Happy Rosh HoShona Everybody!!

How do you celebrate the Jewish New Year?? At Manhattan Beach, of course! Missing a beautiful 83 degree day would be like a sin, wouldn't it?? Carissa was fairly upset she didn't have school.
She was also pensive about life.
So was Derek. What he was really thinking- " How can I get back up to the bag and eat all the fruit snacks without getting caught??"
These two collected many shells and announced that they were, "...bringing them all home!!"

But first they had to sort them carefully.Luckily they got distracted by a passing pod of dolphins. Is it me, or do they stand exactly the same?
I only got one fin. There were a lot more, I promise.
Grayson was just happy to be hangin' out. Or...happy as long as no one told him to stop throwing sand.

Can't wait til Yom Kippur!!

Boys in Hats Part II

Tupperware Hats that is...
One of the mornings Ben and Evan decided to try on a bunch of tupperware hats on Brady.

Evan, however, was having a little trouble figuring out which hat would fit him.

Ben obviously had done this before...

What a cute kid! We miss him already! Thanks for coming out and visiting.

We now know who truly loves us... (Susie said no, she hates us) Just kidding. But hopefully "Boys in Hats Part II" won't provoke a phone call for trash talking. We love you too Susie! We can't wait to see everyone in December.

Boys in Hats

The boys really weren't excited about getting their picture taken with the hats, but I had to document the cuteness.



Look at Evan's eyes, they're so beautiful.
GO BUCKS! Brady's really looking forward to the OSU/USC game as he raises the roof.

Hopefully it's not too embarrassing for either team. We'll just have to see...

First Day of School! ! First Day of School!!

There are several reasons that I'm happy that Carissa's at a new school. First, it starts at 8:15, which is 15 minutes later than her old school started. Believe me, 15 minutes in the morning with these kids is like 10 hours. It also afforded me the opportunity to leisurely take carefully posed pictures in the front yard, instead of the chaotic screaming to "Get in the car!! The traffic gets worse by the second!!!"

Note the relaxed demeanor and (despite having been vomiting non-stop 36 hours previous to this) the lack of stress on this girls face.Please let the record show that everyone is happy here. No punches, kicks, sippy cups, toys or insults being hurled. The second reason I love this school. A mere one mile from the house. Two bridges over ditches, a pleasant walk up tranquil Mayall Street, and an exciting dash down Balboa blvd. past In-n-Out, and we're there. Took us about 20 minutes.
Third, because this is the #1 school in LA Unified, everything went very smoothly, people werehelpful, and parents and children were well behaved. So, so far so good. We're excited to see how Carissa's year goes with Mrs. Matsushita.

Derek also had his first day of Kindergarten Enrichment class with teacher Laurie. I'm glad my innocent 4 year old's outfit of choice is skulls and cross bones. Really reinforces the values we teach here at home.This is what Grayson thought of all this action.