There are also follow-up books to it. "Salad People" is also for preschoolers, while "Honest Pretzels" is designed for ages 8 and up. I've really enjoyed the taste of the recipes in Pretend Soup myself. Who would think a preschooler could make popovers nearly independently? Erica in OR

I'm not familiar with the requirements for an MSA, but for our HSA we have a high deductible policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon. As a family rather than a single policyholder, we are eligible to contribute a little over $5800 per year to the HSA. Our contributions are not taxed. An employer can contribute as well, non-taxed. The amount in the account remains ours at the end of the year; it does not need to be spend by year-end as with the flex-type accounts. We use an out-of-state bank for the account, largely because of its lack of fees. We've had no problems and have been quite happy with them the entire time (Town Bank in Wisconsin). Erica in OR

It's put together by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine and covers all areas of food. They take classic recipes into the test kitchen and test all sorts of different changes to it to develop what they think is the "best". Even a no-fuss, amateur cook like myself has gotten a lot of use out of it. Erica in OR

School, friend, and family influences aside, I know when we visit the toy aisle at any store such as WalMart, Fred Meyer, or larger store such as Toys 'r Us, my kids see guns. Cap guns, cowboy-style replica guns, squirt guns, guns whose only purpose is to make very loud noises, among other weapons. Erica in OR

Wouldn't this make a great book? Not only as a homeschool resource/cookbook, especially if it had the recipes in it, but also as an interesting read for anyone that would like a whirlwind tour of the world and its food. It reminds me a little bit of the book "Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously", where the author decides to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the art of french cooking" in a single year. Erica in OR

It had spinach, feta cheese, dried cranberries, and walnuts. There's a recipe online that sounds similar at http://www.recipezaar.com/Cranberry-Feta-and-Walnut-Salad-59829. I believe they tossed it with a bottled dressing rather than the recipe dressing right beforehand, though. Erica in OR

Rod and Staff is working well for us, and we still do some of the lessons orally. Erica in OR

My first child used it as her only grammar program for 1st and 2nd grades. We've now moved over to Rod & Staff grade 3. My second child is now using FLL for 1st grade. Some lessons were quite brief and others a little bit longer. We do three lessons per week and tend to skip the enrichment exercises. The great majority of it is done orally, with some copywork. Erica in OR

Some friends adopted a girl from India and have a lovely blog (http://staffordsoflengby.blogspot.com/) about their journey, both through the adoption process, and how she's adjusting to life with them now. They brought her home last November. Erica in OR

We have Mario Kart and even our 4 year old can play it. You can do up to four players. Erica in OR

We continue to contribute to our investments (Roth and such) monthly the same as we always have. We've got a long time period until retirement age though, which reduces any worry levels. Erica in OR

He has tried a lipoflavonoid supplement specifically marketed for tinnitus. I've found it in drugstores such as Rite-Aid and Walgreen's. Unfortunately, it's fairly expensive ($30 a bottle, I think?), so I only buy when it's on sale. From what I've heard, it can work for some, but not necessarily everyone. He didn't think it yielded a major improvement, but it may have helped. A wishy washy answer, I suppose, but it's one option. Erica in OR

Sweet corn. So good when picked and eaten right away. I miss this when the season is over. Garlic. Very easy to do. I plant in the fall and then water and wait. Much better than what's in the store, if you use it in cooking. Sugar snap peas. Great for stir fries, salads, or for the kids to munch on. Zucchini. I tried it last year and one plant was plenty for the whole family. Sauteed with olive oil and garlic - I could eat it every day. Erica in OR

The idea was part of a larger brainstorm session for our church, and ended up not being worked on in favor of other items. However, I was drawn to it and gave it some thought, particularly in connection with the Square Foot Gardening (Mel Bartholomew's book) method my family and I use in our own garden. To avoid some of the problems with machinery and even irrigation, you might consider looking into what it would take to build a community garden using the methods in Bartholomew's book (the new version rather than the old). He also has a good website. The benefits would be: 1) A garden that tends to look neater and more well-kept. 2) Discrete boxes that make it clear whose plot is whose. 3) Garden areas that area easy to keep clear of weeds and to prepare for the following garden season. 4) Garden areas that don't require tilling or even typical garden tools beyond spades. 5) Garden areas that don't need extensive amounts of water, but can even be watered by hand from rain barrels. In this method, each family/unit could have a 4 x 4 foot box, or additional boxes if desired. Boxes can be built out of scrap lumber quite easily, or purchased as nice-looking boxes on the website. Vertical trellises are built out of bent metal pipe and netting, and are stood up next to a box over rebar driven into the ground. This would allow one to grow even vine-y items without great sprawl. We've successfully done peas, tomatoes, and even jack o'lantern size pumpkins. Instead of using existing ground or topsoil, Bartholomew describes a mix of vermiculite, peat moss, and various composts that is mixed from bulk amounts and used to fill the boxes. This means there are no existing weed seeds when you start. The mix is very easy to pull any weeds out of if they do appear. Best wishes! Erica in OR

