Riley's Farm

Visiting Riley's Farm for raspberry picking has become a tradition for my kids. The past 3 Summers we've made a special trip out there to Oak Glen to pick Raspberries. I love Riley's Farm, it is such a charming place. I've never been up there during Apple picking season, apparently it is their prime time. I'm hoping we can go up sometime in October and do pumpkins too!

We had a great time today with Heather and her kids, Kristy and her kids, Grammy, Chris and Amanda. We brought a picnic lunch and then spent an hour picking the berries. They were just delicious and I loved snacking on them while I picked. The kids just love it and I think its fun for them to get outside and see how food grows.

Libby was an angel and sat in her snugli the entire time. She didn't make a peep til it was about time to go. She fell asleep right away in the car ride home and I couldn't resist taking this picture. I love the way my kids look sleeping!

When we got home I washed all the berries and made 2 full batches of Freezer Jam. I am so excited to have such a stock pile of jam. I hope it lasts all year but something tells me it won't!

We had a great day and I am happy to have some yummy jam! I think it's kinda neat that when my kids are at school eating their PB&J Sandwiches they can know that they picked the berries to make the jam.

Swimming at Aunt Sharons

The kids love swimming! We had a fun day yesterday at my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bob's pool. I grew up swimming here when it was really hot. The kids loved the slide and had a blast. Libby loves her new flotation device too!

Lowe's build and grow program

While we were at Lowe's recently the kids noticed a sign about their Build and Grow program and they desperately wanted to sign up, so we did. They have a Saturday project for kids twice a month and it's free! The kids got an apron and goggles to keep and got to build a little UFO complete with a blinking red light! What a fun way to start our Saturday yesterday. We're definitely going to need to do it again, until Soccer starts at least.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Libby!

A couple weeks ago Libby turned 6 months old. I still can't believe my newborn baby is 6 months old. Well I guess she's not a newborn baby but she'll always be my baby no matter how old she gets. She is at such an adorable age where she can really interact with us. Just a week ago she started sitting independently which is sooooo nice because there's a whole bunch of toys she can now play with sitting up and its just so much for fun to have her taking part in our world. She likes to sit on the carpet while the kids play and play right along with them. (Now if I could just get her to stay this way for a while, the crawling can come as late as she wants)

When I took her to the Dr. she weighed 17 lbs, 7.5 oz. Much bigger than Maddie was at her age. Her height is 26.25 inches. She was around 70th percentile for height and 80th for weight.

I've got to get a mirror that she can play in front of. She just loves to look at herself. Who can blame her, she's so stinkin cute!

Libby's now sitting in a high chair which makes it so much nicer for meals out with the family!

And yes Libby has finally started eating solids and LOVES it! She is such a good eater. I'm sure she'll be eating table food in no time!

Libby is still the apple of Maddie's eye. I never tire of hearing Maddie play with her Sister and talk about her. She constantly talks about the joys of having Libby in her life and how they are BFF's and when she is 16 and Libby is 8 she's going to take her to the Mall.
Priceless... I keep wondering how long it will last especially with the two of them sharing a room!

We {Heart} Chick-fil-a

We are huge fans of Chick-fil-a and just love their chicken nuggets and diet Lemonade. Their waffle fries are yummy too! Last year I discovered Cow appreciation day and went with Carter and Sawyer and enjoyed some free food. This year we really went all out and the whole family got dressed up like cows (yes even Chris, sorry he wouldn't let me take a picture to prove it!) It was well worth it because we all got to choose any combo meal we wanted, even the kids got to have adult meals. (except Libby she dressed up but didn't get food since she can't have that kind of food yet) Of course it was all free because we dressed like cows. We got $40 worth of food free! We had a great time and plan to do it again next year!

Sawyer plays T-ball!

After watching his siblings play soccer and Carter play baseball and basketball, Sawyer finally got his turn to shine in our city pee-wee T-ball league. It was pretty funny to watch a bunch of 3 year-olds play, it was obvious it was more for the parents in some cases! Nonetheless Sawyer had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed getting a snack after every game and of course didn't share with his Big bro and sis most of the time (payback!). He was a pretty good batter and could usually hit the ball pretty hard. He didn't like fielding and didn't like running either. I think he was just too excited he'd hit the ball he didn't think to run. He had a great coach who was super into it which made it very fun. He even did a pizza party after their final game and gave all the kids awards. Sawyer slept with his trophy for a few nights after.

So excited for his pizza party, he felt pretty cool.

Coach John and Sawyer

Mmm... Rootbeer

Cousin Fun

As I mentioned in my previous post, Heather and her kids are here for a month. Our kids are having so much fun together, they can hardly stand to be apart. We've had our fair share of sleepovers and fun times. Here are a few things we've done so far.

We took the kids to Fontana Park. My kids have been there a couple of times and think it is pretty neat. They don't have the traditional playground equipment, instead they have big animals, pirate ships, hills and all sorts of things to play on. They had fun posing for pictures too!

We also took the kids to the beach a couple weeks ago. This Summer we've had some strange weather. It didn't get above 90 til the second week of July. The day we went to beach it was very cold so it was a little bit of a bummer but we still had fun finding shells and playing in the sand.

I had a mystery shop at Disneyland Hotel at the Steakhouse 55 for breakfast. We love their breakfast and we got to take Heather and her kids, Mom and Chris and Amanda with us. The kids enjoyed getting hot chocolates and ordering whatever they want! They played at Downtown Disney while I went into the park to finish the rest of my shops. (our passes don't work in July so we couldn't all go.)

They have an adorable movie theater room playing Mickey Mouse classics. It kept the kids entertained and Amanda was so sweet to take them all in there once they finished their food.

We've also gone to the pool a couple of times since the cousins have been here. We had a great time and even brought Pizza to the pool!

Last Saturday we all went to the movie theater to see "Despicable Me". The kids loved it and I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn't heard much about it so wasn't expecting much and ended up really liking it. I'd highly recommend it, super cute!

Here are a few pictures just hanging out at Grandma's house last Sunday. Grammy gave Libby a bath in the kitchen sink which she loves to do with all the babies. We didn't have a change of clothes so she wore Collin's t-shirt. He didn't seem to mind. Libby is really popular amongst the Herrera cousins. They all want to hold her and play with her. I think they want a baby sister or brother!