SB 16: Strawberries!!!

Wendesday, Gramma and I made plans to leave the house.  First, we drove to a local farm to do some berry picking!

The price was amazingly cheap, and there were plenty of berries left to be found!

The kids always seem to have fun picking, even though it really doesn't take very long.

And the strawberries looked gorgeous!  Unfortunately, they turned out to not have tons of flavor, and they also went bad super fast.  Like, super fast.  But Gramma figured out a way to use what we could salvage, and they were delicious.

They look like they are working so hard!

It probably took us about 30 minutes to pick 11 quarts of strawberries!!!  So fast, that I really didn't get the chance to pick any.  Just take pictures :)

I don't know what was up in this picture.  She is usually so happy to cheese it up for the camera!

She was happy to smile for a sister picture.

And another cute one of the other two siblings.

Happy strawberry picking!!!

Gramma was nice enough to sort through all 11 quarts and make sure we got good ones.  Again, this is before we had eaten any, so we didn't know at the time that they didn't taste super great.

Group photo opp!!!  Love it!!!

We only ate a few, and we definitely had to dip them in sugar.  But, Gramma made us some fruit leather and some home made strawberry syrup (with homemade waffles) that were absolutely excellent!

Nothing will probably ever come close to the ones we got on the side of the road in California.  But its the experience that is part of the fun, right? :)

SB 16: Tying your Shoes!

Dylan is a bit hard on shoes.  And, often times, he doesn't tell me.  So, we got down to FL and I discovered his shoes were literally coming apart.  I stopped by and picked him up a pair of tenny runners, but failed to take careful note of the fact that they were tie shoes instead of velcro.

No sweat.  It was about time to learn that life lesson anyway.  So, while it was raining outside, Dylan learned how to tie his shoes!

Please ignore how weirdly white and speckled my leg looks.  We needed longer shoe laces.  

Good job little dude!  

SB 16: Tuesday Rainy Painting

Tuesday it rained.  Most of the rest of the days we had been there, the kids had been riding their bikes several hours a day.  On Tuesday, that wasn't really possible.

But, there are worse people to be stuck inside with.  :)  Gramma busted out these plaster molds that she had found in some of her unpacked boxes.  I'm fairly certain they were leftover from when we lived in Virginia...  which makes them, oh....  20 years old?  I'm also fairly certain they were chocolate molds that we filled with plaster of Paris.  

Old molds + paint = F U N!

They concentrated for an hour or more, and didn't hardly notice that it was raining outside.

Finished products.  I'll let you guess which set belongs to whom.

And you can see the resulting mess when the children said they were "done".  We are still working on "done" meaning cleaned up....

After they painted for a bit, Gramma helped them make their own lip gloss.

4 flavors, one for each girl.  Kari helped to design the labels.

I dunno.  But it was cute.  Next slide.

Because Gramma's are thoughful and fair, Dylan got a new wooden car to play with, while the lip gloss was being produced.

Aaaaaaaaaand, Kaitlyn tried out some interesting hair styles.

By the end of the day, the kids realized they hadn't ridden their bikes at all, and were a little frustrated.  But they didn't seem to notice all the time that had passed.  That is a good day in my book.

SP16: Monday Playdough

Monday we had a few errands to run.  Hubby left to go back to his job site.  I took Grampa to the local airport so he could fly to Brazil for the week.  And I had to pick up a prescription for Kelsey, who appeared to have contracted pink eye (my pediatrician was nice enough to call it in for me.  Have I mentioned I love him?)  So, I left the kids with Gramma for most of the morning while I did some running around.  I brought home some lunch and then we had some craft time ahead of us.  Even with having just moved into her house, Gramma was nice enough to prepare some things for us to do.  This one was a homemade playdough.  If I remember correctly, it is mostly (if not completely) conditioner and corn starch.  The anticipation was evident.

Apparently, Kelsey is a hitter when it comes to playing with playdough.

 It had an interesting texture.  When you were playing with it, it was solid, but if you left it alone, or picked it up, it would melt and drip.

 According to their faces, it wasn't always the most enjoyable experience.

 But if you look at some other faces....

 Well....  maybe they still thought it was interesting too.

 They all had quite a bit of fun though.  And played for almost an hour with the coconut smelling stuff.

 See?  If you held it in your hand, it would start to drip.

 She has some great smiles :)

I think the playdough lived up to its hype!

 If for no other reason, because mommy doesn't usually let the kids play with stuff like this.

Thankfully, Gramma was around to clean up her mess ;)

SB16: Exercise

Throughout the week we were there, we may or may not have kept Gramma busy :)  Grampa had to go on a business trip, and Hubby had to go back to the job site.  So it was Gramma, me and the kids most of the week.  She did an excellent job keeping them entertained with crafts and outings.  But that meant by the end of the day she was a bit tired.

I took this picture as a reminder.  It is so Kaitlyn to me.  Pink short.  Too big (because she is such a skinny minnie).  High heeled beautiful shoes.  With socks.  

One of the surprising forms of entertainment, right in their living room, was the elliptical.  The kids played on that all day long!

Either as a team....

Or as singles....

They had lots of opportunities to exercise :)

SB16: Easter Spaghetti

While I know there may be more "traditional" Easter dinners, for our Sunday night, we had an even more special meal.  Home made spaghetti.  With homemade spaghetti noodles!

Gramma has her own noodle roller thingy.  And she was nice enough to slave and share with us.

They tasted quite wonderful, they they did have a slightly different texture than store bought.

The result was a wonderful plateful of yumminess!

Kari stayed inside to help Gramma with the noodles with the other kids were outside riding bikes.  Though that was possibly more because she had an accident than because she didn't want to be outside.

Dinner was delicious!

SB16: After Church Pictures

After seeing our family picture from early that morning, and seeing how cute everyone looked in their Sunday best, I requested we go out and get a picture or two before everyone changed clothes.  There was a bit of fixing involved...

Before I could snap a picture or two.

And Grampa was nice enough to get one of the hole family together.

There!  That's better!  We are actually kind of cute :)

I got a good one of the Grandparents and Grandkids too!

I requested one of the kids, but it was a bit windy that day...  Daddy to the rescue!

Love it!

Then I told mom and dad to get together for a shot or two.  And these were taken in rapid succession.  I took this one first.  It's ok.  But not great.  So I told mom to smile. 

And this is how she responded.  She's always been sorta special.

Which made everyone laugh.

But ended up in this.  Which I really love!!!  

And it was all shot in 30 seconds or less. :)

And that is the beauty of digital cameras.  You can take a bazillion pictures, and only save the ones you want.  :)