Yesterday I think we succeeded in wringing all the fun we possibly could out of one day. :)
I
let M sleep in a little bit when the kids woke up at 6:30 (he returned
the favor today) and played with H and E in the living room for awhile. H
loves to copy everything that E does, which I think is really funny
since he's the older brother and I'd think she would copy him? Maybe
it'll change when she gets older; I guess she's not really old enough
yet (at 9 months) to copy most of what he does. Anyway, he was crawling
around behind her, picking up whatever toy she picked up and then
putting it in his mouth (or whatever she was doing). It's always funny
when he does that.
When E took her first nap (she's a
two-nap-a-day lady right now, which I LOVE, and they're usually both
solid 1.5 - 2 hour naps. She is more than making up for the nap
challenges she had when she was an infant!), I made bacon, biscuits and
gravy for breakfast. DELICIOUS!!! I used to make them pretty often for
MM, but haven't in over a year. They turned out very well, although I
used beef bacon as the fat source, and I think pork bacon fat is more
flavorful (I stopped eating pork years ago). MM rescued them with a tiny
sprinkle of bacon salt that he made months ago and froze (basically you
char bacon in the oven, then pulse in a food processor with coarse
salt) and with that addition it was perfect.
When E
woke up, we hustled out of the house (the one disadvantage of a
two-nap-a-day baby is that we only get 2-3 hours of activity time
between naps, which does break up the day quite a bit. But I'll take it
over the alternative!) and drove out to a pick-your-own orchard about
half an hour away. They have the BEST apple cider donuts (at pumpkin
season you can get them warm out of the fryer! OMG! The last time we
went I think I ate 6!), a goat pen, and a small playground in addition
to all the orchards and vegetable fields. So we got some donuts and paid
for a blackberry-picking basket, then went over to the playground to
let H burn off some energy.
He
loves the slide. He does not like the swings (I'm so confused - I LOVED
the swings when I was little! I still like them, although I actually
get a little motion sick now, which is a bummer). But he'll spend an
hour going down the slide over and over. It was empty since it's not a
peak picking time (it's packed every weekend in the fall when apples and
pumpkins are available) so we got to take turns sliding down and then
racing each other back to the ladder. :)
We
finally pried him away from the slide to go visit the goats. They have
little candy dispensers that are filled with cracked corn, and you can
buy a small handful for a quarter, so we got some corn to feed them.
This one was a total pig and ate most of our corn; there were 5 or 6
other goats that came over to investigate us but weren't hungry, and a
few that just hung out on their toys in the middle of the pen.
He
liked the goats but didn't want to feed them (or touch them in any
way), so he just put his corn into the little corn chute that sticks
through the fence.
E was not impressed.
Then
we negotiated down to only 5 more trips down the slide, and after a
quick potty pit-stop in the parking lot (we brought his potty with us;
now that he's 3 we're getting serious about potty training), it was time
to go pick blackberries! We drove over to the blackberry field, and
while we were parking, a beautiful red fox ran across the lane right
behind our car - it was really cool. I've never seen one that close
before. We picked and picked - the blackberries were HUGE and very ripe,
and it took maybe 20 minutes to pick 3 pounds. H helped a little, then
spent most of his time squishing all the berries that had fallen on the
ground.
I
sat on the tailgate and nursed E while MM finished filling our basket,
then we headed home. We rocked out to Harlem by New Politics all the way
home at H's request (he says, "That's my song!") and the Doodle napped
in her carseat. After a quick lunch, both kids went down for real naps,
and I hung out with MM, made mixed berry galettes
from a Pioneer Woman recipe for our picnic, and uploaded photos from my
phone. When they woke up, we headed out again to the playground for a
picnic dinner!
Delicious picnic (thrown together from
the odds and ends in the fridge) of salami, cheddar, Wheat Thins, crusty
bread, olive tapenade, turkey sandwiches, sparkling lemonade, and an
apple for each kid, with the galettes for dessert. H grudgingly ate an
apple and a few Wheat Thins, then wanted to play on the playground. E
attacked her apple like it was her job - each time she's been given an
apple (maybe 3 times now), she spends at least half an hour (if not
longer) completely devoted to eating it. With only 4 teeth, 2 of which
are barely erupted, she doesn't actually ingest much of it, but boy does
she love working on it!
Look at those fat little arms. Look at the rolls! I just want to bite them all day long.
E's
new trick is doing, "So big!" and she loves it - she'll do it dozens of
times in a row, mostly when we're eating. H likes to do it with her.
Here they're both doing "So big!" but E didn't want to relinquish her
apple. :)
Here is a proper execution. :)
Then it was past bath time, so we packed up
our picnic remnants, drove home, bathed the kids, and got them into
bed. Later on when I was putting the blackberries away, I discovered
that almost ALL of them are infested with tiny little WORMS!!! Dr.
Google assures me they're probably harmless fruit grubs, but YUCK!!!! I
don't think I can eat them after that discovery. :( A sad, sad waste of 3
pounds of beautiful blackberries.
Worms aside, it
was pretty much a perfect day. Even the weather was perfect - cool and
overcast, which is great for playing outside all day. I had a wonderful
time, and I wish we could have weekends like this more often!
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