We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Our summer so far:  A family of skunks came to visit us. . .  Rylan gave Madelyn a mock fire drill  Car show...Leah's favorite,  ...and Scott's favorite. Playing at the water fountains, how cute is that face? He just wanted to GRAB that water so bad!  Swim lessons for Maddy whose confindence has grown tremendously!  She is not afraid to go underwater anymore, and can even swim a couple feet all by herself, and do a back float. Rylan spent his lessons learning the breast stroke, front crawl, froggy, back stroke, butterfly, and getting stronger at holding his breath for longer periods of time. His teacher was quite the drill sergent and pushed Rylan really hard, but he toughed it out and is a great swimmer!  Check out his flawless backstroke! We have heard this song so often on the radio that Madelyn knows it by heart. . . Father's Day photo shoot (the letters spell out DAD when put in the fr...

One of the things that we love about this area is that in the middle of the city they have acres and acres of forest preserves.  We want  to hike in all the reserves we can while we are are.  We are going to try and go hiking at least once a week with the kids.  This time we went to the Paw Paw Woods Nature Preserve which is about 10 minutes away from us. We set off, notice Maddy's outfit, a dress, long pulled up socks, tennis shoes, and a beach hat.  No hike can be completed without snacks.  Madelyn also thought that she needed to bring her notebook to make observations.  She observed a hairy spider on a leaf, a daisy flower, and a dead bird and scribbled them down in her notebook and asked me if I would draw them for her.  Ian was happy to get out of the pack, and sit on the rocks by the water.  We ate sandwiches and fed some curious fish part of our bread. Isn't it beautiful?!? Ian's new thing, nodding "yes"...

In Rylan's cub scout pack they have a tradition that when you earn your wolf you have to "wolf" down a plate of whipped cream while every one chants, "wolf, wolf, wolf!"  Rylan couldn't wait until it would be his turn, I think it actually helped to motivate him!  My handsome boys going to a Eagle court of honor for a boy in our ward.  Scott is the boy scout chairman, and he is having a great time earning some badges himself and helping the boys in our ward with theirs.  It is so fun to see these two work on goals together, Rylan loves his time with his dad.