After five months of trying (and a 38th birthday in the meanwhile), I took a home pregnancy test today at 11 dpo... ...and it was POSITIVE! I had been having some spotting prior to this. And I recently stopped taking Prednisone and muscle relaxers due to a particularly horrible and long lasting episode of sciatica and I hope they didn't do any harm. I'm not even four weeks yet and dr won't see me til after 7 weeks- anyway please keep me in your thoughts that all goes well... That it "sticks," that it's a normal, healthy pregnancy and baby and so on! I am excited and nervous all at once, I just want everything to be ok!

We only live two hours from Philly and wanted to go spend a few days two summers ago doing fun sightseeing kinds if things-but we didn't want to spend a lot on accommodations since it was so close to home. We ended up staying at a KOA campground, in a cabin. Way cheaper than a hotel with the added fun of camping, cooking out, roasting marshmallows etc.

Yes.

Yep lol. In fact if hubby is working late I can't go to sleep til he gets home because I will keep hearing noises that must be intruders lol

No, never. And I try to remember to always lock my car but I'm nit always good at remembering to do so at home (in public it's always locked).

I put in enough flavored stuff (usually some sort of vanilla flavoring... ooh or that Sweet Italian Cream stuff, yum!) that it no longer tastes like coffee. Then I know it's good. :D

I walked into the bathroom and saw an unwrapped (and unused, don't worry lol) tampon sitting outside of the box on top of the toilet tank. An unwrapped (and unused, don't worry :P) pad was lying on the floor. I stand there for a moment, confused, and then turn around and eyeball my 5 year old son who is in the doorway looking at me all innocently. "Ben, did you open those?" I ask him. He puts his hand over his mouth and giggles. "Ben, WHY did you open that?" I ask him instead. "Because... I wanted to know what it was." Without thinking, I said, "Please don't touch my things. If you wanted to know what it was, you should have just asked me." He immediately took me up on my offer and said: "Okay. So what is it?" Me: "Uh.... Er... Well... Um....It's... When a girl... Well... Um...." Yep. Right after I said it, I knew he was going to take me up on it, and I wasn't at all prepared for that. I needed time to think darn it, to figure out how to explain it to a five year old boy in a way that was truthful and made some sense but was not overly detailed. I'm not even sure what I said in the end. I'm sure it was sort of bumbling and probably made very little sense to him. For some unfathomable reason whatever explanation I got out satisfied him, though. And then my 10 year old said, "I've never seen what the inside of a tampon looks like, can I see it?" So I used the one he opened to show her how you get it out of the applicator and what it looks like and so on. Yeah, uh, we're going back to watching Liberty's Kids now. American History is MUCH easier than periods.

PA is no 31 on the list. It says our Homeschool laws are perhaps the worst in the country. Lol lucky us!

I am so sorry to hear that. :(

I think that poster should be hanging on the walls of all sorts of institutions. Police stations, clinics, hospitals, schools... I'd love to print a bunch out and just start hanging them everywhere lol.

I understand, but maybe it would be easier if you put the emphasis on how well the kids are getting along and how your daughter would like to get together sometime for a playdate (as opposed to it being about you inviting another woman to socialize)?

Aw. Maybe you can take a chance on inviting someone over to your house for a coffee/playdate kind of thing. See if you hit it off enough chatting one on one that you can at least socialize now and then in that way. Or if she hits it off with a kid, just say to the mom, "They seem to have really hit it off... would you be up for planning a separate playdate for them?" or something like that.

Love it! You did a fantastic job! Happy birthday to your son! He is a cutie! :)

My walls are a milk chocolate color with cream trim. I love it.

I put finished even though there is one last project we're wrapping up this week. For the most part, we're done. We start back to school on Labor Day, usually.

One of my Facebook friends posted this (it's a poster). I'm going to put the text here just in case it's hard to read when I post the picture below. It says: Sexual Assault Prevention Tips 1. Don't put drugs in people's drinks in order to control their behavior. 2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone! 3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them! 4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited. 5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON'T ASSAULT THEM! 6. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public. 7. Always be honest with people! Don't pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don't communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them. 8. Don't forget: you can't have sex with someone unless they are awake! 9. Carry a whistle! If you're worried you might assault someone "accidentally" you can hand it to the person you're with so they can blow it if you do. 10. Don't assault people.

Personally I do find it to be on the unreasonable slash over protective side, but it's your kid!

Because not all calories are equal when it comes to nutritional value.

Your son is ambitious. When mine was about to turn 5, he threw a bunch of random toys and clothes in a wicker basket and lugged it down the stairs and informed me he was going to live with Uncle Matt (3 houses away) because they had oreos over there and unlimited computer time.

We use Oak Meadow and really love it. OMK is really sweet- laid back, gentle, Waldorf-inspired. It gets more academic in later elementary school years but still manages to stay pretty hands on and creative rather than dry and textbookish.

I'd just say something like "nah, we have a lot of fun together, but I do get time to myself here and there, too. I wake up before them, go to bed after them, and there are times throughout the day when they are either working independently or entertaining themselves. It works out great, we like homeschooling."

Ouch, poor thing! None of my kids have ever had any injuries to their genitals, and unless I thought that injury was bad enough in and if itself to have checked out, I would reschedule.

Girl or boy!

We usually do chicken fajitas. Those have always been a hit.

The FAF still needs like 1,200 host families! There are THAT many interested kids without places to go!