Hmmm..my husband and I are discussing this as I write... There is nudity: you see a breast in a medical sense, but it is right there on the screen and you see some man business when he is tarred and feathered (which is a hard scene to watch anyway). There is a lot of blood, war, dying, illness that is somewhat disturbing. Lots of death, even some children. There are some sexual scenes re: french palace, lots of undressing. They keep it classy, but it is clear this is what they are doing. There is a very graphic scene when a man passes from small pox and it was really REALLY gross to watch and see how "modern" medicine was at the time, similar to the breast scene mentioned above (a masectomy with a knife, because that is all they had.) So, after we have detailed the things that we think are a bit much, we both vote no. Highschool, yes it would be a good thing to watch, especially with the factoids on the bottom. There is much to learn! Middle school, maybe. We both think that somewhere in middle school is good, depending upon how well your child can handle very "heavy" subjects. Shew! Sorry that was a bit disjointed, but we discussed and I wrote. :) As an aside, it might be great for you to watch, with the factoids going, allowing you to see so there are no surprises AND allow you the opprotunity to think of some great ways to make it more educational than just watching it (cross referenced with living books, paintings of the era, etc) Have fun! We LOVED it!!!

We love the name Harper, but since our son is Atticus (I posted this earlier) it just wouldn't be right...hahah!

I lived in Iwakuni around the same time, in little Marine Corps base housing. We actually went to Guam for our senior high class trip and loved it there! But I agree--base housing is small. Fun to figure out how to decorate and get things to work the way you want, but small! :)

My 2 year olds name is Atticus (and we got all sorts of compliments on his name) and we are thinking of naming our due-in-October son Ephraim.

My husband and I built/bought our first house, ready for us to move into as soon as we were married. It was 4bd, 3 ba, 3800sq with an unfinished basement on 3/4 of an acre. We were both 23 years old when we were married, my husband turning 24 on our honeymoon. We did not choose many upgrades when we were building the house because we calculated that it was much less expensive to do the work ourselves (and in the case of granite, hire someone to help) post-builder stage. We did many upgrades after the fact and the house was quite beautiful. While the house was large for a very young, newly married couple, we had plans to start a family young (which we did) and now, 5 years later, our 3rd is due in a few months. I seem to fit right into the catagory of people you are talking about, however, we most certainly do not feel like we were entitled to anything. We worked hard to get to where we were. Both of our parents were in the military, so we didn't grow up with anything fancy. We busted our tushes in highschool, without allowances, without cushy houses, but with our parents encouraging us to work hard. And we did. We both got scholarships which paid for our college degrees at very good schools, leaving us with no college debt. We both graduated well at our schools, giving us opprotunity for employment upon college graduation. We were both working when we met and when we got married, each of us living in an apartment (one of us with roommates to defray the costs, even though it wasn't necessary). We had one car payment between the two of us and that was the only debt we carried. No credit card debt, no car payment, and about 30% of our income going into an IRA of some sorts. My point is, we worked hard. Very hard. We got married and saw that we could afford a large house which would allow us to have our *hopefully* large family. So we took on a mortgage. After my daughter was born and having her in daycare for a few months, we decided it was best for our family if I stopped working to take care of our children. We lost half our income by making this change, and it was a bit of a shift fo adjust to our new income, but we did it. We don't hire babysitters, we go out to dinner maybe once every few months with our kids, we don't go to the movies (we went to the drive in a few weeks ago--fun!), and we don't fill our life with anything we feel we don't need or reasonably enjoy. So, while I do not take any offense to your annoyance with the folks on HGTV, I hope you can see that not all of us are living beyond our means, are irresponsible, or think that we have some strange sense of entitlement. Some of us worked, and still work, very hard to get to where we are.

Hmm--I don't think that it specifically does teach letters, though I don't know if LHTH will make up ENOUGH of the difference between the two books to run through two different curricula. Perhaps when you have your oldest sitting down to do his handwriting page, you can use that time to pull out some magnetic letters and just play with your 2 year old, or you know what! I jut remembered--we have this DVD called Brainy Baby ABCs and it is the absolute best thing ever--it really enforced letters and their sounds with both of my kids. We don't do tons of TV, but this DVD was fantastic. Perhaps your library has it? You can have this DVD on while you are sitting down doing math and phonics with your oldest.

That is impressive!!! We go through maybe 4 a month, but my kids are still little (almost 4, 2.5, and one due in Oct). We do go through cereal like crazy. The kids can put away a box of Special K in a few days, which is crazy for such little people. Right now they still eat half sandwiches, so we don't go through bread so quickly. I am guessing we will be in your bread boat in several more years!!

