Berry Pickin'

We love to go to the park. It is one of the things I truly appreciate about raising my kids in the city: there is an endless supply of parks and playgrounds to visit, and they are usually well-populated with potential playmates and mommy friends. We visit playgrounds several times a week.

Unfortunately, they do sometimes get boring. So, in an effort to mix things up a little and keep my kiddos from getting bored (my main priority this summer), I'm trying to do at least one other fun outing each week. This week, we went berry pickin'.

Hilariously, my friend Megan and I decided to join our families together on this endeavor. She also has 3 boys ages 4 and under. We both knew it was a crazy idea, but decided that it sounded better than staying home in our sweats with our kids in front of Wiggles videos all day.

So, off we went, camera in hand. There is a great farm in Gaithersburg, MD, and their strawberries were just barely still in season.

Unfortunately, I only managed 3 photos while at the farm! No surprise, really, but I had higher hopes. It was hectic, but we all had a great time and actually brought back quite a few berries, plus some other locally-grown goodies from the farm's little store.

One of the reasons I thought this would be such a fun event was because as far as my kids are concerned, our food comes from a store. I think Sam understood the concept of food growing on plants, but as soon as I bent down and showed Levi a ripe berry under a leaf he shouted, "staw-be!" For the next two hours I heard "mo' staw-be" many, many times. I think I even heard it in my sleep that night.

After filling our buckets and a picnic lunch, we were ready to head home. Once there, we reveled in our bounty.

(This is Levi with a mouthful.)

The kids sampled many of the berries.

I made sure to secure several for later, of course. Unfortunately the berries were a little on the tart side. Nothing a little sugar couldn't help. ;)

Sam helped me make shortcake.

Dinner included enchilada casserole, sweet corn from the farm, and generous helpings of strawberry shortcake. Yummmm.

We'll be back for blueberries next week!