Strawberry Fields

Last Friday, we took a field trip to a local strawberry farm with Matty's Joyschool group. It was a beautiful day and the kids had so much fun. The farm we went to is huge and had a lot for them to do. First we went on a hayride around the farm. Half way through the hayride, they stopped to let us off so we could pick some strawberries. The berries were huge! It only took a few minutes to fill up our containers.

After the hayride, the farm hands put did a puppet show for the kids. While they were watching the show, we took their strawberries and washed them so they could enjoy a little snack.

When the puppet show was over, we got spend a few hours playing and picnicking on the farm. There were two playgrounds, a zip-line and a duck pond. They also had a huge jumping pillow. I thought Matty would really enjoy jumping because he loves trampolines, but after a couple of minutes of jumping with a few dozen crazy preschoolers, he was ready to get off.

After eating lunch, the kids played in the "corn crib". It was a huge sandbox-type thing, but instead of sand it was full of dried corn kernels. I had never seen anything like it, but it was pretty cool and the kids played in there for quite a while.

Matty liked to make "corn angels" in it. When we finally got them out, they were all covered with white corn dust.

After we left the play area, I had Matty and Emma help me pick two 6-gallon buckets full of strawberries- one for us, and one for Emma's family. I'm excited to turn them into strawberry freezer jam!

Michael is done with school for the semester and it is really nice having him home all of the time. He does have to spend quite a bit of that time working on the computer, but at least he is here! It will be so nice when he is completely done with school!

The boys have been having a lot of fun playing together lately. Eric calls Matty "Bruzz", which is what comes out when he tries to say brother. We've all started calling Eric "Eggic" or "Eckic" a lot, because that is usually how he says his own name. The poor little guy got pretty beat up this week. In this picture, he is recovering from a black eye on his left side. We think he tripped and hit it on one of the dining chairs. Above his black eye, he has a gash in his forehead that he got when he was spinning in circles with Matty and lost his balance. His head nailed the couch leg. Above the gash is a line of bruises he got when his cousin pushed him a little too hard and he hit his head on the computer chair. Maybe we need to consider getting all rubber furniture or something!

This is Matty and Eric with their friends Haley and Larissa. The girls are sisters and we babysit them from time to time. Haley and Eric are about the same age, as are Matty and Larissa (she is also in our joyschool group).

We always go in and check on the boys before we go to sleep at night. One night last week, we found Eric asleep in this position. I'm not sure why his pajamas are unsnapped or how he ended up this way. I think it will be a while before he will be able to switch from a crib to a toddler bed though!

Matty was sleeping in a pretty cute position too. He can't sleep without he puppy and rarely lets go of him all night long.

Well, that is all for now. We are getting ready for Matty's birthday party and I will try to post pictures of it later this week! I can't believe he's going to be 4!