Oh, that's another thing about CLE - it's the cheapest thing I've seen. I couldn't afford to buy the entire LA program for the year, so I bought half of it. I then bought the 2nd half later. I love CLE. :D

Don't forget that the debt-payoff "snowballs" itself. So, you make a lot less progress in the beginning than you will later.

:lol: I just turned 33 years old and I told my friend: my back hurts all the time AND I keep getting acne. Is this what it means to be in your 30's?! :D She replied that now she started her '40's, she can't remember who anyone is! :tongue_smilie:

I think the sonlight readers and read-alouds are great - and a big percentage of them are in our library. We're in Core 1 BTW... :)

We're trapped in the world of CLE, complete with its odd references to oxen, carpentry and "obeying your parents". Once you get past this strange atmosphere, it's a really REALLY good program. My kids learned more doing 4 months of CLE than they did in 2 years of brick and mortar school. We're doing 1st and 2nd grade Language Arts and Reading. I am so impressed with the LA, that I'm seriously thinking about buying the social studies - just to supplement. So, the LA is a set of 10 workbooks. Each lesson has passages that the student reads and then writes sentences, answers questions about the lesson, etc. It is pretty hands on for language arts. The grammar for 2nd grade is very impressive also (I think). You could choose to write sentences and answers in cursive if you wanted (my daughter knows cursive also). There is a lot of writing (which I think is awesome) and every lesson has bits of review from previous lessons. The 1st grade LA is pretty short - about 3 pages, but the 2nd grade can be really long sometimes. We've had to break up the lessons a couple of times to fit my 7 year-old's attention span. However, the kids both seem to be really retaining the information, probably due to the review in each lesson. So....the workbooks look a little odd, the language takes some getting used to, my kids were laughing at the black and white pictures the first week, but after 4 months, we really like CLE. Oh, and BTW, I bought the 1st grade reader and it was WAY above my son's reading level (after doing kindergarten at ps). He is almost to the point where he can read them now (after working on reading all summer). Hope this helps you!!

Oooooohhhh, I have the SAME problem. I was in the bathroom one morning at 5:45am and the 7 year-old was banging on the door, trying to get me out so she could "do some math". School is a 24 hour-a-day ordeal for me too. :tongue_smilie:

Good for You!! You can do it! :grouphug: We've been Debt Gazelles for 2 years now and we have: - 1 paid for minivan - 1 paid for pick-up truck - an emergency fund that has completely thwarted disaster several times - made it through being unemployed for 7 MONTHS without losing our house or cars - next year we will be out of debt except for our house and my husband is sooooo excited. Do you know how much money you start accumulating when your only bill is your mortgage? I'm only 32 and I will have a paid-for house by the time I'm 40 (well, hopefully). We've got all kinds of fun retirement plans. Let that be your motivation!! We can do it!! :D I'm sooo excited! :grouphug:

I never had enough money to do the FPU, but if you do the online subscription (10 bucks a month or so), it has a LOT of information that comes in FPU. In fact, I don't think I would need FPU now. There are programs on the online version that track your expenses and budget and also show what to pay and when for your debt snowball. It also calculates how long you have until your snowball has paid off all your debt. I love Dave. He really changed our lives. We weathered a 7 month unemployment and didn't lose our house or cars. We'll be outta debt next year. We have two paid-for cars (a 2008 minivan and a 1994 chevy pick-up). I have WAY more spending money than I ever had before and our BEF has saved our booties several times. GOOD FOR YOU!! I hope you do it! :)

I think she's right... We're a Korean family (except me) and I could ask my husband, but that sounds right... Have fun! Our kids are going to start Korean language classes in the spring. Woohoo!

We're Lutheran (conservative Missouri Synod) and we're entirely scriptural-based. They have a saying that if you attend service every sunday for 2 years, then you have read the entire Bible. I was raised in a family that was Southern Baptist and other than the veil of tradition in the Lutheran church (like singing the liturgy, the procession, etc) there really is no huge difference in beliefs. Except our Lutheran sermons aren't as rowdy as the Baptist ones I went to as a kid. :D But...I'm still fond of both churches. There's a place for both of 'em.

:grouphug: I'm sooo sorry. We're on Month Five and it will be over by December. I cry a lot too. It's worse for whoever is left behind. I really don't have many suggestions for either of us...other than it helps to know other people going through the same thing.

We're using BJU Spelling and it's one lesson a week, too. I think it's 15-20 words and then she has a spelling test on Friday.

