Amy, I think it's possible to have it be the backbone. I've studied a lot about this. I am also following an LCC approach mostly, so YMMV. I want to focus intensely on Bible, Math , Latin, and Lang Arts (writing, lit, grammar). By moving other things to more of a deeper once or twice a week sudy vs minimal daily study, I hope to achieve a lot. So history for me will be fleshed out based on the weekly sentence with SOTW material, other history encyclopedias I have, and lots of hist fiction reading. Same with science. Spanish might be daily as I find that fun, but their main bulk of lesson time will likely be weekly. Ditto for art and music appreciation. If you search for CC here or look at the CC social group you will find a wealth of info on how many of us plan to do this. Good luck!!! And Heidi, your 6 (or was it 7?) reasons for wanting to do CC were exactly my same reasons!! :D

I'm a mut person for life now. All my best dogs (except for my Golden Retriever) have been muts, and great ones. My dh would have Goldens the rest of his life, but I appreciate the different personalities we have had with different mixes. We currently have a border collie mix and she's wonderful. Like a pp I had a German Shepherd/Lab mix as a kid and that was the smartest and best dog ever. I now really LOVE Shepherds! But it'll be rescues from here on out for us.

This whole thing is just making me so sad.:sad:

YUMMMM!!!!! This sounds great and I can see how you could make endless varieties by changing out the fruits. Thanks for sharing!

Mine calls me with the latest funny "office speak" of his coworkers. I guess these are the trendy sayings of cubicle-ites. Stuff like: "we're gonna get granular on that problem tomorrow" "we'll have to tackle the longest pole in the tent" "haven't sliced the metrics that finely at this juncture" "I'll work to procure those verbatims shortly." :001_huh:

Thanks for the Putumaya suggestion! Our library does have it and I will check it out. She has tons of oldies, we are a big-time Beatles and Monkees and Beach Boys house here. But she likes her girlie pop. I spent some time cruising around on iTunes and found a few new artists that I think she will like. Cadia sounds good. And we have been hearing Francesca Bottiscelli (sp?) and Point of Grace on the radio lately so those should give us a few good options. Maybe Zoegirl too. Thanks again!

DD is almost 10. I need some more names of artists that your dds like. We want either contemp christian pop or country pop. She already has Britt Nicole, Jump 5, Barlow Girl, Taylor Swift, even Cheetah Girls, Jonas Bros and old Hannah Montana. It doesn't have to be Christian music, but it does need to be pretty clean and definitely dancey-pop. I'm having a hard time finding more music for her. Most country artists seem to be either too twangy country or down right dirty. The Disney and Nick girls coming out with albums are not a choice for us either lyrically nor via the image they project. Any suggestions?:bigear:

DD9 just started "The Name of this Book is Secret" but she's also mid-way through "Princess Academy". I also recently got 2 new book sets that were rec on threads here ... Young Folks Shelf of Books and My Book House, so she also has a couple of these in her room and is picking out stories here and there to read from them. DS5 is not reading yet, so we do tons of read alouds from library picture books. He has 2 huge Star Wars books he's loving right now. For "school" we are touring through some ancients this summer, just for fun, so I have been reading Roman Diary, Greek Diary, and Egyptian Diary aloud.

Hope this isn't a hijack... If you experienced folks had to pick a favorite time of year to go, when would that be? I am thinking about it and want to put together a proposal for dh for next year. I'm guessing the last 1/2 of next year is best because we need the time to save. We went to Land in Feb a couple of years ago and were a teensy bit disappointed that quite a few really good rides were closed for refurbishing, and no parades or fireworks at all. So while it was cool (pouring rain one day) and no lines at all (we rode Space Mountain 4 times just walking right on) I do feel like we missed out on some favorites. We missed Small World, Haunted Mansion, Matterhorn and more. And no parades was a real drag. One of my favorite memories as a kid was Tinkerbell flying down from the top of the Matterhorn and all the fireworks. Not to mention the Electrick Light Parade.:glare: It was a real bummer to miss those things. Is late October good? Early November? Our anniversary is the first week of Oct, that might be nice to plan around.

