mom_of_jcchlsm

I've always liked the 5-point harnesses best, too. I do not like the carseats that do double duty (rear-facing infant and then forward-facing toddler) simply because the needs for each are so different, they tend to make compromises in design to accomodate both. I'd recommend you plan to make the investment to buy two carseats - one now and one later. Also, the car/truck/van/SUV you're putting it into makes a difference. If possible, borrow a few different kinds from friends with kids to see how they fit/latch in place in your vehicle in the place you expect to use the carseat. The angle of the seat back, the distance between the buckles, how deep the depression for the passenger's behind is - they all affect how the car seat rides. Newer vehicles will have the built in latches, which will help. You might find the following helpful: http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/howto/art...81/article.html Good luck!

Hi, all. I'm sick and five of my seven kids are sick and my husband is out of town for work and life is bad right now. My Visiting Teachers are ANGELS! Would appreciate your prayers. Bye until I get life under control again. Miss you!

I'll take all the black jelly beans - I like 'em! I like the lindt lindor truffles best. And toblerone - white or milk chocolate, but not the dark. We ended up with some kind of really nasty twizzlers easter candy. our kids usually like twizzlers, but these were pastel colors and they tasted awful and were the wrong kind of chewy.

huge topic! And I won't likely have time to respond to it until Wednesday (kids home tomorrow from school = busy day and then Tuesday is also a very busy day for me -- I can only just check in here and post a bit, but not as fully as I'd like to respond to this one!) I appreciate your questions and the way you frame them. Sometimes we get bashers or anti-Mormons on this forum who pretend to be seekers or curious, but who really just want to argue and stir things up. You seem genuine and nice. Thanks! I'll be posting longer later in the week and have time to read others' posts as well. Welcome to LDSTalk!

while any person can log on and see which ward a particular house falls in, local LDS real estate agents can tell you much more about wards and stakes. I really appreciated doing business with an LDS agent when we moved here last summer, and we plan to use her services again when we move (locally) again this summer or fall [we ended up needing to lease a place because school was about to start and we needed to get the kids down here and also our old house wasn't selling and wasn't selling ...]. a lot of LDS agents also specialize in homes designed for or adapted to fit large families (our certainly quallifies there!).

Ben and others, What is the best thing a wife can do to help her husband fulfill his calling as a Home Teacher? Should I mention it early in the month? What doesn't sound like a nag? Is "Have you contacted any of your families yet this month?" OK? Should I say "Looking at the calendar, I only see three days left this month that you might be free to go Home Teaching. Better set your appointments and put them on the family calendar before those days get filled up!" (in our family, three available days left could happen as early as the 10th of the month! Our calendar is FULL!) Should I offer to bake something for him to take with him? Should I print out the message and set it on his nightstand? Should I mention it when I have all my Visiting Teaching done for the month and how good it feels to serve? Should I just stand back and let him fail, month after month and year after year, keeping my mouth shut hoping he'll get it right at some point and then I can praise him? Do I praise every attempt or only complete months? Ben, you mentioned your son going with you. Does that start at age 14? My son just turned 12. My husband is a HP and currently does not have a companion assigned (he teaches other HP families, but no single sisters).

Corporations do care! They care in two ways: 1) They care about making a profit. If the customers want an organic/polutant-free/renewable/made-without-child-labor product, and are willing to pay whatever it costs to produce same, then that's what will be produced. 2)Many companies are headed by individuals who personally care about these issues and lead their industry into enviro-friendly paths. But to require all to bow to the concern of some is silly. And removing responsibility from individuals insulates them from the decision-making process. The best way to effect such change is through educating consumers and allowing them to exert their own pressure. When an idea is "owned" it is lived much more completely than when it is imposed. This is in part because imposed ideas are not always understood and an individual may (because required to do so) save energy with their left hand while the right hand is running the a/c with the windows open (or whatever). There's also an element of rebellion when an idea is imposed: some will go out of their way to resist authority just for the sake of resistance.

