I like that they give books or educational toys their kids' meals too.

:grouphug: That is some list. Will keep you in my prayers

....and well, Sweet little Samuel came into the picture.:001_huh:I must admit, he was a nice surprise!!

My kids studied the Revolutionary War last year. I had really never learned all the facts surrounding it. Of course, in school I had always learned that the colonists revolted because of the taxes. Then come to find out, they were being taxed because of the war debt England had racked up, HELPING them. My perspective has really changed. Also, we have so many things written in our national documents about freedom, but it was written by people who owned slaves. I can not imagine OWNING another person. I do not understand how these people could treat other humans as less than human. When taking census, the slaves counted as 3/5 of a person, whereas a white person counted as a full person. To be quite honest with you, it now makes me cringe to hear people say "America was founded on Godly principals," because truthfully, no we weren't.

"No, son you aren't broken. That is just your crack." (followed by) "OH NO! How did my tushie get cracked?" this conversation took place when my son was 2, after the bath one night when he was checking himself out in the mirror.

I'm considered the meanie among our youth group because I demand that every passenger be buckled. Do whatever it takes to get the kids buckled. Talk to the pastor. If that doesn't work talk to whomever holds the insurance policy. Ask a police officer what the fine would be if he van were stopped and had unbuckled passengers. Bring it up again and again until it is written in the policy concerning trips. It is a horrible thing when people are in a crash and die. It is more even horrible knowing that their death could have been prevented.

The book of 1 John is a great book to look at whether or not your faith is real. Maybe you can gain some insight for your friend by reading it, or have your friend read it for him/herself.

Our tax money has paid for my sister to sit on her tail, doing nothing and have a baby. Our taxes are no paying for said baby's formula, etc... through the form of WIC. Even though her father has a job and COULD be providing insurance, she is being taken care of through Medicaid. Our taxes are paying for a woman in my church to quit her job so she can get Medicaid to pay for psychiatric care for herself. This is why I am against UHC. We have a flawed system that encourages people to not work things because "If I have a job, I'll make too much money to qualify for government services like Food Stamps and Medicaid."

August 3rd. My husband says I must be a communist to start so early, but if my youngest had his way, we would have already started. :)

I've always been considered weird, so homeschooling was just a natural thing. :thumbup: I cannot think of a time in my life when I was not different, did not go against the grain. When people first found out we were going to homeschool every time some one said that they knew homeschoolers who were weird I was like "well, I don't know if you have noticed this or not, but we are not like everyone else. If weird is a prerequisite, we should have already started!" That is a good way to get the naysayers to shut their traps. :lol:

We were playing Trivial Pursuit Totally 80s with some friends. One of the moving pieces is a record. Our friend called it a CD, which we all had a good laugh at because he is older than my husband and me. His son came in and saw his dad move and said "cool, you're the CD 'cause you like music" We had to explain to him what a record is (was, whatever)

So glad you had a safe journey

My vote is Hannah. If we would have ever had a girl her name would have been Hannah Faith, but Hannah Grace sounds just as good.

It was really bad when I was younger. Back then, I was not the norm. My parents never married. My mother is 16 years older than me. It made me really want to grow up to have the "normal" family with two parents and their kids. I think it makes me compassionate toward children of single parents and more determined not to let my children experience those feelings. I did get married young, but it was not a spur-of-the-moment thing. We have had our up and down times, but divorce was never an option because we did not want our children growing up without an intact family. I understand that things do not always have a happy ending, so please I hope that nobody thinks I am say "If you get a divorce you are bad" or anything like that. My sister in law got divorced because it was the best thing she could do to protect her daughter. My point is, growing up like I did made me determined not to make the same mistakes she did.

Do people really think she would be better off in a school crying all day? That is what happened to a friend's child last year. She started kindergarten and for the greater part of the year cried every morning before school, cried most of the day at school, and cried on the home from school, begging her mom not to make her go back. Homeschool may be what she needs right now to make learning a happy thing, not a thing to associate with anxiety.

I voted "Somewhat". I do think it is good to have a safety net for people who need it, but on the other hand I do not like knowing that there are so many people milking the system. I live beside a church. You would not believe the people who knock on our door, repeatedly, asking for money rather than getting a job to take care of themselves. Please do not misunderstand me. I understand that there are times where circumstances happen that cannot helped. What I am referring to is the people who go from one agency to another, one church to another, sometimes giving the same story, sometimes it is a different story, and trying to get money for bills and groceries. We had a guy that came here several times and we helped him out. He came one day and said he needed money for cigarettes. Then he acted mad that I said I had no money! (btw, I was not lying. I really had no cash here) These are the people I have trouble giving to. I do think that there are certain groups we should take better care of-the elderly, the veterans, children whose parents who will not act responsibly. I just do not think that everyone deserves a piece of our family's income.

I think this was very well spoken. I am the result of a baby outside of marriage. I have seen throughout my life the consequences. I have seen the struggles of a single mother raising a child. I have seen what it is like to be the child whose mother is constantly out on dates, constantly got a new boyfriend, etc. I have not always been a sexually pure person, but there is no way now that I would be willing to do anything outside of my marriage. I have seen the heartbreak caused by friends who do not take their marriage vows seriously and have needlessly hurt their spouse and children by having affairs. I think that sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. We are teaching our boys that it is best to wait.

Will definitely keep you in my prayers. Hope that God opens the doors to do what is best for these children. I think you and your husband must be amazing people to be willing to open your hearts and home to this family. It would be wonderful to see more people willing to love children. Bless you.

We live out in the boonies, so no neighborhood rules. We have a lot of allergies in our home, however, and so line drying would just bring in more pollen/ mold spores, etc that we don't need. Plus, every time I have every hung something out to dry, a bird has pooped on it. That has done it for me. I would NEVER line dry our clothes unless our dryer died and we and we had things washed that could not wait and just be re-washed after getting a new dryer.

When my middle son was a baby he had the most beautiful blond, curly hair and big, blue eyes. His older brother had straight, brown hair. People would stop and comment how Benjamin looked like an angel all the time, and just ignore Nathaniel. It would break my heart for him. One day an older couple came up to us and were commenting on Benjamin's beautiful hair and Nathaniel blurted out, "I've got hair too, you know!" Since then I have really made a conscience effort to compliment children on things other than looks. I have seen how my beautiful child would be made to feel bad about how he looked just because others thought it was only his brother who was beautiful.

I thought we were the only ones. Nice to know there are others out there.

We spent what seemed like a fortune on binders and page protectors. So, if those are included, yes I would be more likely to bid.

We did more than more one lesson on some of the earlier ones. After about lesson 20 the excitement wore off for my son and he did not get giddy about doing it anymore. We trekked on through and finally finished this summer. He could already read a few easy readers that we got from Starfall before we got 100 EZL. He was reading some Seuss and other things of that nature by 35-40. We did not do the writing portion because he was already learning to make letters and we had a special "letter of the week" that we focused on each week. I also did not go right by the pre-written script. I said things in my own words so it was less like I was reading and more like we were just talking together. He was five at the time.

:iagree: It seems like this year I keep finding things that "oooh, we could really use!" I was going to put off logic for another year with my oldest, but my husband said he needs all the logic help he can get. :rofl:

If it is not going to put too much of a strain on your budget, I say go for it. The differences in Classic and Redesigned are huge. Would it be easier on your wallet to buy a unit at a time?