I have a 3, turned 4 in a month, year old girl, a 2.5 year old boy, and 1 due on October. I purchased Little Heart for His Glory to use with my oldest and I was going to also purchase Little Hands to Heaven to use with my son, but I found that it would be nearly redundant to do this. Instead, my son sits in with us when we are doing "school" and there are lots of parts that he can do and enjoy (hopping on the green paper for land animals, hopping on the blue paper for water animals, he loves the bible verse songs, and he loves the story time.) I do ask him to sit still with us during the History sections, and even though it is beyond him, I view it as a time for him to sit quietly and practice some self-discipline while listening to the lesson. When we do math, spelling, phonics, writing, or whatever might be planned for the day that a 2 year old REALLY can't do that well (and these are the sectons that aren't in the Little Hands to Heaven anyway) he plays with blocks, puzzles, whatever he wants really. By this point, he feels like he was included in school for the day and is ready to play anyway. I might give that a try! Then next year you can get Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory, find that it fits great, or find that it is still a bit advanced for both of your kids and want to repeat Little Hearts for His Glory, but on a more advanced level (there are section that say "for older kids"). Hope this helps!

Oddly enough, these Cds have been around for years! When I was 13, my dad gave me my first Classical Kids CD, Beethovan Lives Upstairs, and I really enjoyed it! Thereafter, my collection grew and now at 28 years old, I can happily say that those CDs really gave me a great classical music foundation and, if anything else, some extra bits of knowledge about the composers themselves, who composed which song, etc. The stories themselves are memory aids, so whenever a song which was included on the cd plays, my mind is instantly transported to the point in time it was included in the story, giving me the name of the song, who composed it, and one particular perspective on the emotions it evoked. Anyway, my point is that I just listened to the cds, sometimes quite often, and that is all that was needed for me to learn much from them. I plan on using them for my kids when they get a smidge bit older (now almost 4 and 2).

I second this (and would throw in there that my meditation is often focused on God). My doctor wanted to put me on medication for anxiety/panic attacks, but with the full and loving support of my husband, parents, and grandmother, no medication has been required.

When you do your grocery shopping, if you are able to swing an extra loaf of bread, you can just throw it into the freezer! Then, towards the end of the month when you notice that your fresh loaf is about finished, take the frozen loaf out of the freezer and into the fridge. It will thaw within 24 hours and is as fresh as the day you put it in the freezer. Give it a shot!

I used to think that the seller would say if it smelled of smoke, just as if he would say a page was ripped. But, that was not a good assumption to make! I think that most sellers say "from a non-smoking home" if it is indeed from a non-smoking home. All others will just not say one way or the other, because smokers don't care and it would turn away potential buyers who might care. It is sort of false advertising (with holding information) but what can you do. From now on, I would just send them a quick email and ask them if it comes from a smoking environment. :)

We had this same thing happen to us with a very pricey Easton Press book from ebay. We out dryer sheets in the book, as suggested above, and the odors are now ALL gone, not just masked. We used UNUSED dryer sheets, and none of the pages were damaged. I put them in the book on every other page and set it in the garage for awhile since I couldn't even stand to have the book in the house. Worked like a charm!

Thank you all SOO much! Today was much much better. I spent extra alone time with DD today, just the two of us playing for a little bit. I am making the shift to saying that she is a good girl, but made a poor choice (I like that--thank you!), and the book recommendations you made are great. I am going to print this thread off and show it to my husband, to whom I have been slowly reading random suggestions to, but this way he can read the whole thing through. You are all so wonderful to take the time to give me encouragement and suggestions! :) Blessings to you! Heidi

I have thought that this might be the case too. I am 6 months pregnant and we are to the point where we don't jump around together anymore, I don't carry either of them anymore, I am running out of lap room, that sort of thing. We have really tried to mitigate the impact by making up for it in other ways--like big tickeling fest instead of jumping around dancing, that sort of thing. But my DD is the only one acting up; my DS doesn't seem to be impacted by anything, so I wasn't sure if this was it or not. Thank you for all of the quick feedback. I was really needing to vent after a long trying day!

