Kaake Family Blog

Since she's growing into a young lady I thought I'd take my Lyshie to the spa to get her nails and hair done. While there we enjoyed a nice lunch at the spa's cafe. It was such a fun time. Lysha's hairdresser was Amber who we both thought was totally cool! Here's the web address for the Somerset Spa and Salon . It's absolutely divine! After that we ended up going to the Flint Institute of Art. We just love going there. We ended the day with taking her to the Famous Dave's Restaurant which she had a coupon to get a free meal. She's one excited kiddo. Last night we ended up seeing a performance at the Flint Institute of Music. We have had so much fun! It just amazes me how fast they grow up. Monday is her actual birthday so I intend to write her a long letter and we're going to have her cake then. Her Grandma Sandi also sent her a gift in the mail which she does not know is hers and will also open that then. How blessed we are to have t...

I wish I had more time to perfect my photography skills. That will however come later on in life. For now here's a few I've recently taken. Thankfully my brother has given me a few pointers I hope to run with time permitting.

I realized I had worked so much more with Allysha by the time she was two than what I am with Jon. So....I decided to start getting very serious about making time for his school every day too. In the picture below it shows what his sister, Allysha, and I have been making for him. We cut out two of each letter from felt. We then matched them together and quickly whip-stitched around them. Yes you can tell it's quickly. lol. We figured since we already had the felt and thread at home it'd be essentially free to make verses going out and getting something from the store. We have watched a few youtube videos with the alphabet including a youtube movie entitled Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom, which is taken from a book. Very cute! We'll also be using letter of the week for some of our teaching. I will soon have lesson plans up on homeschool.mandikaake.com for teaching basic letter recognition. Within just a couple times of showing him the felt letter A, he is already abl...

My mother-in-law recently got married and said there were several things she wouldn't be able to take with her. We had already decided Matt was going to build a hutch just like hers for our kitchen - someday. Well, my mil asked us if we'd like to have it. We offered to pay but she thought the idea of that was ridiculous. I ended up getting the hutch of my dreams this past weekend and we were actually able to transport it in our van. Here are some pix. A gorgeous tuscan pix my mom gave me to use will go over the small table by the hutch. Talk about perfect! We desperately needed the room since we actually lost cupboard space when we moved into this house. This has helped tremendously. Thanks Shannon! Oh yes and by the way, the rest of my teapots/pitchers are sitting at the church waiting to find their new home;)

Here's something I've been thinking about lately - for like the past few months. Sometimes I think we over-analyze things when it comes to natural living. The more I learn the more I realize we need basic minerals, and vitamins for our bodies to "run" properly. This is not rocket science, just plain facts. Here we use deodorant stones, essential oils, homeopathic remedies and more. I'm not at all saying they are bad because I myself use them. But here is where my thinking has come into play lately. Should we come into a serious crisis in the U.S. or all over the world where we don't have the availability or option of buying these products, what would we do? Most people would be at a loss as to how to feed their families, where to get medicines, etc... I'm estimating that it would be at least 95% of all americans would be at a total loss. Watching Juliette De Bacarali Levy on Juliette of the Herbs just astounds me. I would think that if we learned about one...

What do you do when you get a call where someone invariably pronounces your name wrong? You know who it is - it's a telemarketer. I do understand it is their job and in the past tried to be as sympathetic as possible. I was very kind, talked to them for awhile and finally made them hang up. Well, now homeschooling and having less time in the day for non-sense (for that anyway) I have now resorted to a different tactic. No I do not yell and scream, no I do not hang up on them. What fun would there be in all that? Instead, I hand the phone over to my 2 year old son and say "want to talk on the phone?". He LOVES the phone as I'm sure all little one's do. Just 5 minutes ago someone called to talk to me about some special service they were offering me as a cardholder. Well, they thought it was special, I did not. As soon as she started her ramble I handed my little Jon the phone. He was also currently watching a Baby Einstein video. He proceeded to tell he...