Oh Kim...what a wonderful little (!?!) project for you to take on. Have you maybe been to the Gardening with Kids (I thought kids were baby goats) Forum here? I just checked it out, and though it does not seem very active, there might be some good info gleaned from the threads there. I read one, and it suggested getting the kiddies their own tools and gloves,,,making it special for them. (I'll add here too that they can additionally be taught to take care of their tools and put them in a safe place once they are done using them.)....... Note to self...do not let gloves lay as puppy thinks they are hers to enjoy like a small stuffed animal. At any rate, it sounds like tons of fun. It sounds like you have given this a lot of wonderful thought, so I don't have anything else to add. Have fun! Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening with Kids (children)

I have a kiekie of Phal Earth Star 'Abednego'. This is one of the smaller growing phals. Mom has a leafspan of about 18". This is a cute star shaped red phal/purple lip, light fragrance. Kiekie has a 5" leafspan and adequate roots to be potted up on it's own. If you still have a tenuifolia and are interested in the phal, LMK. Thx. Sheila :)

On the subject of oxygen absorbers..... I used a FoodSaver a couple decades for home food storage before being introduced to oxygen absorbers, but I do have oxygen absorbers and occasionally use them for dry packing instead of using my FoodSaver, but I prefer the FoodSaver. You can also use them together. Add an oxygen absorber AND vacuum seal the jar, or add an oxygen absorber to a mylar bag and use your FoodSaver to seal a mylar bag for long-term storage. There are food storage books like "Dinner Is In The Jar" by Kathy Clark or "The Gourmet Food Storage Handbook" by Stephanie Petersen (aka Chef Tess Bakeresse - she has lots of videos so check out her web site), using canning jars or mylar bags for making a whole meal and vacuum-sealing the jars using either an oxygen absorber or FoodSaver. Using these recipes you can quickly make 30, 60, or 90 days worth of meals. Chef Tess Bakeresse has recipes for individual size meals that work great for hubby to take to work in his lunch. Set up an assembly line with freeze-dried food, fill jars, pop in an oxygen absorber, put on the lid and ring and you've got your own "convenience" foods ready for storage. I would never suggest oxygen absorbers over a FoodSaver because you get so many more uses out of the FoodSaver. I use a lot of bags, especially for frozen foods. I have many of my silver serving pieces vacuum-sealed in FoodSaver bags so they never tarnish. I use the double-bag trick mentioned above. I'll portion things in inexpensive fold-top sandwich bags, quick freeze them, then repack them into a FoodSaver bag. I got a free box of Ziploc Perfect Portions bags and love them for using as the inside bag. I freeze Sloppy Joe mixture, pasta sauce, soup, stew, chili, the meat mixture for Stroganoff, homemade applesauce, etc. in plastic storage containers. I use containers that are for 1 or 2 servings. When completely frozen, pop them out of the containers. Stack the "cubes" into a FoodSaver bag and seal shut. Now all your plastic containers can be used for something else. But back to oxygen absorbers. They come in different sizes to accommodate different size containers or volume of food. For a quart jar use a 100cc oxygen absorber in the top of each jar. They cost about 1-cent per packet for the 100cc size (prices vary, so do the math) and are NOT reusable. There are charts available for how many oxygen absorbers are required for different volumes of food if you do a search on the subject. For more information check out the link below. When it comes to home food storage, the LDS Church has it covered. Information about using oxygen absorbers is readily available on-line. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Longer-Term Food Supply

In comparison we are a 3bdrm 2.5 bath townhouse with about 1650 sq. ft, largest yard on the lot- new privacy fence- and we have new hardwoods in the whole house, fresh paint, fixtures, etc.- The ones that have sold- 2 of them were 2 bdrm 1500sq ft-not updated at all. 2 were 3 bdrm 2.5 baths completely gutted and redone (priced 15K adn 20K more than us) We are priced $500 more than the lady with the outdated 2bdrm on the other side of us. Everyone sold pretty close to their asking price and we are priced at the lower end of our range. We just don't understand why we haven't sold and maybe a new agent and agency can open us to the market again. When did these houses sell? I also wonder if there were a few buyers in this price range that decided not to continue looking for houses due to the news reports. I'd stopped looking for another house but just started going back out the last 2 or so weeks. I think you have a good plan, maybe you need someone that's advertising more, but do you know what your current agent has done? Before switching, I would let the current agent show you your folder with copies of the advertising she's done. If there are no buyers, switching agents won't help. If extremely similar properties have sold, and yours hasn't, definitely change REAs. Better yet, find out which agent sold the comps. Find out which company and realtors sold, and hire that one. My REA just told me that August is slow, to hang in there, and wait for things to pick up in September. How does one find out who sold what properties? This is something I would like to look into myself. Our contract is coming up for renewal, so we have to decide what we will do. I may make a new post as this may help someone else... if people aren't following this post, they won't see the answer if there is one.