Sunday, June 26, 2011

Pickin' Berries

This year Eileigh and I had mama/daughter time picking strawberries while Mike stayed home with a napping Selah. We met up with a couple of friends out at the farm. One of the girls brought her son Eli, who is a year or two older than Eileigh (try saying those names together five times fast). They had a great time palling around, eating strawberries and decimating as many weeds as they could possibly step on/grab/destroy. Eli also explained to Eileigh that the way to get as many strawberries as the vast number in his bucket were to just "pick really fast like I do". She kind of watched him work and then plucked the biggest one she could find out of my bucket and munched away. After about two hours the sun decided to come out and since in my hurry to get to the farm I hadn't bothered to cover either of us in sunscreen we decided to call it a day and head home. Final count: 30.5 lbs. of strawberries, little pink cheeks for Eileigh and a slight tan for myself, stained hands, faces and clothes and some priceless time spent enjoying life together.
I had to tell Mike about the huge strawberries... this one is not too shabby... but the biggest ones didn't make it home. :)




The Help

Eileigh's piles


Not only do I have a partner in crime (see: chocolate consumption) but I also happen to have a fabulous little helper... on occasion... the best help happening more of when she feels like it rather than a constant desire to clean and/or help her mama. So on this day she was happily helping me with the laundry- washcloths being her specialty. I was actually pretty impressed with how well she had folded them and caught myself as I was praising her for that. I realized that it's not so much the results I care about (e.g., evenly folded towels) but more the fact that she was willing to help me and doing it with a great attitude. So I switched gears and told her how much I appreciated her helping me. She looked quite pleased, gave me a hug and kiss and told me she loved me. How I delight in that little girl.

Helping Daddy wash the truck

Daddy's hat, boots no less than three sizes too small and her rockin' secondhand scooter that she absolutely adores