Thank you! Yes and ipad would be great, but no leads there. Do you have a kindle touch? It seems from reading the reviews it can do email and such which I think she would really like.

We are struggling with an idea for our 13 year old girl. She is an avid reader. I thought about different books/sets I could get her. Then tonight I thought maybe a kindle. No one in our house has one, but my dh and I have iphones/droids and her two brothers have ipod touches with kindle app. She has nothing, only an ipod shuffle for music. My husband(NOT a reader...) thought a kindle wasnt a good idea since its only an e-reader. Our budget is pretty close to right at $100. Really we dont even usually spend that much on one gift, but as the kids are getting older it gets so much harder. Anyways, Im looking around at the different options. We cant do the Fire. What about the touch with wifi? Could she store her music/listen to it? Read email? Textfree? Any apps/games? Anything like that? Im a bit confused what it includes. We would get her an ipod touch, but really can't do that either(too much $$, the boys bought their own, BTW) Thank you!

Great Ideas! Thanks and keep them coming! I am wondering about Knex? We have a small bin of random parts but Im looking at the cool roller coasters and such. Reviews?

We usually get him legos, but the ones he wants are so expensive and more than we wish to spend. Also, when he gets lego sets, he puts them together and then plays with the item. Doesnt use the pieces to create new things. So they are done in less than a day. He DOES use the basic bricks etc in very creative/innovative ways and we almost always give a group gift of another brick set to all the kids. (VENT: why do legos have to be so expensive?!?!?) We live in a small, 3 bedroom home with 9 people. The gift cant take up a lot of space and this is one reason why I prefer things like legos that ADD to something we already have. He LOVES to figure out how things work and how to put stuff together. My husband and I always comment to ourselves that he is going to be an engineer. He is strong in math and a very precise, exact, methodical child. We went to the science museum once and they had one of those sets where you make basically a huge marble run, but with a larger ball. Lots of peices and options. Couldnt tear him away from it:) Our budget for the "big" gift is about $60 give or take. I am afraid that something unknown wont have the WOW effect like a large lego set would, but I will do my best to get over that if I find something I think he will like in the long run. Thanks for any ideas!

Thanks for all the replies so far! My daughter has THICK hair. And the problem is not oiliness from overwashing which I know can happen. But rather the tangles and dryness that comes after a day or so. her hair looks dull and is is rather dry but then looks so much nicer and shinnier after a shampoo and condition.

I am doing one for the first time and plan to start tomorrow with a 25 day plan. I do not see us actually doing it on Christmas day though :001_smile: We are quite tied up with presents etc and this year we will go to church as it's a Sunday. Since our festivities really start with a big dinner, nativity etc on Christmas eve, I think I would like to complete the Jesse tree on Christmas eve morning. Would this be weird? It would mean I would need to do 2 tomorrow, but that would be fine. Thanks for any thoughts!

My six year old has long, brown hair. Halfway down her back. It is getting pretty hard to manage, but she loves it and it looks so good on her! I trimmed it today and hope that helps. But it seems to keep it really looking nice and shiny and soft and easy to brush I would need to wash it everyday. And we dont normally bathe the little ones everyday unless they "need" it. Do I need to resign myself to a daily hair washing to keep her hair nice? BTW, "I" dont even wash my hair everyday. I shower, but only wash my (longish) hair every other day. My hair is curly though and it works. Hers is straight. Is there other tricks to keeping it soft and shiny? Nightly brushing? Braids while she sleeps? Thanks!

On both my husband's and my side we exchange presents with one of the siblings and their families per year. Its like drawing names, but it actually rotates so we get a chance to give to everyone. The two families we have this year have 3-5 teens/young adults plus the parents. It is not expected or required to give individual gifts, but rather a gift to the whole family. We usually give a movie or a game but even that is a little hard and I usually have to ask the wife/mom if they have what we are considering. I am looking for other ideas. We dont typically spend more than $30 but would consider up to maybe $50 if the idea was really cool. Oh and it has to be mailed. Thanks!

My husband and I joke about this often. We have 7 kids here,1 in heaven.(not crazy big but out of the ordinary)He is an LDS( Mormon) Bishop. I am a homebirth midwife. We homeschool. We tease about trying to get a show:001_smile:

Okay....my kids don't have say in most things?!? If I feel as their mother they need tylenol for their fever or something I don't ask their opinion!

The rx is mine left over from another illness. I don't give it to the kids. Just me so I can stay well enough to care for them. I have heard that about stomach bugs being food poisoning etc but I can't see how that could be true. We get it one after the other every few days and can often trace it to the source. A friend who came down with it just after playing with us or something. Thanks for your opinion. A little harsh but whatever.

