Berries, pumpkins, corn and peaches....

.....was part of our fun weekend.

My SIL told me about pickyourown.org you find a farm near you to pick your own berries! Some of my most favorite things are raspberries and blackberries! I was excited to pick some. We were watching a friend of my family for the week and so it gave me more reason to think of ideas to get out and do something. The raspberries were a little more time consuming to pick, but the blackberries were pretty easy, and filled up the buckets quicker because of their massiveness. =) I found some pretty plump ones, it made me happy. Already I was having visions of chocolate ice cream with my blackberries drenched in chocolate sauce.. uhhh, Yum! Maria was a great help....especially with helping watching the kids (the whole week she was here actually....incredible help!) Mikkie was in the stroller right up against the bushes, pickin berries and eating to her hearts content. Oh man, I really wish I would have gotten a picture before I cleaned her up...you should have seen her! She definitely looked like she thoroughly enjoyed her snackies. I mean really....how did she get it all in her ear?!? Gotta help her learn again, that food goes in the MOUTH. ;) The sleeping pix is what happened on our ride home. Zonked out. Faith was snoring...def. pooped. it's so tiring feeding the doggy all your own snacks that mommy specially packed for you. ;)

Friday night we went to the Pumpkin Fest and corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. We started this tradition 2 years ago. Actually...I've been going before we were even married with my fam, except it used to be the "Scarecrow festival" and it was at Gardner Historic Village. Personally, I liked it better there. But we still had a lotta, lotta fun this time. Maria was beyond stoked to go there, she was literally on the countdown all day. It was cute to see her get all excited. Faith wanted to "bonce" on tramp, go on "side" (slide) and go have "fon" (fun). If I asked her if she wanted to do something, she'd ask " Fon?" Yup...gonna be way fun! Even if it wasn't, it was going to be. It didn't really phase Mikkie as fun, but she like being outside and looking at all the neat things there. We saw the carved pumpkins for the first time...they were incredible!! Wow, the detail and intricate designs on some of those were supa cool! Wish mine turned out like that.

The corn maze started out ok until Faith started whining and whining. I was pretty anxious to get out of the maze by then. Tim told us of his method which was to stay to the right wall, always take the right and it will get you to the end. We had the paper with clues on it, but those never seem to work for me, so we tried his method. I started to doubt him and said If this does work, then I'll never doubt him again. It worked, we made it out. So...I need to practice this 'no doubt' thing. =)

And Saturday, we spent the afternoon canning peaches that were picked from Maria's tree. It was our first time canning by ourselves. I've had many, many years of helping my mom but all I did was peel the peaches. So, I was zoomin at that, but nervous about the rest. Fortunately they turned out great! We only finished one batch after we realized we needed to use new lids. So, besides that setback, it went pretty good. These are going to be very much enjoyed through the winter! Next project, canned pears.