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Taken in Midland, Michigan, known as The Tridge.

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Yesterday LEGO turned 50!  Since I am such a cool mom and all of my kids enjoy playing with LEGO's, I thought that I would make a fun LEGO cake to celebrate.  It was harder than it looked.  The cupcakes did not cooperate and so they were shorter than I would have liked, but the kids thought it was cool anyway!

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I was so graciously tagged by AudryTN at Opus Dei Academy . Here's what I'm supposed to do. Book Meme Rules: Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). Open the book to page 123 Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. Tag five people. Ok, so here's my nearest book: The Postcard by Beverly Lewis page 123 "Oh, Annie, it's best that I walk." "But Mammi says you used to run fast as the wind when you were little.  Was that so long ago?" So now I have to tag 5 other people.... hmmm... you better run! :

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I frequent several homeschool message boards and every now and then, the subject of potty training comes up.  Of course, everyone has their own opinion on how it should be done.  With each of my children, it has been different.  But Caleb was the worst of all to train, until I figured out the method that would work.   He decided on his own that he was going to start peeing in the toilet.  Having a bowel movement was a whole other issue though.  He had turned 3 at the beginning of July and by September, he thought that he needed to be like his big brother Paul and use the toilet.  He would go on his own without any coaxing or reminding.  However, when he had to have a bowel movement, he would still use his pants.  I would watch him like a hawk, but it didn't matter, as soon as I turned my back, he was off doing his own thing.  We tried everything, bribery, spankings, rewards....nothing was working.   My mom had even gotten a tub of cheap dollar tree toys thinking we could reward him if he went in the toilet.  It didn't matter.  This went on all winter.  It wasn't until early April that I had had enough.  The weather was warming up and the kids were spending more time outside.  Finally I had an idea.  I said "Caleb, you will not go outside and play until you start going poop in the toilet."  His little heart was broken and I questioned myself, was I doing the right thing?  But I stuck to my plan, just waiting to see what the outcome would be.  All week, I would take Anna and Paul outside and let them play while Caleb had to remain inside.  One week went by and on Saturday, Anna, Paul & Jason were outside playing and Caleb came to me and told me that he had to go to the bathroom.   He finally had his first bowel movement in the toilet and was allowed to play outside.  That did it.  From then on, he went in the toilet.  No reminding or coaxing.  I really believe that if you have a challenging child that does not want to use the toilet, then you REALLY need to find something that they want more than anything and use that as a motivating tool.  I didn't push Anna and Paul when it came to potty training,  they were both past three, but once they decided it was time, they just did it, no accidents or me having to remind them.   Caleb was just more stubborn and needed the extra motivation.  Anyway, if you are trying to potty train for the first time, last time or in between time, this is just one more idea!  Blessings, Kristine

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This is a new addition to our living room.  It is a piano that my mom purchased when I was a child, then my uncle bought it from her and his girls used it.  He recently asked me if we wanted it, all we had to do was pick it up.  Some dear friends helped Jason get it last weekend.

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This is our cat Rajah.  Rajah is going to be 13 years old in June and he loves coming into the kitchen when someone is preparing food.

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Ok, so I'm really, really, REALLY wanting to get with the grove here and blog.  Maybe it should have been a New Years Resolution.  Ha, ha.  Maybe it's something that I could do quarterly, since September was the last time that I posted!  OOPS!!  oh well, so here is another shot at things.  We had a wonderful fall with LOTS of leaves.  We traveled to Alabama to see my sister in law and her family for Thanksgiving.  We went to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center while we were there.  For Christmas we traveled to Michigan to see my in-laws.  We had a wonderful time visiting them along with my brother in law, sister in law and her two children.   Now on to January.  We are back in full swing with our school work.  We started co-op back up and have had one field trip so far.  We went to the local Post Office and it was really neat to see how things work.  It's hard to believe that January is almost over, but I'm going to try really hard to post on here more often than I have in the past.  That shouldn't be too hard. One tradition that we've started at Christmas is Advent Candy Counters.  You use colored saran and ribbon and tie 25 pieces of candy into a long chain of saran.  This is our second year doing it.  Finding candy on sale can be the tricky part.  Everyday, cut of a piece of candy and count down to Christmas!

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Ok, so I'm trying to get into this blogging thing.   I decided to first post pictures of our school room since this is where we spend so much time.  The big white board will eventually be on the the wall, but it's just a piece of tile board that I got at Lowe's for about $11.00.  The kids have a blast drawing on it and it works very well for our schooling.

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This is what we had the pleasure of seeing in our back yard earlier this week:

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