memorial day strawberry picking

on memorial day we decided to go strawberry picking. at first j was like "but we've already done that," because he doesn't understand the need to do things like that every year ;) and admittedly, it was a little late in the season/day to strawberry pick, and we were all melting by the end of it. but now that we have a nice juicy basket of strawberries in the fridge (recipes please??!!!) and all these sweet photos, i'm so glad we did it! definitely something i want to do every year! i remember picking blackberries growing up every year, and i loved it! i think once the kids are old enough to actually like the picking process it will be even more fun! also, the place where we go near athens has started to have blackberry picking too, which is exciting. after hurriedly filling our basket before the kids got cranky, we shared a homemade strawberry ice cream and then took some photos in the blackberry patch....i'm not sure why. i think we were thinking it would be shaded?? i plopped evie down with our basket of strawberries and she and wilder were so content to cram strawberries in their faces they didn't even run off, as usual, so i got a few really sweet photos of them. and i LOVE the ones that j got of me with them....such great photos! :)

haha he was totally not feeling my instructions to "show me your strawberry! no look at me!" ;)

bliss. although i think i'm not the only one who realizes that ice cream is better when it's cold outside, not when it's hot and you're all thirsty and stuff. 

admiring the blackberry bushes

a bucket of strawberries for me?!?! :D 

a date with my (little) boy

on saturday i got to go on two different dates — one with each of my boys! so it was the best kind of day in the world, and I'm not sure how i got so lucky! in the morning, before j and i went off on a bike-riding adventure (more on that later), i told wilder that his papa and i were going to go on a date and that after we came back i was going to take him on a date! he didn't quite understand, but i could tell he was pretty thrilled about it, because the first thing he said to me when we got back home was "i'm ready for my date now!" haha! then the whole time in the car he kept saying "are we on a date?" and then "where's my date?" ha! so then i explained to him that our date was going out to do something together. and i realized that he and i basically went on a date every day for almost two years before evie was born! i don't think he realizes that, which is good, and i don't think he minds too much having to share me with his sister. but i've been wanting to give him a little extra special attention because lately he seems to get the shorter end of the stick when i'm constantly chasing down evie and doing all the other housewifely things.

i was originally planning to take him into decatur to look at books and get some frozen yogurt, but then he suddenly declared he wanted to go to the fernbank museum of natural history instead. and since we have a yearly membership pass, i didn't have any reason to say no.

if you live in atlanta and have never been to fernbank, you should put it at the top of your things to do with kids list. it is our favorite place! i love that there are a few permanent exhibits, which are super interesting for older kids and adults, a bottom-floor exhibit that changes, and an upstairs "naturequest" which is this really cool play room for kids. there are some reptiles in tanks (salamander, alligators, turtles, lizards, snake), two bridges, a tree house thing, a ball shoot, an archaeology area, a sea-life area, a tunnel, etc. it really has everything, and the best part is that it's even good for little kids like evie's age. we actually went just the week before and evie got to explore it on her own for the first time, which was heaven for her. she just adores playing (climbing)! we usually spend the bulk of our time in the kids room and if we have time, we walk through the "a walk through time in georgia" exhibit which takes you through the natural history of georgia and the planet with lifelike recreations of many of the animals, including a room full of dinosaurs, which naturally is everyone's favorite part.

this time, after playing in naturequest, we went to see the dinosaur room and then decided to check out the new exhibit called wild music. wilder is totally his papa's son, because he loooooves music. most of it was a little over his head because it was showing how animals are nature's musicians, but he loved the jamming room where he got to make a little music of his own, and he especially loved the gift shop (ha). he didn't quite understand that the instruments there were for buying, not playing, but thankfully he was fine leaving it all there to go get a treat. ;)

papa took our picture before we left. my star-wars-obsessed, 3-yr-old. how did he get so big? i treasure this photo so hard. 

big dinosaur skeletons on the bottom floor!

tiny alligators!

im not sure what he's making this face about, but there is one tree "sculpture" thing which he does not like because of the animal sounds coming from it, so maybe that's it?

my constant gatherer/sorter. what a little mini-me he is, too!

held on to this ball for dear life, after some of the older kids tried to take it from him, haha. i did not make him give it up, because sometimes you have to let them win, you know?

my sweet sweet sweet sweet boy.

a lovely lady took this photo of us and i love it so much, just wish our faces were in focus! ah! oh well. :)

my little love.

johnny's so long at the fair

on saturday we bundled up the baby and drove down to the Georgia State Fair, which moved this year (apparently, according to the Houston Chronicle which seems like an odd place to learn about the Georgia State Fair...) to a new location: the parking lot of the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton. now, if concrete and yellow parking lines under foot don't scream Fair! to you, i can't say as i recommend it. it was much more like a carnival than a fair. re: toothless, one-armed hagglers selling candy apples and the chance to win a mask for $3! and the smallest carousel i've ever seen.

but on a happier note: fried everything. and a petting (feeding) zoo!

the sun was shining. the day was cool. we rode the carousel, we won some masks, we fed some goats and we conquered many fried foods.

we didn't see any clowns. but there was one really cute Wiley Bear.

and his mama and papa

for the love of all pumpkins

as a kid i loved pumpkin pie so much i'd ask my mom to make it for me instead of cake for my birthday? i kind of ODed on it to the point that now i only like pumpkin pie around thanksgiving. sometimes i wonder if i make it just for the sake of nostalgia. but i do love pumpkin bread and pumpkin lasagna and pumpkin muffins and pumpkins cookies! pumpkin anything, it's a fact, is sure to brighten up any day. except of course if you don't like pumpkin (apparently pumpkin is not big in Russia, or at least wasn't when a friend of ours was growing up there).

and there is no better way to gear up for fall than with a saturday morning trip to a pumpkin patch! can you believe that i still have my doubts about Georgia, when there are all these fun things to do around? i mean i never went apple picking or pumpkin patching in texas, but there you have it, there is no logic to the heart.

anyhoo, we pumpkin patched and much fun was had by all. i'm still thinking about those fried raspberry pies. why not fried pumpkin pies, is what i wanted to know. but the raspberry was darn tootin' good.

okay, prepare for a million pumpkin photos: