merger" which was really more of a buy-out. It was very stressful during about two years. We were given the option of moving or taking severance. I took severance but was required to work during a long transition. When I finally left there, it was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. And the ones who moved aren't particularly happy because the new company has a completely different culture and the "others" from my company didn't seem to be accepted very well. The stress goes beyond just the uncertainty time period. I wouldn't wish restructuring/mergers/buyouts or the like on anyone. Very stressful!

:grouphug: :grouphug: I'm so sorry. It's very heartbreaking. Have you others sat your sister down to tell her your concerns? Maybe she's in denial and is being a bit selfish in an attempt to hold on to mom longer. I think a lot of people are selfish in their desire to hold onto loved ones who are dying, thinking only of their loss and not the suffering of the sick. I think several of you need to talk to her doctor. Surely a doctor would see if the chemo is needlessly harmful to your mom? If one of you were to apply for gaurdianship of her with the support of the others and a doctor declaring her incompetent, perhaps a court would grant it with a doctor's input that the chemo is best stopped. There are lawyers who specialize in these types of cases, so it might be worth an appointment. My husband recently went through getting gaurdianship of his mother (uncontested). It was a bit of a court burden but not too bad.

Christmas meal won't make or break your family's Christmas joy! Take it easy on yourself and do whatever you can manage. Don't take on too much!

I have a similar one from Michael's. I like it for my purposes but it wouldn't be sturdy enough for very heavy items. The drawers tend to get out of their track on occasion. However, it's the best I've found for us. It's narrow and small enough to fit where I need it and it holds two first graders worth of work. All other non-everyday stuff and manipulatives go in an Alex 6 drawer unit from IKEA. It, too, can have problems with too much weight, but it holds much more than the little plastic cart. And it's more attractive. The reason I added the little cart was because, at one time, I had the IKEA drawers behind me and it was hurting my (surgically fused) neck to turn around so far. I was able to pull the cart closer so I only turn 90 degrees (basically). So, I would not have bought the little cart for any other reason.

I haven't had delay issues but I've had damaged products three times this month! I returned one but I decided the lego box being damaged for my son was ok so I kept that one (mostly because it would have been a pain to ship back). The third one was also a crumpled product box but I didn't have time to return it before my niece's birthday. In all three instances, Amazon didn't package the product in it's shipping box well at all. The boxes are too big, also. The book that I returned was in a rather large box all by itself with three of the little air bubble things. Of course the book slid all around and the dust jacket was torn! Very frustrating because I buy a lot from them and am just now noticing lack of QC. Hope you get your packages soon (and that the item isn't damaged!). Your trouble sounds like the PO. I won't get started on my PO. But I haven't received mail twice this week which never happens. I think they are just so swamped they're just skipping me on occasion. Annoying.

I bought the one called "dinnertime" at Costco right before Thanksgiving. I didn't see much freezer cooking in it (Just looked, 17 dishes out of the entire book in that chapter). I saw several recipes I want to try but haven't yet. It's very pretty. I love cookbooks with pictures of EVERY SINGLE dish. You eat with your eyes first, right ;) I haven't seen her prior cookbooks. I've seen a few recipes on her website that look good. I can't stand the blog format for recipes. Too many pictures for my patience level. But I'm glad I bought this book. I will say it's not exactly very original but it's very much my style. I get stuck in ruts with cooking and sometimes just flipping through a book like this will remind me of something I already cook. I've never watched her show but I did buy her pie pan at WM because it was pretty.

I didn't know respectable recital costumes existed these days! I don't think I can be helpful for your questions, but I'm finding a similar problem where we live with gymnastics. My 6 yo dd takes ballet/tap/jazz but it isn't her strength. I picked our studio based on seeing it's little logo on the backs of cars around town. Scientific, I know. I don't know much but here are some ideas. What if you work backwards from a dancer whose talents/grace/whatnot you respect? I know the university I went to had a School of Dance (I think it was a dance major, but I'm not sure). Maybe UGA has that? You could call someone in that school and ask questions. would it be hard to bump into and chat up someone performing in the local nutcracker? What about a local Christmas Parade? You could "evaluate" the dancers by how they hold themselves in the parade, especially if they do a little dance in the parade. That may be too small-town for the Atlanta area, though. There are some national competitions (dance machine?? I've seen that on the shirts/trophies of the studio where my dd takes dance), look for the list of winners. scroll down until you find one in your area and check them out. Hope these ideas give you a start. Good luck.

