Strawberries!!!

Thursday morning our family went to pick strawberries! Ryan took a few hours off in the morning to accompany us and help with the kids as I wasn't sure how Will would do. So, the kids donned their froggy boots (after all the rain on Wednesday) and we headed out a little after 7:30 so we could be there when they opened! Kailyn was pretty excited to go berry picking, but has done it before. On the other hand, Will has never experienced anything like this and I was sure I would end up chasing him down the rows instead of picking anything. To our surprise, Will loved helping to pick the berries and Kailyn asked every time she picked one, "is this a good one?" The berries were gorgeous and in about an hour we were finished picking approximately 24 quarts of strawberries!!! But, it only took Will about 30 minutes to decide he had enough picking and wanted to eat one. I turned to find him biting into a berry, with juice dripping down his shirt and chin. I asked him "who told you, you could eat a strawberry?" and he looked at me in complete seriousness and said "ME!" Ryan and I just looked at each other and tried not to laugh:) Of course then Kailyn needed to eat a few too!A cute brother/sister shot before we started picking. Will was hungry so he scarfed down a pop tart while we waited to get started.

Before we started Ryan showed the kids the kinds of berries to pick and we still got the question from Kailyn every time:)

Once my bowl was full, I started to help Kailyn with hers.

Will was content to just stand there and talk or sing while he watched everyone else!

Here's our bounty:) I think I still have about 6 quarts to put up after making 3 small, 6 medium and 2 large jars of jam as well as 23 cups of strawberries with sugar for shortcake and 2 strawberry pies!

Here's Kailyn eating a yummy berry and in the background Will is looking at the big tractor that he asked if he could climb - please! He saw it the minute we drove in and has been really into tractors lately, so naturally he wanted to ride it:)