Really this post should be titled "A Month with Lilianna". We've known Liz and her daughter Lili for awhile now, through the baby wearing group we belong too. Jules has always been drawn to little Lili, often making her cry by attacking her with kisses and chasing her down when he was crawling and she was already walking. At a recent meet up I discovered Liz's love for Ghent, and our common link of husbands in the Navy. Joey is gone until the fall, and she and Lili were leaving at the end of the first week in June for the summer in Chicago so we decided to pack in as much fun as we could before they left. This meant endless days of plans, ideas, running around, day trips, BBQs on the front porch, etc.
These are a few pictures of our trip up to Mattawoman Creek Farms, a local CSA that had an open farm day. This is where I got my first 3 tomato plants, my basil, and my pepper plants. The kids had a ton of fun running free in the fields, and we finished up with a picnic before heading back home.
We spend many of the hot days of summer outside here at the new house, this often leads to impromptu sprinkler and hose play. There are a couple of spots for excellent puddle jumping out front that everyone seems to love.
One of the big things we wanted to do before Liz and Lili was go strawberry picking so we could try our hand at canning. We gathered supplies, picked some dates, and drove out to Suffolk with the babies and some friends and their babies to pick our own. The kids nearly ate their weight in berries and all ended the day covered in the drippy juice of such fresh and ripe berries.
Snack time before hand to gather their strength.
Stella
Lili
Note the face here!
After all that hard work the babies were starving!
Photo Op
Canning is messy.
But turned out pretty awesome!
Lili doesn't like to nap so much, but she does love to help.
Relaxing while the Mama's clean up.
We decided to take a day trip up to Richmond to check out the Children's Museum. Jules and Lili had a freaking blast - we could have easily spent 2 days there without getting to everything. It's not a really big museum, but it's jam packed with activities inside and out. I can't wait to get back up there again soon.
Playing mechanic.
Working at the grocery store.
Driving the ambulance. This was by far Julians favorite part, I could barely pry him away to let other have turns and every time he caught a glimpse of it he would race off to climb back inside.
Giant sandbox out back complete with a little guys dream - diggers!
I came across a flyer at a park/farm up in Hampton about a tractor festival that was coming up, and on a whim we decided to pack up and go. We drove up to Williamsburg, took the car on a ferry across the way to Surry, VA, and headed into the state park that was hosting a festival. This was right at the beginning peak of Julians interest in vehicles, and his head nearly exploded when we walked into a field of hundreds of them, watched tractor pulls, and visited with a bunch of animals.
They decided that they wanted to drive.
Watching the tractor pull.
Petting the animals at the mini petting zoo that was set up.
