Lydia's creative outlet

It's actually pretty entertaining to give a camera to your 4 year old and see what she deems worthy of a photograph. As you can see, she absolutely LOVES her little sister, Kate, and her mom, of course. Her bike apparently comes in a close third.

Lydia also finds joy in many forms of art, some of which are edible, some of which are NOT!

Too much food!

So the Fourth of July has come and gone. We have watched fireworks, eaten too much food (I don't want to BBQ for 3 months), played with friends and celebrated. I actually forgot my camera for our fourth festivities so these pictures of the girls and me will have to suffice. Unfortunately Kate has been sick the last week and finally decided to get worse yesterday. Amidst the coughing, runny nose, sneezing, fever, she decided it was time to throw up, too. So I took her to the doctor and she found a rotten ear infection. Whew. Now we know what it is and what to do with it. Doctors really are great, aren't they? =)

So, Lydia's new "thing" has been putting puzzles together. She can now put together a 63 piece puzzle all by herself. It's great. It used to take her a while but now she does it so fast, I can't fold a load of laundry by the time she's finished!

Derrel has been busy working on research at the school this summer. We think that he has chosen the lab he will work in to start his PhD next summer. The PhD he will work with actually researches pediatric cancer and such which will be very interesting for Derrel.

Bear with me, I know this picture is horrifying (I REALLY don't like bats) but I found one in our yard the other day. Of course it was dead and in two pieces but I didn't know they flew around here. Here is one of the wings-don't worry, I didn't touch it, YUCK! It was under a wild cherry tree obviously eating the fruit.