***Darden Adventures***: My Strawberry Girl and Redhead Boy

I'm cheating a little with this post because I haven't taken any new pictures - these are from a few weekends ago.

Mara and I had a date to go strawberry picking! I don't know which one of us was more excited.

The farm had a sandbox and seesaws, so naturally, she had to try them out.

Empty bucket, ready for picking!

And this was her showing me a bug or a rotten berry or something to that nature. I wonder where she gets her wild face expressions from???

And I had to explain to her that we get to taste a few of the berries as we pick - that's part of the fun!

She did have a good time, even though she looks so serious. I had to juggle the bucket (it got too heavy), my camera, my phone, and my keys. So she was pretty patient, considering I was snapping with two cameras!

We finally called it quits when our bucket got to this level. And I think it was only $7 total?

And then back to the sand!

Did you know that the ridged potato chips are "striped chips!" ? Yep, according to our daughter, they have stripes.

First time on a see saw, I think! I got my squats in for the year since she barely weighs anything!

Strawberry heads.

I don't remember what the boys were doing when we drove out to the strawberry patch.

Probably getting dirty, making messes, checking out the motorcycles in the shed, and pooping.

Isaac is ALMOST walking. He's taken 1 step at home by himself and one at school by himself.

He knows how to put toys onto a ramp/slide thing and watch them go down (to be honest, he chucks the toy penguin with the roller butt onto the slide and miraculously it sticks and slides. I'm not sure how he does it). He can put a toy frog in a tube and push the button to get it out... although most the time he grunts in our direction and points at it so Mom, Dad, or Mara stab the button to eject the frog. I think it's a game he plays to see who will do his bidding.

He loves loves loves to point at things. He's quite the effective communicator when it comes to pointing. We are trying to put words to objects, and signs if I remember/know them. He can sign "fish," "please," "binky," "dog" and uhhh that's probably about it for now. He speaks all kinds of babble, and occasionally you can make out mama or dada or Mara.

His favorite song is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and he'll do the rain and wash the spider out signs with me. He loves throwing balls and chasing them and throwing them. He gets a kick out of standing on his own and grins and giggles about it while flailing his arms around. He climbs up the slides at daycare and slides back down on his belly.

He will point and shift his weight in my arms and turn and point when we're outside until I take him to the shed. Once he's in there, he will point and shift and roll and point until I either 1) put him into the toy race car, or 2) put him on one of the motorcycles within reach of the handlebars so he can yell like a boy and bounce up and down.

What.on.earth.am.i.in.for.

He typically plays copilot, or navigator, or co-driver, when his sister is behind the wheel. He usually is privileged enough to be taken for a 2 lap spin around the yard (Mom/Dad bribing big sister with "if you want Daddy to take you on a motorcycle ride you need to take your brother for a race car ride...") before she tires of being on the slow speed setting and asks for him to be removed. It breaks my heart how excited he is about riding with her and he only can have quick rides... but I know it's only a matter of a few months before he will be capable of driving on his own and then there will be no looking back. We had allowed them to be on the fast speed setting for awhile, and then we had a stop-too-quickly, while Isaac wasn't holding on and was leaning forward and head-planted into the front end of the car. Soooo, slow mode it is.