Strawberry Patch

A good friend here in Austin invited us to go strawberry picking with her two Fridays ago.  I called her to tell her she was crazy.   But this past Friday, tax season was over which meant my mom & sister could come to keep that kid to adult ratio lower.  I mean, I'm sure Kim and I could have taken the kids and made it through the time without losing any children and maybe even come home with some strawberries.  But let's be honest.  It would not have been fun.

So with the additional help, we gathered the kids, packed some lunches and drove just under an hour to the Strawberry patch.  My mom wrangled Kyler the whole time (Bless her) and the kids had a great time with their friends wandering the strawberry patch....

They even picked a couple strawberries.  Darby was mostly interested in the flowers on the strawberry plants.

Kyler loved the process but also loved the way the strawberries squished between his fingers.  Pick, squish, put in basket.  Pick, squish, put in basket.

Carson was a trooper.

I'm not sure we got a single strawberry that was bigger than a hershey kiss.  And half of them were smushed.  The rest of them were pretty much destroyed when the kids spilled their goat food into the strawberry basket.  The goat food resembled rabbit poop and the strawberries were pretty runny since half of them were picked...and smashed... by Kyler.  So...I threw them out when we got home....

Yet another stellar mom moment.  We left the lunches we packed at home.  So the kids ate pretzels and cheezits for lunch and we picked up some 35 ingredient McDonalds chicken nuggets on the way home.  
There were also goats that the kids could feed.  Darby and Carson loved them. Kyler wanted nothing to do with them.

Love trying to get group shots of the kids.  Here are Darby and Ky with their friends Caleb and Callie.  For reference: Callie is 2 1/2 or so.  Darby turns 4 next week.  Callie's a tall 2 I suppose but mostly Darby's just still a peanut. Caleb is 4 1/2 and full of personality...if you couldn't tell...

Overall, I'd say it was a successful outing.  We made it home with all the kids, no injuries, and no huge meltdowns. With 5 kids 4 and under, that's pretty impressive.