From a friend in Washington....State that is...
(She sent this via email and I choose to pass it along...it made me smile : )

A creative approach to redistribution of wealth as offered in a local newspaper .....

Today on my way to lunch, I passed a homelss guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama,I need the money," I laughed.
Once in the restaurant, my waiter had on an "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference.
Just imagine that when the bill came, I decided not to tip the waiter and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need, the homeless guy outside. The waiter angily stormed from my sight in a huff.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy the $10 tip, and told him to thank the waiter inside as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was really grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homelss guy was grateful for the money he did NOT earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money that he DID earn even though I decided the homeless guy needed it more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

Fun with Fog and an "Airzooka"!

So this years Cookie Dough and Magazine drive was not as successful as past years, at least not for my kids. They didn't work as hard and so their prizes were not as huge. A few years ago, Kaleigh received a fog machine as one of her prizes and we have had a lot of fun using it each year at Halloween! Well, this year both kids earned various prizes, the best (in all of our opinions) was the Airzooka! So tonight Carl and I went out in the backyard with the kids and played. It was fun! Carl made fog rings as you can see in the photos! The kids did too, but I wasn't able to catch one of theirs since they move too fast! Carl did it a little slower so I was able to catch them! Cool, huh?

Mickey's Trick or Treat at California Adventure!
A fun time was had by all! Wow, this night was crowded! We have gone in the past and usually on a Thursday night (Fridays were always sold out), so it wasn't usually too crowded, but that was not the case this night! Whew! We were fighting crowds a lot of the time! We still had a really good time though and would do it again! As you can see, Kaleigh was a Mime and Cole was a dalmation "Lucky" from 101 Dalmations. Joshua is their friend, who was a storm trooper. I had some fun marking up his costume. Mom didn't want to buy the costume, (he is a big boy and would need an adult small, which was really hard to find, much less expensive!) so she asked me if I could draw something on a shirt to look somewhat like a storm trooper. I said I could try. You can't see it much in the photo but it turned out ok. There were even some people that asked my friend where she got the costume! They were impressed! Yay! Made me feel good when he got a compliment! Kaleigh acted her part swimmingly! She barely said 3 words all night! It was fun and they enjoyed trick or treating as well as going on some of the rides. We even got to go on the new one, "Midway Toy Story Mania", it was fun! Now onto Halloween!

Sink and "F"loat - Science for 4 year olds.

So our science in my class tends to be simple enough for four year olds, for obvious reasons! We do science once a week and it coincides with the letter of the alphabet for that week. Yesterday was the letter "F". We had a lot of fun with finding out what things sink and what things float! I am amazed at the difference in children and their methods of deduction. I tried to start out by saying that if something has no air in it and is heavy it will sink, but there are things that look solid that have tiny air pockets in them etc etc. So, they knew that the sponge would float, but they had to be convinced that a rock (porous) would float. First we had a regular rock then I passed out the porous rock. It was very light, but some still were sure it would sink. It was a rock after all! We also had fun with a little boat (all believed it would float), then we added little plastic piggies into the boat. The question being, "how many piggies will fit in the boat, and how many will it take to sink the boat?" There were quite a few piggies in the boat before the weight of one side made it tip over and sink. It was a fun time!

Things are going better! Yay!

We are now a month into school and things in my class have calmed down quite a bit. I think my one ADHD child is figuring out that school time is a bit quieter than home time and that there will be things expected of him. He had a great day on Monday and Mom (and I was hoping she would) got him a special toy as a reward! So far the trend has continued. We are hoping it was a permanent turn and not just a couple of good days. He is by no means an exemplary student, he still talks out of turn and sometimes has trouble listening and doing, but nothing as disruptive as before. So at the end of the morning when all the children have gone, I don't feel like falling down and sleeping for the rest of the day! It is good.

Today we shared puzzles and they worked really nicely together!

So life at school is good!