Strawberry Patch Round Two!

A while ago, we decided to take a trip to the Strawberry patch.  I took Ruthie last year and had so much fun, this time we wanted Daddy to go!!  It was a gorgeous day, so we grabbed our buckets and off we went.

Time to fill it up!

She showed Daddy what to do, pick them and eat them!

Full baskets!

 Showing her loot!  Crazy to me how clean she was this time!

Here's a progression of Ruthie Running, you can't totally get the full effect, but its still really cute.

 Any good trip to the strawberry patch ends with sharing homemade ice cream (I'll be excited when I'm not dairy free for these types of things!)

And here's what angel baby Lainie did, hung out in her stroller and played with some toys!

Its crazy to me how much things have changed in just one year, and next year I think we'll have 2 little strawberry pickers!

Christmas Tree Lighting 2011

Last year we took Ruthie, dressed as a cow, (a lot can change in one year!!)
to our towns Christmas tree lighting. We had a great time and I knew I really wanted to take both girls this year.

We planned a really fun day with Grandma and Grandpa, and our awesome friends, Chelsey, Dan and Callie. The guys spent the day out fishing, and the girls had a fun playdate.

We decided to have an oyster roast and had a great dinner of oysters, clam chowder, a delicious crab chowder Chelsey made, and scallops. It was awesome.

We thought we were late for the tree lighting, and after listening to the mayor talk to 15 minutes (after the tree was supposed to light), we were glad we weren't early. I think next year, I'm going to take my squirmy toddler up and let him hold her while he thanks everyone he's ever met :-).

Anyways, once the tree was lit, Ruthie absolutely loved it. It was really nice because it wasn't as dark and Ruthie could run around. And did. she. ever.

Remember, this post. Years ago, I said I would never put my child on a leash.

It keeps proving true. Never is the magic word.

A leash was made for me in situations like this tree lighting with a baby and an 18 month old. We could hardly keep up with Ruthie running at full speed continuously. She was wild and It was hilarious.

She was beside herself when she spotted this dog.

We snagged a few family pictures and headed home. It was a great night and I love this family tradition!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

I've been wanting to take Ruthie to a pumpkin patch for a while now and this past weekend seemed to be the perfect day for it. After her nap, we took a short drive over to a church selling pumpkins (and the worlds biggest mums)

Ruthie loved it and ran back and forth yelling Whoa the whole time

it was super cute and she is really proud of her pumpkin

Then Joel sat her in the middle of the pumpkins and she decided she only wanted to crawl on them.

We got our 4 pumpkins (we can't leave Lainey out), snagged a picture of the three of us and headed out. It was a great afternoon and next year I think we'll probably add a hayride to the mix!

Our first family Christmas Card

Here is the winner! Hope you enjoy.

Peppermint Bliss Christmas Card

Create modern Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Fun Times

Lately, we've been up to all sorts of fun things. Our town had its annual Christmas tree lighting complete with Christmas carols, free hot chocolate and coffee, and of course Santa!

We were fortunate enough to run into some friends, and Ruthie and Canaan decide to go for Easton's paci on three~!

How funny is this picture, Easton is telling Ruthie and Canaan to back away from the Paci (probably more along the lines of MOM HELP!!)


And get some cute pictures of Ruthie.

What, you don't wear a cow suit to a Christmas tree lighting?
I love our town!

The Seafood Festival

Like I mentioned earlier, Ruthie went to her first Seafood Festival this year and loved it (although you can't tell by the pictures :-). This is our best attempt at a self-taken family photo. Its tough with such a big height difference!Joel found out about this and knows how much I love a festival, so off we went.

Its all about timing. This trip was fantastic, because of timing! We left our house right when Ruthie's nap was starting, drove the almost 2 hours to the festival just in time for her to wake up and eat!

Thankfully we got there right when it opened because it was busy. Another reason why I'm thankful for Joel, this was a free event (all about it) and when we got close we saw signs that said, Parking $10. Joel automatically kept going and found us a closer than the paid lot, free spot. I would've assumed you had to pay to park since that's what the signs said. $10 saved, no thanks to me!

The seafood festival had a section of NC wineries, turtle exhibits, a boat show, free Tabasco sauce (why not?), lots of fair type food (which we avoided, we were there for seafood!), local dance teams performing and lots more, all right on the water with perfect weather!

We walked around for about an hour with Ruthie in the baby bjorn and when we got to the boat show, flipped her around so she could nap for the next hour or so. She knocked out.

We finally decided on shrimp skewers and fish tacos. The shrimp skewers were supporting the Make a Wish foundation, and the fish tacos were from Duke university. The fish tacos were delicious!

We got back to the car just in time for the next feeding and the ride home was Ruthies 2nd nap! It was great! We're already looking forward to next year and definitely recommend going to this!