I dump chicken and BBQ sauce in the crockpot often. Mine don't usually take as long as the above posters. 4 hours on low, less on high. If frozen, I usually set it on high for an hour and then turn it down to low for maybe 3 hours. But I bet it would be fine for longer. I just always forget until early afternoon. I always save some BBQ sauce out for when it's finished. I find the cooking liquid to be too watered down when it's finished. I shred the chicken and add more BBQ sauce then.

Great link! My mom could have written that because she is particular about done vs finished, along w so many other grammatical errors I make! Best of luck to someone who responds with "absolutely" when they mean "yes" to my mom!

Haven't heard this one. My English teacher mother and grandmother would probably say the "done" part is most incorrect. You're not a roast; you are "finished". I still get corrected on grammar from my mom and I'm almost 40 (and pretty well spoken). I try to correct myself when my mom is in the house, and I'm asking my kids if they are finished with something. "Kids, are you done..err...finished with lunch!"

Can't help with specifics but is your OT the owner of the business? Are there others in the office so you could request someone different? What about a referral to another OT, even if really far away, just for a few sessions so you can see if/how they differ from your current situation or have any better advice for you. It does sound like the ps option discussed above might really benefit you both for the time being, or at least to find a private OT out of the deal.

I've always been more excited about being a grandmother than a mother! Parenting is hard. Grandparents get all the fun. Hopefully I still have 20 years to wait, but I'm excited anyway.

I'm saddened for all these lousy situations. I'm hopeful that maybe the children have other extended family for love and relationship building! when I was a kid, my paternal grandfather was very aloof. I was never sure if he actually knew my name. His wife (she was not my dad's mom) was a bit more kind but on a whole, I wrote them off as grandparents. Fortunately, my maternal grandparents more than made up with love and kindness. My kids also only have maternal grandparents in their lives. I like to think they still get everything they need from the grandparents they have. When they are older, they will understand it is the other person's failings not something wrong with the kid.

I don't know anything about the parathyroid. However, I have low thyroid and have read enough times about soy being not good for the thyroid, that I avoid soy (and don't like it anyway). So, if you're thinking she might eat a lot of soy, you might ask her endo about his/her thoughts on soy. Can't hurt to ask. FWIW, I've never heard from a doctor about soy being a negative but I've never asked either.

Up until this last month, I've had no problems (from a tremendous amount of orders). But twice now, they've had terrible packaging and the product inside is damaged. One was a book that was a gift for my nephew, so I had to return it and wait for a replacement. The dust jacket was torn due to poor packaging. Just today, I got a lego set for my son for Christmas and the lego box was crumpled. It would be a major pain to return, so I'm just going to keep this one. DS won't care and won't be reselling on ebay, so the box isn't important. But! I spent $250 for this new set! It should be in perfect condition. Very frustrating. They need to step up their quality control.

My kids use older kindle touches. I upload/remove audiobooks from the computer. Easy for my kids to use. They aren't always the most careful with the kindles, but it's getting better. There is a way to add mp3 music to the kindle touch but I haven't done that for my kids. They'd never listen to books if I gave them the option of music! downloading audiobooks from the library is easy via Overdrive on my computer. Lots of selections.

I don't think vegetarianism costs more than a typical diet. I would say the cost of meat is offset by more veggies. But I didn't eat soy or any fake meat things when I was a vegetarian. Mexican is easy to be meatless. Burrito bowls and such. Eggplant parmasean is so good! Hummus! Eggs are easy if she isn't vegan yet Soups are easy but most probably contain dairy. french onion, leek/potato, baked potato, corn chowder without the bacon, broccoli cheese.

We did in the order of release. that's the best! Consequently, my son is a SW fanatic! Now that he's anticipating #7 this year, he's asked to re-watch 4-6. He does play with some of the 1-3 toys/legos, but 4-6 are his true love. My boy knows a classic when he sees it :001_tt1:

THANK YOU! I'll look into the PROMPT and LiPS. I saw mentionof LiPs but haven't looked into it yet. I have heard of Barton and thought that was more reading. I'll research all of those! Yes, we started AAR with pre-level when they were four-ish. They moved pretty swiftly through AAR. They love it and my DS with Apraxia keeps up with his twin sister just fine. I should mention that that boy is obsessed with books. I think absent his speech delays, he would have been a very early reader! I do agree that he still doesn't say those sounds correctly and that is what he isn't "hearing" properly for turning that into spelling. Thank you so much for your input.