August

I finally caved and bleached Piper's hair so she could dye it blue ;)

She has amazing hair and I really didn't want to risk ruining it with bleach. But I'm also the gal who buzzed off my hair at the age of 23, with the belief that 'hey, it's only hair', so...

Bleach step complete.

Time for the blue.

She loves it!!!

Then she headed off to camp for a week (wearing a yellow beanie - ha).

Scooter came home with a note clipped to his collar - ha. Piper wrote a note back and re-clipped it the next morning. But... how do we know it didn't fall off before the random neighbor saw it!!??

A little pre back to school dinner out ;)

We moved into this house a little over 4 years ago and had a wall built so we could put up a door to the basement (ya know, so we can lock Max in). But we never finished off the molding. So that was kind of my summer project (in between my completely failed attempt at potty training Max... for the 4th time).
Before...

After...

And the laundry room...
Before...

 After...

Yay for another house project done. (Just realized these are pictures from before the doors got painted. It looks even better with matching white doors).

Last camping trip of the summer.

Little squirrel wanted a snack. So we shared our donuts.

Pretty sure he was diabetic by the time we left ;)

Back to reality and the dentist. He still won't go near the chair... someday. Or not. He did tolerate about 2 minutes of regular brushing! Baby steps. Hopefully all his teeth don't fall out by the time he learns to tolerate regular brushing ;)

We framed a few more Playbills for Piper's wall. She's actually going to NY next month with her dad and getting to see Come From Away on Broadway. She's sooo excited.

School started

Kind of.
Oh my Max. You stubborn boy. He's refusing school.
See the attitude? Ha.

We finally made it outside, but only into the camper...

Day 1 - we didn't make it to school.

Day 2 - he laid on the porch for an hour! Refusing to get in the car.

 Then out back to the deck.

Steve came by in between work appointments and got him to school.
He's just too big and strong for me to 'force' into the car.
So on day 3, I decided to avoid the car. I actually got him into his stroller and we walked to school!!!
Mom win!!

Cute little caterpillar on the way.

He wasn't impressed and immediately flicked it back on the ground.

Woohoo - this picture is a celebration that he made it to school!

So I've been walking him to school everyday. It's only about a 20 minute walk, so it's not too bad. Unless you accidentally let a sprinkler hit you. Water drops = stripping off all clothing. Luckily, the buckle kept him from taking off his pants. We got some really strange looks as we walked into school today. Ha. (We keep a spare set of clothes at school).

 I didn't even get a picture of Piper. But she started school, too ;)

July Cell Dump

Took a quick hike around Silver Lake. Almost ran right into this guy.

We put Piper's old bunk bed up in Max's room. He's loving it!

And got this cool shark for the wall. I took down the old ABC stickers that were up - he pitched a huge fit. He was sooo mad. Ha.

Scooter came home at 1am one night having been sprayed by a skunk. Ugh. Attempting to bathe a cat in tomato juice is no small task!

He couldn't open one eye when he came home. It opened a bit after the bath, but swelled up the next day. I put some ointment on it for a few days and it seems to be doing better.

Shark Week!!! Piper wanted to play a drinking game one night, so we bought a bunch of Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and red syrup to make some bloody drinks ;)

We went camping a couple weekends ago. It rained the first night. Luckily, we had cards and plenty of snacks ;) We survived.

Dead snake. We poked it with a stick just to make sure.

When it stopped raining we hiked up to Cecret Lake.

The wildflowers weren't quite all bloomed.

On the way down we came across a porcupine.

Dad, Max, and Grandma came up for dinner and dutch oven cobbler.