Sorry. I know its not really the flu. But a stomach bug of some kind is what I mean. I grew up calling it the flu and habits are hard to break! I worry about not getting rid of the bug or whatever but once I start throwing up it doesn't stop for me for a couple days. Its really hard for me to be down like that multiple times per winter. What I've done is when I start to feel like I'm going to throw up I take a zofran and then I don't. I seem to get well just fine. Its always over for the kids in 12-24 hrs but like I said if I go down that path its much longer for me. I'm sensative that way. Thank you!

Sorry for the long title. Eta: oops should say the flu This is the 3rd time I have done so and it seems to work amazingly well. I have 7 kids and don't have time to be throwing up everytime one of them is which is what has happened in the past. I realise I may still have the bug but not having to deal with throwing up is heaven. Thoughts?

My husband is panicking about the state of our children's education. I feel they are fine, but he wants proof. I understand as he is not the one here everyday and doesnt know as much as I do about how they are doing. They have never taken any standardized test of any kind. As near as I can tell, they are at least on grade level for everything except my 13 year old is behind in math. While neither I, nor he, feels testing is the end all be all of an educated person, the fact is its only a few years away that they will need to take SATs and such, so Im okay with them doing it now. For practice, if nothing else. And hopefully it will help my husband know they are doing ok, or let us know if there are areas where they are not. My oldest is 14 and would be in 9th grade by age, but is ahead in some subjects. The next one is 13 and would be in 8th. She is ahead in a lot, behind in math(we are working on it!) What test should I get(I need to be able to administer it myself) and what grade? Should I do 7th and 8th since most kids test at the end of the school year? Do I need to do test prep before hand? This is totally new to them(and me!) I have younger kids as well, but I probably wont test them at this point. Thank you!

You can do homebirth midwifery without becoming a CNM. Apprentice trained, direct entry midwifery is legitimate. Its what I am and what I look for, and always have, in a midwife. I have a very small practice. 1-2 births a month and I fit it in with homeschooling 7 kids just fine. Its fairly good money too for the amount of time involved. Inconvienant at times of course.I agree with your husband. That is a lot of money to spend on a degree for someone who wishes to work part time while homeschooling and raising a family. You get done with school and you then have to work your tail off to pay back that money. There are other ways.

I don't know of a pattern but it looks like laceweight yarn on big(10 or 11?)needles. Just stockingnette stitch as far as I can tell.

I have a daughter who really struggles in math and we are trying to focus on it this year to catch her up. She is 13 and doing all other classes at 9th grade level. She is smart, esp gifted in language arts areas. But math is just really hard for her. She did MUS up till Epsilon. Could. not. get. fractions. Tried LOF and then Key to. Lots of tears and sweat and we got her past it, barely. She is now doing LOF decimals, but failed the bridge 3x in a row for this section(2nd or 3rd bridge) so I had her stop. She signed up for Khan academy today and went through easy stuff just to gain points. If I can get her through all the arithmetic, will it be enough to start pre-a? The website says so, but I wanted other input. If she likes the format, could I continue to use it for pre-a or A1 and would it be enough? I mean starting at algebra I have to count it for HS credit, so would it? I hope this is making sense. We also do problem solving/word problems with Challenge Math together as a family, so she gets that too. Thank you!

Thank you. This helps a lot!

Sorry, one more thing. I am considering removing the answers and checking each lesson myself rather than having him self-check. He will be honest, but I want to keep tabs on how is is doing so I can spot patterns. thoughts?

Jann,I am using 8th edition Introductory Algebra. (this is Alg 1, right, for HS transcript?) what do we do with the problems in the margins? should he work them? I am nervous about the major change of structure. We have used MUS since 1st grade a my son loves it and has done well. I hope this text works out, I dont want to lose time if it doesnt. thanks for you help.

Are there any good ones? We are slmost done with Childrens Homer and have really enjoyed it and I thought a movie version would be fun. We have netflix. Thanks!

Ahhh. Thanks. Never seen it!

I feel like I should get this reference but I don't. Fill me in?

My son is running cross country at the local hs this year. His couch has asked for grades every 3 weeks. I've never assigned grades before but was planning to this year anyways. Is there a template somewhere for a progress report? Do I include percentagesor just letter grade? What about attendance(umm...100% LOL!) Also I'm unsure how to calculate grades. My kids complete all their work to my satisfaction so would that just be straight As? We are doing more tests this year so can use those but daily work is just done, yk? Thanks!

How long did it take her to go through the khan pre-a? Did the LOF early books work for her, but not the beginning algebra? Do you think it would have if she had done one of the pre-a books? Thanks!