Ponies and Puppies

MAD MATH: Though the setting looks serene enough, this is a photo of CJ and Annabelle, fit to be tied. On our way down to West Seattle, they were both working on The Easiest Math Question Ever, but they were both completely stymied by it, for whatever reason. It went something like this: Martha bought 4 spools of ribbon for $5 apiece. She used them to make 10 bows. How much did each bow cost?

They each knew immediately to multiply 4x5 to get the total cost of the ribbon, but after that ... crickets. They just couldn't take that next big step from knowing the total cost of the ribbon, and the number of bows made and figure out how much each bow was. As the seconds turned to minutes to darn near a quarter hour, they asked, begged and pleaded for me to tell them the answer. Um ... no. Not gonna do it.

It was just so weird that they were BOTH tripped up by such a simple thing they'd each done dozens of times before.

I told them to label everything and draw pictures, hoping that would help. About that time they both got the answer - $2 apiece. So easy, but so hard ... no idea why.

CLASSY: The kids each started two new classes today down in West Seattle through the Family Learning Program. Annabelle was thrilled to be back to Bollywood, and CJ didn't waste any time creating a funny new animated clip using Scratch software. I'll have to work on a way to post those here.

This afternoon they were in a theatrical class together. The first session was all games, they report. Sounds like they had fun, tho at one point Annabelle had to play the part of a toilet.  LOL.

We took a few dozen Space Needle cookies we whipped up to the first day of classes celebration today. I was happy the trays emptied. Cookies are meant to be eaten, after all.

PLAYING WITH OUR FOOD: We bought some Alpha Bits today, which might not sound like news, but they're surprisingly hard to score in our parts. Target is the only place we find 'em. The kids were eager to get a fistful of them this afternoon, so I let them at 'em - conditionally. I told them they each had to spell a 5-letter word using the cereal before they could eat any. It was surprisingly hard, given the letter combinations the box produced. They finally came up with this. ...

BREAKFAST PONIES:  Don't ask me how we got on the subject, but a couple of days ago in the car, Annabelle and I got on the subject of My Little Ponies with breakfast themed cutie marks. (Sorry if I've lost you already. This link may help ... http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Cutie_mark.)

In that spirit, she created a couple of new ponies using a great Pony generator online. First, she did Butter Pancake.

And up next was Blueberry Muffin.

Still to come are Crispy Bacon and Sunnyside Up. :)

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO OUR HOUSE: We've been talking for months now about an addition to the family. Tonight we took a big step in that direction. Meet (working title) Inky. ... Real name pending.

She's a Havanese, and our current dog Kirby's aunt. Barring the unforeseen, she'll be joining us at the end of the month.

I solicited the kids for names tonight, and without hesitation CJ suggested."Rainbow Puke!"

Um, no. Adorable as that sounds, we will NOT be naming our dog Rainbow Puke.