This book helped us a lot. We followed it to a *T* and had a great experience and got the worlds best dog out of it.:D

My dentist told me that every time you do work to a tooth it "hurts" the tooth. You drill it down to have the original filling, and so now to drill into it again just to remove a silver filling you are risking exactly what a pp said. Root canals, more damage to the tooth, and crowns. He won't do it until the tooth needs it. There are a couple that I have with teeth not quite as far back and I feel like you can see them more, they make my teeth look dark, but it would be purely cosmetic. After the recent crown I had to have - not a simple thing because I needed "crown lengthening" - I'm out over $1200. This is not something I can do again any time soon! I would not do any procedures like this until they are necessary, and honestly I might find a new dentist. It's sorta like finding out somebody is telling you you need a new transmission in your car when you really don't. How can you trust that what they say in the future is really for your benefit and not to line their pockets??

:grouphug: I hope you get the help you seek. :grouphug:

Do you have a Costco membership? Or a friend with one? They have really pretty Speedo racer suits for girls for $11 in my area. I hope you find a couple!!

Yes, that does freeze great. My recipe calls it "Pepperidge Farm Chicken" I guess because of the stuffing. Add some fresh broccoli or a salad to the side and it's a hit.

Silly girl. Asking if we'd like the recipe. That's funny. POST IT! :tongue_smilie: I've already put together an egg casserole. French bread torn up, some chopped spinach, ham, swiss cheese, and onion, and eggs/milk. I'll serve it with a salad. I also like to do a sweet version with blueberries and serve with blueberry syrup or french toast flavors (cinnamon and vanilla) both with cream cheese in the casserole.

:grouphug: Big hugs for you and your sweet Princess! The only time my dd ran a fever that high with no other symptoms it turned out to be a UTI. :grouphug:

Several of my friends see a family doc. One thing that I didn't like that they mentioned is some kind of female exam for a child of 7,8,9yo. I don't mean stirrups or anything, but I think they looked "there". When I question those parents they acted like that was a completely normal part of a well visit. For boys maybe yes, to check their testes, but or girls? Yes, okay at 2 yo or even 3 to make sure things are developing properly, but by 8 or 9 it's just too much for my dd. The NP that my dd sees (she's the ped's wife) would NEVER do that to my dd. But it could be because she knows how shy and modest my dd is, has known this for years. Maybe it is normally routine except in the case of times that it would traumatize the child?:confused: We have kept with our ped because my son was a preemie. He was definitely more able to keep track of his growth and issues better than a family practice doc would be. But now that the kids are just about 6 and 10, maybe it's no big deal anymore and we should switch. I can see how nice it would be to have all of us at the same practice. They have never questioned or even raised an eyebrow at homeschooling. I did vax my kids all the way through but when I recently questioned the chicken pox booster, they suggested I decline it based on the fact that we aren't in school. I saw that as more support of my choices.

Gorgeous! Congratulations to you!

:iagree:Plus Bible.

:smilielol5:Me too!!!!! That totally made me crack up because I have so many friends I go to the pool with who either don't get in (hello, it's 104!) or they just soak a minute or doggie paddle around. Guess I'm a weirdo...I LOVE to swim! And my kids read at the pool too. But I am one of them weirdo homeschoolers...:tongue_smilie: I do also love to get out, all chilled down, and bake in the sun a while.:blush: It's way more relaxing to me than a massage.

I'm so glad you mentioned this because I was just contemplating what to do for my dd going into 5th grade. Not sure what writing program to choose, but knowing I need to do SOMETHING. We are doing Class. Conv. this fall so she will get IEW but I want to do more backtracking with dictation and narration since I haven't done any really. It sounds like SF is just what I need!

:grouphug: I just wanted to suggest that you could check the networking board here and see if there is anyone from this forum in your area. The more experienced homeschoolers you get to know, the more you will know of what resources are in your area. If you are in Austin, TX I could hook you up! :grouphug:

Oh boy do I feel ya. I paid my rent twice this month. How can this happen, you might wonder (or...what kind of a moron does this?) It was accidental because an online bill payment that I was sure was cancelled went ahead and went through, and so did my hand written check. It wasn't the banks fault at all...totally mine. But then when my prop manager called to ask DH which check they should shred, he told them to shred the banks. Of course that one had already been debited!!!! I finally got it all straightened out but not without facing a couple of edgy days waiting for the bank to return my money and not bounce anything or charge me horrendous fines to put things through. Accidents happen. I hope it works out with minimal hassle!!

Kildee House Princess Academy Shakespeare Stealer series Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos and 2 sequels Esperanza Rising Doll People and sequels Emily Windsnap and sequels My dd is a little younger than yours so YMMV. HTH!:D

:grouphug: Shake it off. You have to have a thick skin around here. :)