Our whole family very much enjoyed the audio book, including a 8yo, 6 yo, and sort of a 4 yo. In the parts where the cricket plays different songs, it played parts of those songs, but made it sound as though it were in the style of cricket song. It was the first time I'd experienced the book, and it really added a lot that you couldn't get by just reading it aloud or individually. Erica in OR

We started using the method a few years ago, from a background of no gardening experience. It's quite easy to construct boxes of any size you wish, plonk them down on your inhospitable ground, and successfully grow many different things. He has a recipe for "Mel's Mix" to use as soil. It uses vermiculite, peat moss, and various composts. We have grown sugar snap peas, beans, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, radishes, lettuce, carrots, herbs, flowers, and even pumpkins (he has directions for making trellises to grow things vertically - we did the tomatoes and the pumpkins with these). Our raspberry patch is in regular ground, however, and we haven't tried blueberries, so can't provide specific advice there. Erica in OR

It got me excited about gardening when we first started a couple years ago. We now do a combination of the square foot style boxes and a regular garden plot. Erica in OR

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I haven't done it as a readaloud, since my kids aren't quite old enough yet to appreciate it, but I read it myself and quite enjoyed it. It is over 400 pages, but quite engaging throughout. The review on amazon listed it as ages 9-12, but I have heard other adults say they enjoyed it. Erica in OR

But then I felt I wasn't tying a lesson together very well, or reviewing particular concepts. It was more a situation where we just did the next couple of worksheets and I tried to come up with a good way to explain something beyond the Lab Annotations book if she didn't get it. I really wished they had a First Grade Diary style book for the other two years. I switched to Saxon this year so I could have a scripted approach. However, I've been pleased with how much she learned during the two years of Miquon and haven't noticed many gaps. I do wish we had worked more on some of the rote memorization things, such as skip counting, which Saxon does to help with remembering multiplication facts. We did do some supplemental sheets and practice with a Learning Resources clock and real money in addition to Miquon for time and money. Erica in OR

A team of two ladies came every other week. My main reason for doing it was to help my outlook on life. Sure, I knew I could mop the floors, super-clean the bathrooms, haul a vacuum around, and dust (or teach the kids how to do pieces of it, although all were under 8 y.o.). But I didn't make it a priority, until looking at it got too irritating to ignore anymore, or I just gave up and lived with feeling irritated. I decided being at home, sitting and seeing that environment all the time finally was too much for me to deal with. We could afford to have the cleaners, so I decided to try it. I still did the usual clutter pick-up, laundry, dishes, with the kids' help (they also do/did daily sweeping and wiping). This was all in addition to working out of the home part-time, homeschooling, and being involved in the activities of two churches as a pastor's wife. It really did help my outlook for the several months we used them. At that time, I decided saving that money for something else (Lasik surgery) was more of a priority. Since the house was also already at a stage where it had been maintained as clean, I could more easily take over and try to clean more often. It's been about a year now. Can you guess what stage my house is in now? :tongue_smilie: Erica in OR

My mom saved all the Playmobil sets my brother, sister, and I had as children. They agreed to let my kids have the whole shebang a couple years ago, and it's been such a blessing. Even more than 25 years ago, the sets were expensive. There's no way we could afford to have such a collection today. So for those that are saving sets for grandchildren--your own kids will thank you and will get a chance to relive their own childhood a little bit. Erica in OR

I'm planning for next year, with dd finishing up Saxon 3 math. I've looked at the materials for 5/4, the next level, but have been confused. There are the second edition materials, with the gray/purple cover, but also the third edition materials, which appear to be labeled specifically for homeschool. The 2004 version of WTM recommends the second edition, and there are sets being sold on eBay and the sale/swap board, but if I choose to buy new, it seems third edition is what's available. What's the real difference, if any? I'll be using the non-consumable textbook for at least one more child, so am wondering if newer is better. Also, do I need all three books, including solutions manual, tests/worksheets, textbook? Erica in OR

I worked as a janitor at the dorm where I lived, then moved on to working in an office in the chemistry department, and also had a work-study job where I learned how to do gel electrophoresis for one of the professors (this was a much better alternative than the other work they did in the lab - guillotining guinea pigs to retrieve brain tissue for analysis). On the side I did word processing of people's papers from their long-hand writing. One Valentine's Day I sold romantic stories personalized with names and chosen settings. During the summers I worked full-time at a facility for mentally retarded adults, which was hard, but incredibly rewarding. All in a list like that, it sounds a little crazy! Erica in OR

We're listening to the Little House audio books, which our library recently purchased. Am I the only one that dislikes her reading voice for Laura, and certain lines? It's like you can hear her smiling, and reads certain lines in this most over-the-top happiness and sweetness. Drives me bonkers, although I love being able to listen to the books as we drive to piano lessons and such. Erica in OR

We do history two or three days a week with a 8 and 7 yo both doing Story of the World Vol. 3. We listen to part 1 of the weekly chapter one day (maybe do a narration), part 2 of the chapter another day with the mapwork, and then if there's any interesting projects in the Activity guide, do that on a third. I also try to locate recommended books at the library, so we might read those at another time. Erica in OR