Father's Day Photo Contest - Selected Winners

Happy Father's Day.
Today is bittersweet.
This last December, we lost an incredible dad in our family.  My husband's father passed after a long battle with cancer.  At his funeral, my husband read one of his father's favorite poems, and I want to share it with you all, as it is a lovely and inspirational. 


Thank you to all who sent photos for this Father's Day Photo Contest!  Our family is feeling the sting of a new first without our Papa Gus, so being brought into so many of your lives where joy, love, and family are reflected so beautifully...thank you for sharing.  It is lovely to have a view into what life looks like in your world. 

And To all those who have lost a dad and are feeling that void today, know you are in my thoughts as well. 

If - by Rudyard Kipling
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you       
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,    
But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,   
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,    
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;       
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster    
And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken   
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,    
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings    
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings    
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew    
To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you   
  Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,       
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,    
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute    
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,       
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

All the photos below have been shared with the expressed permission of their owners and are not for use outside of this post. Special thank you to Chelsea, Stephanie, Jennifer, and Cathy!!!

Chelsea writes of her husband, "I just love a babywearing dad... so blessed my husband loves to wear our boys :)"

Stephanie writes, "Cousins (9 mo and 2 years old) feeding fish with their dads on a hot summer day in MN."

Jennifer writes, "This is a special moment when David was extremely tired and his Dad was there to comfort him."

Cathy writes of her husband, "In addition to being a high school science teacher, Kiel volunteers at the Field Museum and Peggy Notebart Nature Museum. He is working towards becoming Illinois' first male doula and believes that investing his time into our children and his family is the highest priority. This is a picture of Kiel. It sums him up perfectly: a nature loving, not traditional, devoted father. I am proud to be his wife!"

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In memory of Gus, seen here in his favorite photo with our daughter at her 1st birthday.  We miss you!

Authored by A Swift Doula for Father's Day 2015