Stay away from BOA. We have a mortgage through them and came within an inch of filing a lawsuit against them over the summer. After a refi, they insisted that we still had our original mortgage and the new mortgage. Then, they completely destroyed my husband's credit report to the point where he couldn't even get utilities turned on or a car loan. His credit report showed foreclosure and default, when we were completely current on our mortgage. Oh, yeah, and then he kept calling and calling and they had him "blocked" from the call centers. He couldn't even call to pay his mortgage payment over the phone. I would stay away from them. It's like getting your mortgage through a payday loan place or something. We ended up having to get an attorney.

That sounds exactly like my husband! Men's Warehouse for us too!!

1260 square feet and 6 people (and 3 dogs) We're pretty used to it. We don't own a lot of "stuff" and it doesn't take long to clean.

I have something close to a phone phobia...very strange and long story... I have alcoholics in my family and one of the "techniques" they liked to use when I was a kid was to call family members over and over again and hang up. We also had an answering machine where you could hear what message was being left at the time. Anyway, they would threaten to kill us and scream obscenities over the answering machine. It was so bad that I used to sleep with a baseball bat when I was about 11-12. So, yeah, I never answer the phone unless it's my husband or sisters. I don't care if people call me weird or rude or whatever. If they lived through something like that, they'd be weird too.

I feel your pain. :crying: Been going through the "moving process" since April (yeah, April). Husband moved 800 miles away and I'm selling the house myself. It is horrible... Yeah, and I understand the depression thing, too. I've been having crying fits for months now. The 7 yro is used to me being locked in the bathroom for 20 minutes at a time. Good luck and hopefully both our moves can hurry up and be OVER (and I can live with my husband again)!!

:iagree:

Public school is no picnic!! :crying: We did public school for 2 years...let me tell you...when we started homeschooling, it was like a gigantic, smelly elephant stood up and walked out of the room. I NEVER had any freetime when the kids were in ps either. I had to stand down at the bus stop from 7:40-8:10am for the morning bus, 11:35-11:45am for the kindergarten bus and 3:10-3:20pm for the afternoon bus. Let's not mention the constant fundraisers, candy sales, order forms to fill out, the nonstop parent paperwork that gets shoved into their take-home folders every day. I was always running up to the school because my daughter had a tick, or my son was smacked in the face on the playground or my daughter had a stomachache. :willy_nilly: The school was always calling too. My son decided to use his "alien writing" during journal time, my son actually fell asleep at school in kindergarten, my daughter was being sent to "special testing", my son was being sent to the "special reading lady"... Oh, yeah, it was like a full-time job. :nopity: Oh, let's not open the homework can 'o worms...because when your kids have homework, YOU have homework. This means that you have to drive to Hobby Lobby to make a poster of 100 pink ponies or try to find a white bucket hat at Michael's. :driving: Oh, and then there's the emergencies...the school was on lock-down because of a shooting/murder, there were at least 2 gas leaks last year because of street construction... Last but not least, let's not forget the wonderful social problems I was constantly dealing with...my kindergartener being told by another kid that if he came back to school tomorrow, he would beat the &^% out of him...my daughter coming home and telling me that some girl bit her on the playground...my daughter telling me about this boy named Max on the bus who was trying to get kids to touch his you-know-what...:glare: Honestly, I just don't miss it right now. For someone with 4 kids, homeschooling has removed so much stress and behavior problems from our family. Even the 2 oldest kids are starting to get along really well (watch for flying pigs). :boxing_smiley: Good luck with whatever decision works best for your family! :auto:

I'm also curious about this program and was wanting to try it next year for a 3rd grader... I don't think you read the same book 5x though, because they seemed to be chapter books on the list...maybe I need to look at it more closely... :confused:

Yeah, we do that too...ugh. Our dues are $75 for a year. The uniform cost me $70 - BUT, I did buy the hat (because the 6 yro really, really, really wanted one :D). We're also experienced Daisies and Brownies (girl scouts) and they are soooo much cheaper - and more laid back. I'll keep a running tab and just bill them when they're adults. :lol:

For math...we're using Horizons with one kid and Singapore with another. I think Horizons is really easy to use. Singapore tends to drag on a little longer than my daughter likes it to...but the lessons are very thorough. I think they are both a lot cheaper than MUS.

I am currently using CLE LA1 and LA2. I'm comparing this to public school last year, but it is WAY more language arts than they learned in school. I'm very happy with it. I even bought the reading and plan on continuing with it later. Oh, one note...the 2nd grader finds the lessons kinda long and every once in a while, she can't finish one in a single sitting.

I have a 4.5 year old. We're not doing anything. She plays barbies, chases the 1 year-old, watches Lady and the Tramp... I just don't feel like I'm in a hurry with this one... She also doesn't seem to be overly interested in anything academic, either. :tongue_smilie: She is, however, an incredible gymnast!! ROFL! :D

I need one too!!!!!!!!!!!! :willy_nilly: