Berry Picking - finally!!!

Third time was a charm!

We finally got go on a berry picking play date yesterday.

It was a ton of fun and I have to admit I enjoyed it just as much as Beanie, since I had never been either.  We went with the Mom with the two girls who we had planned the date with. She invited another Mom with a 3 year old, so it was three adults with four girls.

I called in the morning to confirm the filed was open and then again about 2pm just to make sure. I did not want a repeat of getting there and then disappointing the kids.

We picked up the kids from pre-school at 3pm and headed out. It was hot, but they were in hats and sunblock. I took the extra precaution of changing Beanie to a long sleeve shirt in the car and wore one myself. I hate getting hot sun on my skin.

We picked up the bucket for strawberries and a small container for raspberries and set off on our way down the strawberry fields.

A farmer guy told us here to pick and the house rules - no running and jumping over the plants.

Then off we went...

We decided to walk to the back end of the row to get more berries...but of course the kids started picking them up as soon as they saw them which was fine too. The berries were not plenty, but enough to make it fun to look for a  red ripe one. I noticed that the biggest ones were nestled in the middle of the plants.

Beanie was a champ! She was on a mission and ended up with having the most of all four children.   I had told her not to eat them and she complied. Then I felt she should have the fun of eating one straight off the plant, so I let her and tried one myself.

OMG - they were so sweet and awesome.

So of course then she wanted to eat more and had a mini tantrum - I told her she could eat a couple more and that was it.  Her face and chin was all pink as the juice ran down..so cute!

We then moved to the raspberry bushes. That was okay. There were not too many ripe ones, most of the really mushy ripe ones were on the ground which the kids seemed to enjoy picking up.


We spent about 25-30 minutes in total at the farme. Luckily for us the place closed at 4pm - I say luckily since the kids had no choice but to leave so there was no drama.

I enjoyed chatting with the other two Moms and one of them suggested a lunch (without kids). I jumped at the opportunity - I really need to make some friends and this is the best place to start. We are planning it for next week.

When we came home Beanie was ready to eat the strawberries. At night she could barely sleep with exceitement, telling me how much "fun" it was. We will go out again with the group in a couple of weeks when the blueberries come out!

Now I have a plethora of berries at home.

Today I made Beanie a special treat for after school  snack - honey grahams with Reddi whip and sliced strawberries.

She said "wow" when she saw it and enjoyed it so much.

It is amazing how happy I feel planning a special dish for her to eat and seeing her enjoying it so much.