Jesse's first birthday present

In my last post, I said we gave Jesse one of her presents when we arrived home after our visit to Charlotte. This post is about that present. John found it on-line and, of course, he had to get it for her!

Imagine that! A VW Bug!!

Of course, assembly had to start right away.

John is there to help out with her first model.

The proud new owner!

Birthday's!!

I admit, as always, I'm late posting these pictures. We spent July 28th, in Charlotte, celebrating the girls' birthdays with Grandpa and Grandma. We just stayed the day; Sunday we took Jesse on her birthday trip, but that is another post. :)

A fun game of BINGO!

Grandpa was the BINGO caller!

Jesse tried several times to get up; Grandma got the giggles!

Cake?

Still laughing!!

Rosie...finally calm.

Grandpa looks awesome in Chloe's fedora!!

We had a great time, as you can see. When we arrived home, Jesse got one of her presents from us. I'll post that next.

A TimeLine Update

I admit I have only had, literally, a couple of minutes to think about this and spend on-line looking for ideas. I, of course, went straight to OfficeDepot.com (I LOVE office supplies!!). Honestly, I was looking to see if I could get packs of one color, of index cards. I knew I had seen them with multi-colors in a pack, but one color per pack I could not recall seeing.

I found them! I was a bit excited, but then I started looking at sizes. How big are the cards? What other sizes can I get? I think I'm leaning toward a 3"x5". I can get blue, yellow, green, and pink. I also found a card box to hold them (made from 70% recycled materials!). Now, I just need to decide how to put them in the box.

Do we want all the literature together? All the history together? Which if you think about it kind of defeats the idea of a timeline. So, I think I am going to put them all mixed in together (the colors will make it easy to find what you are looking for) but use dividers for every 100 years, or thousand, or whatever makes sense.

I'm excited. I think the girls may like it. So, YEAH!!! I've decided on something for next year!

TimeLines

Timelines, trivia and Charlotte Mason all go together. We have been homeschooling for seven years now. (I know; I can't believe it either!) We still have not started timelines. In the beginning, it was a lack of space. A long wall, where you can put up a long sheet of paper to write names and dates on, was just not going to happen in the yellow house. Then when we moved here, honestly, I did not want a long piece of paper, with writing all over it, hanging on my hallway by the front door. Yes, I realize this is our girls' education; however, it is our home too.

So, I thought maybe we'll do one when Jesse's started her middle school history. Well, she is still finishing Story of the World, from the grammar stage. She will finish it this year, so next year is the year! For the last few days, I've been rereading my Well-Trained Mind book and glancing over a friend's newer version of the same book. Last night, I ventured onto the website. There is where I read "index cards". Hmm. A timeline made from index cards?! How would such a thing work? How would you keep it? How much of it would there be?

This morning, I found another site about timelines. It led me to yet another site, to show an index card timeline in use. Granted the thing was written in Italian, or German (the lady that led me there said Italian, but those words looked more German to me considering how close the Italian and Spanish languages are). Anyway. The Italian, German, lady had put each timeline item on its own index card. She had a line, similar to Jesse's new artwork line in her room, with the index cards hanging in order. I don't think they keep them out all the time, but they are (I'm guessing here) easy to get out and put away when you are done.

Last night I was wondering how an index timeline would actually work. I mean if you have each item on its own card, that is a LOT of cards. You know? But. This is where my mind started spinning. If you made the cards color coded, maybe it would work. For instance: pink=literature; science=green; history=blue. Then not only could you see what was going on in a hundred year period (per box or something like that I haven't gotten that far yet in my thoughts), but you could see quickly the years where scientific discoveries are abounding or wars were fought often and every where.

I think I'm liking this idea, but I definitely need to spend more time thinking on it.

School IS fun

This afternoon Chloe was pulling out the science dictionary (or was it the encyclopedia...anyway) to write her narration, when she found a "cool candy bar". There was a picture of a candy bar exploding from a bullet being shot through it. She liked it so much she carried the book downstairs to show Jesse. :)

I have to say, not knowing if this will continue after next week, but here we are approaching the end of week three of our school year and I am still relaxed! I am amazed. I am caught up on all the grading, and still everything has been recorded. Jesse is now caught up with her math homework and Chloe should be tonight.

Tomorrow night I am hoping we will be able to have our first family meeting about school. I believe I stated last week, my goal was to have a weekly meeting about grades, and any problems or kudos. I am hoping tomorrow will be the first of these meetings.

I will add that John is not particularly fond of one of Jesse's science books. He has helped her with a couple of projects over the past couple of weeks and the book is just not giving enough information he needs to do the projects. He told me he was going to shoot the book full of holes. Of course, I laughed, which honestly did not help. But I felt justified for some of my complaints over the past few years regarding books. lol

Next week, we return to taekwondo. I am truly hoping our school continues to go smoothly after our return.

Drum roll, please!!

Finally! Jesse's room.

She has had this sign for years now. It is the only thing we can find with her spelling of her name.

We have been invited in.

IKEA is everywhere!



A place for her favorite things.

In the above picture, you can see a red frame where she framed her winning art work from CCT S.T.A.R. Also, her Bug collection, ducks, Stitch, etc. 


Most of her rubber duck collection.

 

Now, she wants to add a corkboard but I have no clue where it will go.



Can YOU find the dog?

 It took us quite awhile to find a bedspread she liked. This one, I believe, suits her to a tee.

We also added an art display (the wire going across the room). She loves it! Here is some of her artwork that is currently on display:

Goofy, of course!

Baljeet's (from Phineas & Ferb) twin who lives in India (from the mind of Jesse!).

Chloe turned 9!!!

Believe it or not, I know I have a difficult time believing it, Chloe is nine!!

This year Chloe wanted to have a party. She rarely wants to have one. But this year was different. And this year she had big plans! Not only did she want a party, but she wanted a destination party. Yep! She wanted a party outside the house. lol  She finally decided on Monkey Joe's. Monkey Joe's is a bounce house here in town, in fact they just built one on our side of town last year. I thought of trying to convince her to have the party at home, so we could invite more people. However, she has had so few parties I wanted her to get what she really wanted.

What I don't like about Monkey Joe's is the basic party is for just nine people. So, we were only able to invite two other families. Chloe had so much fun! She had her own inflatable throne and her friends treated her as though she were a queen! She loved it. The girls made a giant cookie, with a kite (from Pooh of course!).

For her actual birthday, she had cupcakes (from Food Lion) and picked one of her favorite places for lunch, Chinese buffet. Again, she loved it! She also received her present from John and me. A PEZ display for her collection. I really thought they would all fit. They did not! Five are left without homes. :(  But two of them have no "feet", so they can't go into the stand. And the other three are pull-backs, so she plays with them more.

I think, overall, she had a great birthday!!