Crazy Unicorn

Nora gets in on the film making action with her own directorial debut.

Why Never to Check on Someone When They're Hurt

A Lesson Learned by Obi Wan. Malcolm's first stop motion movie.

He didn't want much help from me once he got the basic idea of how it works, so it's all him, using his new camera. I just stitched it together in iMovie when he was done. Next hurdle, sound.

Merry Christmas!

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

We're having a terrific day and wish everyone we love a wonderful holiday. Here's some photos from the past couple weeks, including a few from our annual holiday photo shoot.

Another from the photo shoot

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Malcolm and Nora ham it up

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Nora channels Georgia O'Keefe

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

During a kindergarten painting workshop.

Woo Woo! Snow!

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Nora making footprints

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Dancing at the Science Center

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

See you next year!

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Help Joaquin Miller School by shopping at Amazon

Shameless plug to follow, but for a good cause! Just in time for all your holiday shopping, the kids' school has a new, safe plug-in for your browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome) that automatically ties your purchases at Amazon into the Joaquin Miller Amazon Affiliate program, with the goal of maximizing the fund raising opportunities from the program. For each purchase, their school earns up to 10%.

It's really easy to install, and then you never have to think about it, just buy at Amazon and know you're helping out their school with each purchase. Click here and follow the directions to install.

Alternately, you can use this link to get to Amazon and make your purchases, but it only works each time you click on that link in this post.

The money we raise is put to many uses:

*Instructional material, equipment, books, and teacher workshops
*Student projects, field trips and assemblies
*Salaries for the adjunct staff that would not be funded by the district (such as the librarians, motor development and computer coordinators, classroom assistants, song flute instructor)
*Computers and software
*Playground and motor development equipment.

Thanks for helping Joaquin Miller!

Happy Halloween!

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Nora Spencer, Kindergartener

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Today we're catching up a bit, not necessarily in chronological order. The big news here is that Nora now goes to school with Malcolm! Here she is looking a bit forlorn waiting for her classroom doors to open on the first day of school.

With Cold Doggie on the carpet

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

...hearing a story before Doggie went home with Mama and Papa. She settled in very well and loves school (except for homework!).

Irene and Pop

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

We had a very nice visit with Pop and Irene, where we learned of their engagement! We celebrated with a trip to Yoshi's for sushi and the Bad Plus (highly recommended), and the next day Nora and Deirdre took them to Chabot Science Center.

Nora smokes

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

In the cool room where you can learn about the physical forces on Earth.

Lawrence and Malcolm

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Originally uploaded by deirdre_mama.

Mandy, Michael, Emma and Lawrence visited us for a long weekend and the boys really hit it off. Malcolm wants us to move to New York! We had a great time hanging out and catching up, and we went to the spectacular King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum.