What a great woman and mother!

Hm, I probably started allowing them to drink soda every once in a while when they were 5 or 6. They don't get it often. In summer ,though, I sometimes get them "little gulps" as a treat (that is, I like big gulps and sometimes they're allowed a smaller size!) Diet soda is my vice, I'm afraid.

Without Jesus' sacrifice we could not be resurrected after death. He had to do it first. So yes, we all die--but it's temporary. I would say that Christ conquered sin and death. But we still get sick. (OTOH, we still sin and we still die, it's just that those things don't win the victory. We won't get sick in the resurrection. Is that what is meant?)

I've wondered the same thing. Anyone?

Yes, I think this is true. When I joined up, it was because we were so broke that I couldn't buy a math book, much less science kits or anything else fun. For the first time I could buy as much science stuff as I wanted! It has been a great blessing in our lives. But that's our family. And if the time came that I felt like I was losing freedom, I'd drop the charter. I've just never run into any problem worse than the charter not paying for my kid to join the park district's basketball team (clinic, yes, team, no).

I realize her family culture is different, but she really really ought to know better by now. All of that is well into weird territory. I mean, when I was 19 I babysat a little cousin for a few hours every day. He happened to take his first steps while I was caring for him, but you can bet I never breathed a word of it to his parents, because I knew perfectly well that they would be sad to hear that someone else was the one to see it. I was a pretty clueless person, but I knew that.

Oh wonderful! Hello Baby Lemon!

I love Nutella, but it's basically a spreadable candy bar. I don't eat peanut-butter cups for breakfast either!

I'm too old for AG dolls, but the quiz cracked me up. My daughters have Kit and Felicity (yes, she's a redhead!). We all would have wanted an Addy except that her hair is more difficult to care for, but I don't think she's a non-character.

8:30am and 24F, which is super-cold.

I've made a LOT of doll clothes! The Joan Hinds books are excellent. The AG patterns run a little small, so cut them a bit bigger. The Simplicity patterns are mostly great, but some of them have run small too.

Now I feel all guilty for posting this. The kids are sorting through their clothes and husband decluttered a pile and is going to look at the suddenly-clanking washing machine...I am a whiner.

I am feeling this lately too. The house is a mess. It always seems to be a mess, and whenever I get them to do a grand clean-up, it's awful again the next day. I only have two children! You'd think there were a lot more, with the mess they make! I make them do chores but it still feels like I'm the only one around here who cares or who does anything. I have a perfectly able-bodied husband but he doesn't see mess much and he works so hard that I hate to bug him to do more (he does do stuff around the house, just not as much as I'd like, and he tends to wait to be asked and I hate to ask because hello, he's an adult and I am not his mother and surely he can see that the trash is full)....argh, how do I break this pattern? How do I get other people to care? Where do I even find the time to make everyone clean? This week cousins from WI have been visiting so I keep putting off the make-kids-clean part in favor of letting them play with cousins they haven't seen in over a year. GAH.

Chocolate and movies are often good therapy; that's part of what got me through the loss of my first. :grouphug: Of course you're unhappy, and you have every reason to be. Acknowledging that is probably the only way to get through it.

There is a guy near us who is a pretty close family friend. I babysat his children, his youngest daughter babysat my children, now she's married and expecting, etc. We go to the same (LDS) church and there were a few years when he served as pastor for our congregation. He's also an anesthesiologist, and when I had my gall bladder out he did my anesthetic. So...yeah, he's seen me naked and unconscious. I try not to think about it. :lol:

If I may say, it is 9.5" raw, so it will finish at 9". I'm the one that advised Brandy on what size to choose. I am in for a square, but I can't sew it until later this week. We're going to be on the road for a couple of days.

:grouphug: I'm so sorry, Felicity. Situations like this can be so rough for everyone. It seems to me that you've respected his choices, so he ought to respect yours. And the kids should be able to make their choices too. Sounds simple, but isn't...I'm sorry I don't know what to say to help, but my all means vent here.

I'm sorry. :grouphug: I think it's good that you respect your husband's wishes and don't want to steamroll him, but OTOH I would think that 12 is old enough to decide for himself what he wants to do. Can you talk with your husband about letting your son make his own decision? Our ward shares the building with the singles ward, which wants to sleep in, so we never switch times. Church has been at 9am forever, and apparently always will be. My sleepy teenager complains about this. :glare: 12yo was happy because she's finally completely out of Primary, and gets to have SS with the 13yos too, which means she gets another good friend in class. Also the teacher treats them like grownups, which she likes. 9yo likes her new teacher and seems happy. We have a new SS teacher who I think will be very good. I was so tired--or something--afterwards that I pretty much took the afternoon off. Weird. I'm not a good faster at the best of times but it was weird. Two of my brothers are here in town with their families--one lives on the other side of the country--so the kids went and hung out with cousins and I went over around 4.30 and we had a birthday party.

This. I hate the smell, but it is a legal activity. I really hate it but I also dislike that we keep shoving smokers into ever-tinier areas in which to engage in their perfectly legal activity. Even though I benefit. I am conflicted about this, can you tell? :D

He's 15 months old and doing this? Zowie. I do have a niece who used to do it, but she has grown out of it now. I don't know what to do with a young toddler who does it, but you have my sympathy!

You have to do that for the aid. My parents did not tell me their income all the time, but they put it on the forms, so I knew at that time. Please just do it.

We are not pukers here--it's very rare. I've never thrown up much, and didn't at all when I was pregnant (I just had vague nausea all the time, whee). My 9yo hasn't puked since she was about 4, but she is deathly afraid of it, which kind of worries me. I feel a bit that way myself but she really takes it farther. One of my best friends is the mom of a family of pukers. She considers it routine to throw up (on average) about once a week. Her kids will puke on the slightest provocation, especially if they're excited or sick. I guess there's a wide variety of people in the world!

Well, I am. Tears are never all that far away these days. For one thing, I got older and became a mother, which made me more sensitive about things happening to other people. Then it's just been a tough few years and, I don't know, my heart's been broken a bit? It's to the point that I don't even care as much if somebody sees--until very recently my feeling was that I'd rather die than have somebody see me cry! Maybe we've all just been having a tough time for a while now?

Terry Pratchett would be a great choice. Don't start with the first one though--start with Mort (the first couple aren't very good, you can send them later). There are lots of good suggestions here! I also agree with the classics/chunksters idea (maybe not Madame Bovary). And there are tons of great non-fiction chunksters out there of history and religion and biography. One of the best uplifting memoirs I've ever read is Jacques Lusseyran's "And There Was Light." Check the synopsis--the second half of the book is about his work in the French Underground during WWII. He was sent to a concentration camp, but he only spends about a page on that period of his life and it's not graphic at all, so see what you think.

Ha, that reminds me of that time on the US "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" when Drew Carey referred to Africa as a country, and was ribbed about it for the rest of the show, if not the whole season.