unseasonal

yes, the calendar claims it's winter time. but we have yet to see anything that resembles winter and we are SO glad for that! right now it's 76 degrees outside. we're all in shorts. it's predicted to be 77 for thanksgiving day and i couldn't be happier. (well, unless i was somewhere tropical) even though we have not given up our flip flops and summer outfits, marz wants to wear socks and shoes. she had no closed shoes for the "winter" and i thought i'd better get her something for running around at night in. now she wears them EVERYWHERE. because what are new shoes for if they're not for wearing, right?

not too spooky

okay, FINALLY. here are the pics from halloween. we did a trunk-or-treat at the church a few days before, but didn't get any pics from that. sorry. same costumes though, so no biggie.

TIGER LILY


BIKER DUDE


TINKERBELL


KLAUS
(from A Series of Unfortunate Events)

transition to bobcat

a decision has been stewing around here for awhile. i'm finally ready to go public with it. we keep things pretty private until we're sure about them. so here it is: luigi will be starting public school tomorrow. a year ago summer the kids were given a choice to stay home or go back to public school. we had a discussion about their likes and dislikes for each situation and they all chose to stay home. luigi hasn't quite kept up his end of the bargain and isn't putting forth much effort to get schoolwork done. as a result, it sucks time away from what i can spend with the other kids. at any rate, we feel he needs a change of scenery. we'll see how it goes. tomorrow he starts a new schedule as a CARMEL VALLEY MIDDLE SCHOOL BOBCAT.

hair gone wild

yes, i'm a tad bit behind with halloween posts. and you'll have to wait just a tad bit longer. this is a pre-halloween event. the charter school that the kids attend was having Crazy Hair day. who makes these things up? who decides that in addition to buying costumes for halloween events, we now have to purchase extra supplies for some silly school event? not me, that's for sure. but i'm a sucker. and since the kids wanted to participate we came home from the SPIRIT halloween store with 4 cans of spray-on hair color in tow. of course Z chose green and dash chose red. luigi chose white and then a glitter just had to be added to the mix. they had a blast. i had to stay out of the bathroom with all the toxic fumes. i'm surprised they could stay in there long enough to finish. and we're not sure why in some light the white hair looks blue. oh well. we're definitely not pro make-up artists, but we have our fun!

birthday in advance

well, i got an early birthday present. i've been wanting one for a while, and then when i saw a demo at costco i was just dying for one. i thought i could find one online later with my christmas money. but luckily someone stepped in and i don't have to!

it's absolutely amazing. the kids and i have been having tons of fun with it! we've made tortilla soup, strawberry syrup, pineapple syrup, rice flour, ice cream, smoothies, frosting, and i can't remember what else. it's so fun! it's rival is the vitamix and i think this is the better machine. but then i'm biased since this is the one i own. ;)

studying hard

this is the marz way to do nightly scripture reading.

in search of

not quite sure what she's looking for, but she's definitely doing it the way her dad would!

sunday stroll

i will definitely be sad to leave this place. we took a late sunday afternoon to walk from where doc macgyver works down to the beach to see the sunset. it's torrey pines beach/state park area if you want to take a look on a map. it was a much longer walk than i expected, and my camera and i did not make it to the beach by sunset. but i did manage to sneak in a few pics before the sun disappeared completely from my view.