“She’s Making a List”!

Since MaryJane started her Christmas List on Labor Day, I have been inspired to do a List Themed Post this week, highlighting some of the things we did over the extended weekend.

Little Miss Read-A-Lot – Gurly Gurl put away another dozen or so books/chapters over the weekend. She is such a good reader.

Cats, Cats, and more Cats – So…we got another Cat. How could I resist this cutie? She had snuck a ride to my work in the back of a pick-up and needed rescue. She is a sweetie and a crazy. Her name is Coraline.

Coraline – Coraline is the most recent movie by Tim Burton. It is about a gurl who visits an alternate world where everything appears to be perfect (aside from everyone having button eyes). See the trailer following this post. MaryJane loved it so much she watched it 3 times over the weekend.

Sweet Dreams – MaryJane got a Barbie cook book from the library over the weekend and this is what she choose to make. Basically you take fruit, nuts, and sweets, dip them in chocolate, cover them in nuts/sprinkles, and chill in the fridge. Mighty tasty I’m tellin ya.

Little Trip; Big Trip – What I thought was going to be a small trip to town turned into a big trip to town (as it usually does). We took Mr. Christian w/ us and had a good time (as we usually do). We hit Home Depot where she made a cool Bean Bag Toss Game, we hit the Pet Store and admired the animals, hit the Library and loaded up on books, hit B.K. for some grub, and what’s a trip to town w/o good ole’ Wal-Mart. We made a stop at the Down Town Rogers Park before heading home to play and collect sand for our final chapter of 2nd Grad Science.

Goodbye 2nd Grade – The final Lesson in Science was fun and relaxing and cool. We learned about Ocean Shorelines. Sweet. We are doing the very last of Heritage Studies…tonight. The Independence War is over, we have a government, but now all we need is a President and a Constitution. Hmmm…wonder what the 2 lessons are about. Tomorrow we say Hello to the 3rd Grade. : )

Crafty – Here is a pic of the dolls MaryJane made out of toothpicks and some Mystery Fruit from a tree down the road. Awesome.

Playtime Galore – You know us. We cherish our playtime and get as much in as humanly possible. We played a game where she was different Pokémon and I trained them by rewarding them w/ Bread, Cheese, and Pepperonis. We had the fair share of classes. We played a great game of Aladdin. We traded lots of Pokémon cards and had battles too. We played the Backyard Forest People game. Plus lots more.

Read & Play-A-Lot!

Last Friday saw us going to get a book from Barnes & Noble for MaryJane to read for “Read-A-Lot”. This is a 2 month long program where a bunch of homeschool children read books to earn rings. What we did is cut out 1 x 8 strips of construction paper (hers are all purple) and each time she reads a short book or a chapter of a book she earns a strip. She then tapes the strips to form rings; hooking them together one at a time to make a chain. At the end of Oct. all the kids will meet at a park and hook all the chains together to see how long it is. Sounds fun huh. So we grabbed her Disney Fairies book and then she noticed that B&N was running a reading program of there own (something we have previously done). If you read 8 books, write them down and comment on your fav part, you get a free book from a special selection. Well, we read the 8 books….right then and there. Yup, she read to Kelly, Lionel, and myself a unicorn book and seven Dr. Seuss books. So not only did she get a free book, but she earned 8 rings. Sweet. First thing Saturday morning she was ready to read more books and earn more rings. Of course, she created a game out of this. I brought a big box of her books into the living room and we had a book factory. Kelly and Lionel gave her the books then she scanned the books then I typed in the upc code into the Dora register, and finally Pikachu put them into stacks of going to read and not going to read. She read the whole stack of going to read books that day, earning herself another half dozen rings. She’s got over 20 rings already. We also played an elaborate game of Littlest Pet Shops in her room which was crazy fun. We had arts and crafts class. She colored a Penguin picture and I cut out strips for her rings. Later that day it was time to play the game where she is my per horse. I’ve told you all about this one before. Where we make a stable out of pillows, I leave town and have sitters watch her (usually Margaret and Charlotte), and while I’m gone Margaret goes crazy and bad things happen forcing me to come home. Really like this one. Sunday was Church. We went to the 11:00 service and that went well. She got to sit next to a friend of hers from church. After church we went to healthy class at AQ Chicken House and had a yummy meal. Bellies full we headed out to visit Grandpa and Nana. It was a nice visit. Nana and MaryJane put a ton of stuff on “watch” while surfing e-bay, MaryJane and I played Sweet Streets Doll houses, and Dad whooped me at Washer a couple times. After a delicious meal of Fettuccini and Salad we headed home to rest our heads. A wonderful weekend indeed.