My dd15 who goes to public school starts on August 22. We won't start homeschool for the rest of us until the day after Labor Day.

Bringing my own Graeter's Mocha Chip ice cream. Thanks for the invite!

While my dh was in the hospital we got a fruit arrangement from Edible Arrangements. It was thoughtful, delicious and lovely.

I've been off the radar for a few weeks; vacation, husband having surgery... This week I read The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. It started slowly but by the end I really like the characters. Up next? It depends on what comes in at the library. Maybe 1. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Click on your own name. I always click on my name at the top right where it says "Welcome, ........" Click on Statistics. Click on "Find all posts..." or "Find all threads..." You can also subscribe to a thread so you know when a reply has been added.

TumTum and Nutmeg The Penderwicks Either of these series are excellent and at a higher reading level. Both have simple drawings. My dd7 has enjoyed both.

Get rid of all the clutter you possibly can and then get rid of even more. Clean out drawers, shelves and closets. Go ahead and put that stuff in boxes and stack it neatly in the garage or rent a storage unit. If you don't absolutely love the stuff you are cleaning out then get rid of it, yard sale, donate, trash. To get ready for showing the house have the kids declutter their rooms. Make sure what they have in their rooms is such that they can easily straighten the room and make their beds. Get rid of extra toys, pillows, blankets, books that make this a more complicated process than it needs to be. Remind the dc that this change isn't forever and that when they get to their new house they'll be so excited to get all their toys back. Stock up on bathroom wipes. In real life I don't ever use these but during showing season they can be a lifesaver. Every morning make sure the bathrooms are neat and the toilet seat is down with the lid closed. Before a showing, do a double check and a quick wipe and you are good. Laundry baskets are great for gathering clutter and throwing it in the car when you leave while the house is shown. I also kept easy to grab snacks/lunch stuff. Eating out a few days a week can add up when showings hit at meal times. Having a plan for where you go during a showing can make things easier too. We had a favorite park and the library that we usually visited. Having a list of things that must be done every morning makes showings much easier: beds made, bathrooms straight, kitchen clean. Before showings: wipe bathrooms, sweep/vacuum, gather clutter, go. My children all knew their jobs to get us out the door and I just double checked while they got in the car.

For the summer we'll spend time participating in the library summer reading program at our library. We'll spend a couple of afternoons a week at the pool. My dc play really well together so ds10 will spend time playing with his sisters, especially dd7. The dc, including ds10, will be helping with the garden and the animals. Ds10 is writing a book. He'll practice archery, spend time in his tree house, play legos, nerf, Star Wars.

My dd13 loves Kristen Stewart. She wanted me to see this movie so that I would know what a great actress Kristen was. I'm still waiting.:tongue_smilie:

Save your money. Enjoy it in a month or so on dvd. The special effects are really great and it is beautifully filmed. Everything else is just okay. Some of it is barely okay.

We have four bedrooms for six of us. DH and I share a room. Dd15 and dd13 share a room. Dd7 and ds10 have their own rooms but usually sleep in one of their rooms together. In our last house we had six bedrooms. All the dc had their own rooms. Usually they shared by choice.

We tried it the first year. I was so excited about the binders and how they would develop over time. They just didn't work for us. They were cumbersome and became a chore. Now we use 70 page spiral notebooks, a different color for each child. These are a much better solution for us. I do have a pile of 3" binders I'd be happy to sell.

It can be painful. I reassure myself that the tests aren't for me or for the kids. They are just to reassure the powers that be that they are in control. I tell the dc to do their best and not to worry if they can't answer something. For the most part, we all manage to follow those directions. During testing this year my ds10 didn't finish the first test. He left six blank because he got distracted and ran out of time. Dd7 made basic math mistakes that she hasn't ever made before. Both got composite scores within the state requirements so it made no difference.

Ds10 does the lesson orally. The only things he writes are the diagramming and the actual writing assignments. It takes him about 20-30 minutes to do a lesson.

I always follow the directions as given. I can't imagine that it would benefit anyone if I didn't. The scores don't matter at all to me. I tell my children to do their best because the scores are submitted to the public school officials to show that we are learning what we need to learn. If my children understood that I was cheating in order for them to perform better I have no clue how I'd explain that. I worked in the public school system. As much as we hated the role of standardized testing, we were professional educators and administered the tests as professionals.

Fresh fruit and red meat, rare.

We finished last Friday. We'll start back the day after Labor Day. Over the summer we'll read and listen to books, experiment with some art, take several field trips, do a little math review and swim, a lot. We'll also be keeping a garden, raising 125 chickens, 10 turkeys and 2 calves.

Favorites for my dc included cheerios with yogurt, cheese quesadillas, cubed avacado (or guacamole), semi-frozen peas and green beans, mandarin oranges. Fruit with yogurt to dip. Veggies with ranch dressing. My dd7 still dips everything in ranch so we may have created a monster with that technique but she'll eat ANYTHING as long as she has a side of ranch.

It depends. The book is set up as a text and workbook in one. If you want them to do it as a class, together you need two books. I had my daughter answer the questions in her notebook but even with that she was constantly turning from the exercise questions back into the text to find answers. If they were going to be doing the reading and exercises at different times and writing answers in a notebook you could use one book.

I answered nursing...occassionally slept with. I figured that averaged out the dc that I slept with all the time and those that started in their own beds but ended up sleeping with me and those that started sleeping with me but ended up in their own beds. We played musical beds all the time when the dc were younger.

We used Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, Jan VanCleeve's Chemistry for Every Kid and Mastering the Periodic Table.

I have something like this that I keep under my bed.

DH irons his clothes on an as needed basis. Usually I get them out of the dryer and hung in a timely manner so not much needs ironed. I iron maybe once a year for myself. I buy clothes for the dc that don't need ironed or I make sure they get hung quickly. On occassion I've been known to throw things in the dryer with a damp cloth to avoid ironing. I marked other because now that I've begun to sew I do use my iron and ironing board on a regular, sometimes manic, basis.

Mine are here and here. I had them up on Wednesday, just barely.

We are traveling, going to summer camp, reading, swimming, playing in the sun, doing chores, talking, laughing, playing with art and enjoying each other.