To the Gardens!

Wednesday we met my cousin/friend :) Catherine at Meijer Gardens with her two little ones for some good outside fun! The weather was a PERFECT 80 and sunny, not too hot and not too cold. Joshua and Eli played well together, the babies were content (baby Matthew didn't make a peep I don't think!), and we got in a lot of talking. A perfect day if you ask me! Before we knew it it was 4 0'clock and we had been there 5 hours already. We stayed all day basically and had a wonderful time! I didn't want to leave, but dinner was calling, the gardens were going to close, and we both needed to get home. I'm looking forward to more fun days with Catherine and Joshua and Matthew once we live even closer to them!

Sitting on the cushions for story time!

Up close with the spider from "The Very Busy Spider" book.

Eli got to feed the strawberries to the caterpillar from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

Matea had the cherry pie for the caterpillar.

And Eli also got to feed the caterpillar the cupcake.

A beautiful butterfly!

Eli's contemplates his next move during our checker game.

Who knew that making animal tracks in silly putty was so much fun?

Matea tries reach out and touch Matthew. She likes boys.

Eli was getting big smiles from Matthew, and then pointed to Matthew and told me, "This one is better than Matea, Mommy."

Finally, it was time to play with the boats! The boys were so happy!

Joshua lined up all kinds of boats for Matea and she dropped them in the water one by one.

The face that launched a thousand - okay, only 10 - ships!

Matea's favorite part - splashing in the water with her feet!

And, since it is a garden, a picture of a flower and not a kid. :)

Strawberry Picking!

On the spur of the moment Tuesday I decided to go strawberry picking with Elijah. We had been talking about it a few weeks ago but never did it and I really wanted to get out of the house so it seemed like a good idea. It's the end of the season though so only one place around here even had strawberries left! We ended up farther from home than I thought we would, and we headed up north of GR for our berry hunt.

Elijah loved picking berries! He did such a great job looking for them, "picking up the plants" to find them, and making sure that he didn't get any rotten or not ripe berries. He didn't pick a single bad berry (unlike Mommy).

Matea was along for the trip, but wasn't thrilled with berry picking. She scooted along by us happily for a bit, but then started grabbing strawberries and squeezing them to bits. Oops! Then when I tried to walk her she only wanted to walk on top of the plants and not in the rows. Every time I would stop her she'd throw a fit, and also didn't like it if I picked any berries.

We didn't pick for very long and ended up with about a pound and a half of strawberries for a whopping $2. I think Eli ate about half of them on the way home and I snuck some too. They were SOOOOOO delicious and sweet! Definitely more taste than strawberries from the store.  The next morning Eli woke up and said he wanted to go strawberry picking again, so I know he liked it!  I see more strawberry picking in our future next year, and maybe some blueberry picking soon too.

Hunting for a berry!

Got one! It's perfect!

Wait for me, Eli!

Weighing our treasure!

Strawberry picking was fun!

What happened here?

What happens to turn this . . .

Into this?

Answer: You offer the girl a sip of milk from her sippy cup.

Matea really doesn't like milk in her sippy cup (or formula either) so my mere holding it out to her this morning at breakfast induced turning away, kicking her feet, arching her back and screaming. Oh the drama! I love my little girl, but she sure does have attitude already, and she's only 12 months old. The next few years should be interesting to say the least!

Sailing!

Once again this year we made our pilgrimage over the 4th of July weekend to Grandma Amanda's sailboat! We look forward to it every year, and since the house closing was moved one blessing that came out of it was that we had the weekend free to go sailing this year!

We decided to head out on Thursday night after work and avoid the bridge traffic that we knew would be there on Friday, and that was a great decision. We had zero traffic on the bridge and arrived at 9:45. The kids explored the boat and then it was to bed with all of us!

Friday was a cold an cloudy day, unfortunately, so we decided to not go sailing that day but instead go play at the playground under the bridge and have a picnic lunch, with chips (fries) from the chip truck. Saturday we did get to go sailing though, with beautiful blue skies and very few boats out on the lake! On the way out a freighter was coming in, so we got to see that as well. Then, both kids took a nap while sailing so Jon and I got to relax a bit as we sailed. Heaven!

One of the fun things we did with Eli this time was take a dinghy ride in Mom and Terry's dinghy. Eli wasn't sure at first but then LOVED it! We had a good time tooling around the boats and the little river connecting different parts of the marina. We even came upon Matea and Grandma sitting in the cockpit of the Marie Claire. :) And once again we discovered that one year olds are the perfect age for the boat because they can explore but not get in to anything! We had a great time sailing, and I'm ready to go back!

Matea Standing (and Falling)

Matea learned a new trick in the last week or so - standing up in her crib! once I found her that way after nap time the crib was immediately lowered, but that still doesn't stop her, so I think we'll need to lower it again!

Of course, the goofball that she is, Matea loves to pull herself up to a stand and then fall backwards in to the crib with a big grin and laugh. She'll do this over and over and over and over and . . . well, you get the idea. She doesn't seem to tire of it, even when everyone else has. She has now transferred her skill to outside of the crib as well and is pulling up on everything she can get a grip on. Thankfully, she seems to know she can't just fall backwards safely anywhere else than her crib. The little lady is getting more fun every day!