House Guests and Senior Pictures

Mid-August brought Linnea to live with us for a week or two and cousin Brooke for a couple of days.  It worked out perfectly to have Linnea take Brooke's senior (gulp!) pictures!

 Gracie was thrilled that Brooke straightened her hair for her.

 We took a little birthday gift to Kiya, as we were going to miss her birthday party.  She and Gracie are such good friends!

 Daddy and Josh caught up on a little sleep.  (Naptime paparazzi strikes again!)

 So fun to help with the photo shoot!

 NOT fun to find this in our new bathroom...

 Joshy coloring THE WHOLE PICTURE. (G'ma Joan would be proud!)

 Straight hair for the first session, curly for the second.

 Grace came along for the second session.

 Beautiful girl!!!

 Clothing change number… ??

A fun few days with Brooke!  And the senior pictures captured every ounce of her beauty…

Nice job, Linnea!!!

We Missed Daddy!

 This was the text pic that I had sent Jeff while he was away…

…and this was the pic I took the morning he got back.  :)

Two Days. Two Cities. Two Events. Two Crazy Boys Live it Up!

Jeff and Colin took a boys' weekend in early August.  First event: Bridge Pedal in Portland.  A bike ride that traversed many, MANY of the bridges in Portland.  Shortstop:  Pfriem Brewery in Mt. Hood.  My first text pic from the trip.

2nd Shortstop:  Salt & Straw.  Second text pic sent to me from the trip.  Portland is our favorite town to eat in.  Jeff knew I'd appreciate the food pics. :)

 The ride!

 They just barely made it to Seattle in time for the game.  Good thing they didn't try to make the Mariner game earlier in the day!

Sounders won.  And Jeff and Colin got on the road for Spokane.  I think Jeff got home at 3am.  Silly boys.  Great time had by BOTH.

Bonbons

The sweet Van Sickle kids came over to entertain my children one early August evening while their parents went to a wedding.  I picked tomatoes and ate bonbons, as the kids were completely absorbed and content.  :)

 The big ones even fed the little ones...

…and the little ones showed off for the big ones.

Outside water play, Papa Murphy's, popcorn and movie night.  No biggie.  Quite like a vacation for Mom.  :)

I Volunteer to be Tribute!

Actually, these sunflowers just volunteered to grow, unplanned, in my deck flower pots.  They do sit in close proximity to the bird feeder which contains sunflower seeds, so it wasn't rocket science.  Just surprise biology.  We loved watching them unfurl this August.

Jeff loves the MATH in the sunflower...

August House Projects

We don't have harvest to plan for in August anymore…so we decided to tackle painting the bathrooms!  We'd been wanting to do this FOR.EVER.  We did it.  New paint colors were selected on a date night--Lowe's, wahoo!--and in the course of the following week, the two upstairs bathrooms were redone.  New paint, light fixtures, and hardware.  VERY exciting.  :)

Gone are the blah-white walls!  It makes me so happy...

The Boys of Summer

 We LOVED our mornings on the deck!

 Surrounded.

 Cutting with scissors (and tongue).

 Oops.

 Thanks for the puzzle, Twinkles!!!

 Cheerio?  What Cheerio?

Sleeping through the night!  Micah only cried it out one night in July/August and figured sleeping out. 5:00 AM feeding times sometimes happened in our bed…leading straight into first nap of the day.  :)

So angelic when sleeping...