Oh! I have seen that! It is really cute. I have no idea how to create a link, or I'd try. I got it in an e-mail recently.

Can't argue with that... Well, but I do argue with that! The problem is the "regulations" part. I am completely in favor of individuals taking whatever steps they wish to this end and I am in favor of individual-driven economic pressure to clean up, not pollute, etc. BUT it's like raking my skin with a carpet tack strip to say that government should impose regulations (or even apply economic pressure via incentives or fines). Individuals must make the choice for themselves and not have it thrust upon them.

I dunno - they talk about the 7-year itch, and I have to say the 7th year was the hardest for me and my husband. And a lot of divorces come after the kids leave home. Some, I suppose are divorces that were decided upon years before, but put off until the kids were raised, but others fall at that time because couples suddenly discover that without the kids at home, there is nothing to talk about, no common ground. We're going on 17 years now.

yeah, I missed it too . . . 'cause I'm a girl. I always ask my husband afterwards and I swear it's like he must sleep through the whole thing - he never has much to say except "it was a good session" and "there were some great speakers" - well, DUH! Guess I'll read it in the Ensign later, or buy the DVD when it's available in a few weeks. Thanks for the highlights. So this year my son got to go for the first time. Yea! He wasn't thrilled about getting dressed up in his Sunday clothes after lounging around in PJ's all day watching conference at home. But I think he enjoyed the privilege of being one of the MEN instead of being a BOY. And I know he liked stopping at Dairy Queen afterwards! And as an added bonus, my oldest daughter's boyfriend went with my husband and son, too, since his Mom just got out of the hospital and his Dad wasn't going. He came over and had dinner with us between the afternoon sesion and Prsthd, then went to conference, then my husband took him home. He's a good kid, but I think he was trying pretty hard to impress. Must have been a bit awkward for him.

I like books neat and clean. When, as a new convert, I heard from so many people the benefits of marking scriptures, I was hesitant to try it. I wanted a comprehensive system that was neat and orderly and would still leave my scriptures looking clean, not cluttered. Over the years, I've discovered that what works for one person doesn't always work for another. However, I like having some things marked. I replace my scriptures when they start to feel too cluttered to me. I keep the old ones - sometimes I just know a certain thing is marked or explained in a margin and I want to look it up - but it would drive me crazy to have all that information blaring at me every time I read. I also feel I see new things better when I'm not distracted by previous markings. As a side note, when I decided to start going to various churches as a young adult, I grabbed a bible off the bookcase in our living room. It had been my Dad's when he was a teenager and going to the Episcopalian church. His had several markings in them, but just lightly in pencil here and there.

military pay (an off-shoot topic here): when I was serving nearly 10 years ago as a Staff Sergeant in the USAF, our family qualified for the WIC program as well as free meals for the kids at school because our income was so low, even though I did get some bonus pay for my specialty. US servicemembers are paid very little compared to their civilian counterparts in most career fields (but they do get their education/training paid for). In my field, people were jumping left and right to switch to civilian DoD jobs - doing the same job, but with a permanent duty station instead of moving every 3 years, and the pay started about 3 times what we were making. And when I say exact same job, I mean where I was serving, I sat in a 4-man cubicle and I was the only servicemember - the others were civilians (two prior military) and we did exactly the same job . . . except I had to get up and drill on Saturday mornings once in a while and make a timed run and do sit-ups, and submit to urine tests and and and. I knew a girl who didn't even change desks when she transitioned - just left Friday wearing a uniform and came back in on Monday in a skirt and blouse.

I LOVE that show! My favorites: artificially inseminating pigs and processing fish . . . although dog groomer was a good show too.

Wow. In our last Stake, the FHC had a strict "no children" policy. I've only been to the FHC here 3 or 4 times, but I've never seen a child there. I always get a sitter or go when my husband is home witht he kids. I do take my older kids there, but only to work. Each of my teens has gone with me to reseach names for their first Temple trip.