Gracie!

Thank goodness for sunshine. We needed a nice day so, so badly. The husband was gracious enough to watch this kids for me this morning while I hit spin class. By the time I got home they were fed and outside running amuck. We filled up their pool and let them run around the yard nekked like little white trash babies. Ryan's tushy was a little pink tonight when we put him to bed. Toasted buns.

The initial plan was to put them down for an abbreviated nap while we got showered and dressed and then throw them in the car to finish their nap on the drive to a berry patch. That plan was thwarted when I walked downstairs to find our dishwasher pumping out water like Niagara Falls. Seven towels and a whole lot of swear words later, Joe and I couldn't get the damn dishwasher out from underneath the counter. Come to realize that there was copper piping connecting it to the damn wall. Of course there is. And it didn't matter anyway, because the culprit was a flange stopper that was accidentally left in our new garbage disposal when Joe installed it yesterday.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that we don't need to buy a new dishwasher, especially since we just had to replace our piece of turds washing machine. Nearly two hours later (way too late to stick to our original plan) we finally got the house cleaned up and came up with plan B. Another berry patch closer to home.

We got there with a little less than an hour till the farm closed, bought the kids some strawberry containers and jumped on a tractor out to the fields. Reese was horrified at being on a tractor. Hysterical. I think I still have nail marks in my collar bone. She's usually our fearless leader, so I couldn't help but laugh at her screams of horror as we hit each bump in the dirt trail. Ryan on the other hand was standing on the wooden benches laughing as the wind and farm air tousled his hair. These kids are funny.

The babies were more into eating the strawberries we were picking than picking them with us. I won't lie, I was shocked. I thought they'd love picking berries since they run around my perennial bed and rip the flowers off of all of my plants on a daily basis. I finally give them a field that they can tear through and they sit in the hay and wait to be fed. Go figure.

It was hotter than Hades out there, and despite the babies' best efforts to take advantage of the all you can eat berry buffet, we managed to fill up our quarts after about a half hour. We caught a ride back to the farm and took the kids to see the "ah-mals" before leaving. Reese is at a stage where anything with four legs and fur is a Gracie. Cows, goats, sheep, cats, the chinchilla in the cage at Petsmart. Gracie, Gracie, Gracie. And boy did she go nuts for all of the Gracie's at the farm. Girlfriend giggled her face off. But was sure not to get too close. When it comes to animals, Ryan takes after his momma (i.e. he could care less). He sat in the grass sipping on his apple cider. He did however chatter E-I-E-I-O while he sipped away happily, so apparently his Baby MacDonald DVD is making an impact :)


We ended up taking the kids out to dinner at a local, seasonal ice cream stand where they serve all the things that are bad for you. The kids got hot dogs and their first taste of ketchup. Don't ask me why they've never had ketchup before, but they haven't. We're not big condiment people and since they've really only eaten french fries and other things that go with ketchup twice in their lives, there hasn't really been an opportunity.

Miss Reese dipped the same french fry into her ketchup container eight hundred and sixty seven times. I'm pretty sure she ate a cup of ketchup for dinner. More power to her. Ryan is much more sophisticated. He used a fork to eat his cup of ketchup. And what goes better with ketchup than soft serve ice cream with sprinkles? Nothing. So the babies also had their first ice cream tonight. And they were not fans. They did, however, enjoy flinging it with their spoons. I guess we'll stick to strawberries from now on.