life lessons.

gray had his first shaving lesson.

it felt like an epic father/son moment, so i rushed outside with the camera.

gray did not hesitate one bit.
once that thing was in his hands, he got to work.

after the initial near swipe off of the side of dusty's head, things went pretty smoothly.
in gray's defense, i don't think he was given proper instructions.

a little cleaning up here and there and dusty was looking good :)

Goodbye, Abby Singer.

I always wanted a dog growing up and throughout my adult life thus far.

I wanted one so badly that Dusty agreed for us to get one that I found on Craigslist.

Post about that can be found here.

Then, Abby Singer joined us for one year.

She looks sweet and she is sweet, but she taught me that as of right now, I am not meant to be a dog-owner.

 While she was with us she:

• shed like a mad woman
• managed to break/bend/deform all of the blinds in the house, so she could be aware of her surroundings outdoors while she was indoors.
• barked at every.single.innocent walker/biker/neighbor
• developed acid reflux and threw up everything she ingested
• got a form of the flu and could not control her bowel movements (awful)
• scratched her paw nonstop at whatever she wanted - food, outside, inside, outside, inside, food, outside, etc.
• developed very irritable skin which she bit and scatched at all.day.long
• did her business on Gray's favorite trains because she is not particularly fond of Gray and never will be (jealousy)

The list could go on and on and on and I promise that there are many positive things about Abby Singer, but in this post, I decided not to focus on them.

Alright, so the purpose of this post: Abby Singer is no longer with us and she has moved back in with her mommy.

This makes me very happy (I'm sure that sounds awful, but I'm just being honest)

And Abby Singer has christened her mommy's new house by already doing all of the things I listed above - within two days.

Abby Singer is currently up for grabs.

Gray's UN-Birthday

Gray has a summer birthday.

His teacher assigned him an un-birthday during the school year, so he could celebrate with his classmates in the classroom.

Gray's un-birthday = May 6th.

Gray's real birthday = July 5th.

I'm going to be in North Dakota for his real birthday, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to celebrate early.

Gray was surprised and could not stop smiling...my favorite.

Every single party we have in this house ends up as a dance party...I'm pretty sure it's because of Dusty.
He associates parties with dancing.

And Gray loves it, as do I.

He always gets the giggles. 

Muscle flexing per Dusty's request.

Always per Dusty's request.

 There has also become a mutual understanding that there are no rules on party days.
I once told Gray this at a little party we had a while back and he has not forgotten.
I can just see his little brain working, trying to figure out what he should do since there are no rules...he struggles with this which I think is a good thing :)
He usually comes up with trying to get away with eating as many cupcakes as he can (we limit it to two).

And then tries for a 'no bath' night. A bath is always needed after a full day of school and then playing outside at camp for two hours.
He's unsuccessful at this request.

So, I suppose there are rules on party days, but he still gets to feel like there are not.
We stay up a little later.
It's okay if he jumps on the couch or really on anything.
We act sillier than normal.
If he suggests we blow up the air mattress and have a movie night, we do it. And we make popcorn while we're at it.
We have his favorite snacks on hand.
He drinks Sprite instead of water.
We make a point to have extra amounts of fun on party days.

Ever since our outdoor picnic, Gray has been requesting indoor and outdoor picnics.

So, an indoor picnic was to be had!
Gray now associates picnics with drawing because of our last one, and boy did we draw.

Case in point on the bath thing: do you see his hand/fingernails in the above picture?
Bath is ALWAYS needed.

Here are a couple of visuals of the drawings:

 I drew too, but these two decided to draw the same thing every time, which makes them more photo worthy.

Dusty thought the drawing above needed to be more exciting and mission was successful when the drawing made Gray laugh :)

Gray means business when he gets down to his underwear:

And the crayon behind his ear?
That means super-business.

Happy Un-Birthday, Mr. Gray.
I love you.