What We've Been Up To This Summer.......

For those who are regular followers I'm sure you know that I've been a bit on the lazy side this summer and haven't posted in 3, yes THREE, months!!!  Yikes!!!!  Guess I needed a bit of a blog break! ;)

Anyway, Maddie and I have been keeping busy all summer long!  We've taken a trip to Iowa and to visit family and then to Chicago for sight-seeing which I will post pics from in a separate post.

The pic above was from the new garden that started in a planter box that my husband made for me.  Unfortunately with the extreme drought my poor garden pretty much burnt up with everything else even with regular watering. Boo!  The picture was obviously taken before everything went south.

 Maddie had fun this summer taking two sessions of swim lessons.  She really got to be a good swimmer and even swam under water with her eyes open.  She loves the water and loves to swim!  A little fish just like her mommy was! ;)

 Another fun activity Madeline did over the summer was 3 mini cooking classes at a local grocery store.  She made kabobs, did cupcake decorating, and made a berry torte.

 Madeline's fancy cupcake.  Not sure how we'd eat this...

 Doing the cupcake decorating.

We went to visit grandma a couple times over the summer.  On one such trip we stopped to visit a friend of mine from high school who I haven't seen in years and her two sweet kids. Maddie had fun checking out their chickens and cows!  Fun!

 We took a day trip to Powell Gardens during the butterfly festival.  The lady above read the kids a Fancy Nancy book and led the kids in a short parade.

At the festival we saw TONS of different species of butterflies and we even had a few land on us. 

 Here's one of the many pretty butterflies we saw.

Maddie chilling in the stroller while Grandma and I looked at the gardens. 

They had a fairy house and fort display while we were at Powell Gardens too.  Maddie had fun checking them all out. 

 And Maddie hanging out on the roof of one of the fairy houses (Grandma's idea, haha)....

We've also been to Science City, to movies (our favorite was Madagascar 3), gone to the zoo, played at indoor bounce house playgrounds, spend days at the pool, and just had fun playing with friends.  It's hard to believe that the summer is winding to an end and Madeline starts preschool in just two short weeks!