First day of school... The middle schooler who looks way too grown up!!!  Seriously can she get any more beautiful??

And the super cool 4th grader... still with those melt your heart dimples!

eeks how did they get so BIG???

And the Mama with kiddos... all 3 of us on the way to the first day of school..

will blog tomorrow about the details... super exhausted tonight!

Three weeks until school starts... how did that happen?!?  The past month has been flying by... we've been super busy with well LIFE!

Walker learned to fish with the help of his awesome troop leader...

Fishing oh my... a lesson in patience for sure for both parents and child!

We had a neighborhood garage sale which took up a few weeks organizing and purging... and what didn't sell we were able to donate to the church for their garage sale... yeah!

We took on the HUGE project of organizing Legos... once again!  Building sets to store them in bags...

During this time I may have said Strawberry Cheesecake was for dinner... mmm.

We have a good 4 feet section of raspberry bushes that just don't seem to do much year after year.  This year I said we were done with them... in the fall we will rip them out and try strawberry plants instead.  Well low and behold look what was spotted...

Since then we've been picking a bunch... like 24 last night!! Maybe we will have them for one more year after all.

The kiddos did a little manual labor... painting the sandbox.  Love having that pop of color in the backyard...

We might get one more year out of it with the kiddos but it's mostly Willow's sandbox.  She loves to dig down to the cool sand and lay in it...

I re-stained the deck... that was fun keeping dog and kiddos off it for a couple days!

Walker Jack decided on his own that he wanted spiky hair now... be still my heart... such a big kid!

Kiddos spent majority of the day yesterday at a water birthday party...

huge water slides with inner tubes...

And a mud pit... not so much fun though... HA!

In the next 3 weeks we will be cramming in as much summer vacation as possible... back to school shopping, a trip to SLC, more waterslides, the all you can eat ice cream event at the zoo, middle school orientation, a trip to I.F., Planes, Smurfs 2 and Sea of Monsters movies and endless hours of Minecraft marathons for 3 out of 4 McFarlands!

Walker's new troop was asked to participate with the Boy Scouts in a Flag Ceremony for the Senior Games...

He carried the Arizona State Flag...

Love the patriotic salute in the scouts...

He enjoyed it... and bonus for us we all got dinner afterwards!

Nothing better than hanging out with your girl cousins for the weekend... so cute!

The month of June seemed to go by in a blur... partly because we were dealing with this...

A water heater that decided to go A wall.  After back and forth with the Whirlpool warranty people and many times of being mopped out... it finally was approved to be returned and a new water heater was to be issued.  That became the next issue... getting the heavy thing out of the basement... up the stairs... and into Lowes... oh many that thing was HEAVY!! But somehow with our years of home remodeling experience behind us... we figured it out and muscled it out.

New one was installed and just when things were getting back to regular hot water... we found out that an expansion tank is now needed to be plumbed in... lovely!  That will be the project for July.

This month the kiddos got BB guns and learned all about gun safety and how to shoot... had the best teacher ever!!

This is Walker's serious/military pose???

And cute little girl who wasn't exactly thrilled with the new purchase... at first.

They both LOVED the new found hobby... especially when it was time to shoot at cans!  Gotta love the classic beer can shot... they each hit the middle...

Super loved it and can't wait to go again!

When we first moved into our house all Ainsley talked about was having a pink room... so shortly after we painted it pink... girlie pink with a harlequin pattern complete with jewels remember?...

Well now that Middle School is upon us.. it was decided she needed an older girl room... complete with her own design and colors.  So while the boys were at Boy Scout camp us girls were busy all week painting.  Good bye favorite pink wall... hello purple..

She did all the color choices herself... purple walls with teal accented accessories.  A majority of painting done by her too...

When I saw her painting this wall all by herself I couldn't help but remember how she was a few short years ago..

All painting is now done and we are in the process of finalizing the details... next up the humongous chalk board that will be put up.  Will post pictures soon of the completed Middle Schooler room!

Walker had a good time at the Scout overnighter.  In order to check off things from the Webelos handbook they had to set up the tent...

They had to help prepare and cook their meal...

He did an awesome job... likes his new troop members... had some good "Daddytime" and was an exhausted boy after the 2 am train wake up call and then spending all day on Saturday doing archery, BB guns and Astronaut training.

Tonight Walker has his very first camp out... he was pretty excited... and a wee bit nervous.  We joined a new scout troop recently and this will be the first time meeting all of them.

He starts the last stage of Cub Scouts (called Webelos) this summer and it will take 2 years to complete.  New section means a new hat and scarf... love the plaid!

In the past years it was a "family event" but this year they decided to allow just the scout and 1 parent.  It was a good Daddy/Walker thing to do.  All packed up and ready to head out... tonight is the camp out and then tomorrow Walker will have Scout Day Camp until tomorrow afternoon.  I can't wait to hear all about it!

Today I picked the first batch of rhubarb...

Off to make sour cream rhubarb pie... mmmm!

Ainsley had perfect attendance this year and our local Ford lot gave a bike to all 5th graders that accomplished this.  Yesterday we went to pick it up... this was the sea of bikes on just one side... behind us was another group just as large!

Here she is with her new bike...

So very proud of her to tough it out the last few weeks of school when she felt yucky.