I am having a hard time trying to figure out what she DOES care about, because I completely agree. We have tried taking things away, the naughty chair (big super nanny fans!), reading scripture to talk about consequences and actions, we have tried redirecting and showing her what she can do. I am running out of ideas! I don't think she BELIEVES she isn't a nice girl. She is very happy to just say "I am not being a nice girl!!", big smile, shrug of the shoulder, and a very happy demeaner. She is a very happy child, very joyful. She hardly ever gets upset about much of anything. I am so happy that we have raised such a joyful, spirited child, but it seems to be biting us in the butt when it comes to learning right from wrong.

She has been told "It is not nice to hit. It hurts to hit and it is not nice. We want to be nice and loving." We make an effort to be positive when we are scolding, by saying "It is not nice" instead of "It is bad."

I am having the hardest time with my oldest, my 4y/o DD. She is a very smart little girl, but seems to throw all care to the wind when it comes to misbehaving. She knows that what she is doing is wrong (hitting her 2 y/o brother), breaking a woven basket to make sticks, not following explicit directions (stay in your chair until I tell you to get up). She just sort of shrugs off her punishments and says after the fact "I will be nice NEXT time" and "I am not a nice girl" but she isn't ashamed at all about it. She says it matter of factly and then skips off on her merry way to hit her play and then she will hit her brother again or do something else she knows is wrong. :glare: I am completely COMPLETELY at my witts end and have no idea what to do. She knows what she is doing is wrong and we are VERY strict about following through and consequences, but it just doesn't matter. She just doesn't care. I have no idea what to do.

I was responsible for a pouch of snack bar money from our office years and years ago. I went to the wholesale store, with the pouch of money (roughly 400ish bucks) to unload and stock up on our stash. Turns out that I had to leave quickly to take care of something else and accidently (good golly--what a huge mistake) left the pouch of money in the cart where the kiddos sit, put the cart in the cart claim in the parking lot, and left. I realized my mistake about 2 hours later, ran back to Costco, and someone had turned it into lost and found. Blessings were with me that day and I am so thankful for integrity of the person who turned the money in. I used to pocket a buck or two found, but from now on, I turn every little bit of money into the store/front office. You never know if it was the dollar a kid needed to take the subway to get home that day, or who may come back looking for it. My first thought, in your case, is that someone stuck the money under the tire for the person who was inside at a doctor's appointment, sort of like leaving a key under the mat at your house. Not the brightest idea, but in your case I might have just left it, thinking someone put it there for a reason. Or I would have written a note explaining that I turned it into the office just inside.

Thank you!! I was thinking that was MAYBE it, but it was hard to piece together. I figured, I might as well just ask. :) Thanks again!

I have been trying to find out what the acronym CC stands for when people include it in their post title and I feel like I have exhasuted all of my searching and trying to look at what each of the posts have in common to come up with the answer! I know it isn't credit card in the majority of the cases, though sometimes it is. Can someone please clue in a clueless newbie?

We just started using History with Little Pilgrams last week and have found that it is more of a Biblical History program than it is an American or World History program. I am a bit disappointed by it in that it will not be my source of history and social studies, it is instead serving as our Bible study book. I am back on the search for a good history/social studies book.

I have walked on my toes from when I started walking until I was 10 years old. My parents pointed it out to me and I made the conscious decision to stop doing it. As an aside, I did the same thing with a speech impediment. No amount of speech therapy fixed it. It took me being tired of it, sitting at home with a mirror and a tape recorder at the age of 13 and fixing it on my own. My husband also walked on his toes for the majority of his pre-teen years. As adults, we are both well adjusted individuals with advanced degrees and soon to be MD. My 3 year old AND 2 year old walk on their toes and I am not even the least bit worried that they have a disorder of some type. If anything, they will have very strong calves! I wouldn't use toe walking as a major reason to support any need for a diagnoses of some sort. I suppose you could correlate it with a diagnosis after the diagnoses has been made based on other factors, but please don't let toe walking worry you.

My 2 year old and 3 year old LOVE to watch Brainy Baby ABCs. They have learned their letter sounds from this movie and they love it so much.

This is so interesting! It is difficult to determine, in my mind, when this makes sense and when it doesn't. For example, my oldest child, who will be 4 in August, is very much into asking why things happen and providing alternative solutions. Like, why can't Clara take the trip back to see Heidi (from our night time family readings)..she can just take a train and she won't be as tired. Then she can go see Heidi and no one will be sad. She is a bit advanced but I know she is not emotionally advanced to be a logic learner before we have even really started school! I suppose in instances like this, you incorporate some of the logic stage into the grammar stage, just a little at a time. Or then again, perhaps I am very much confused at to what sort of logic the logic stage entails. Perhaps it is much more advanced than the creative questioning and solutions a near 4 year old creates.