So, yesterday was my mother's 65th birthday (I think I'm safe sharing her age here since she told everyone yesterday that she was so glad to be turning 65) and my grandfather's 85th birthday - yep, they share the same birthday.  My parents drove over to my grandfather's farm with my niece Miley. The girls and I were supposed to meet them over there yesterday morning.  But, when we woke up, it was storming and very windy.  So we waited a little while to head out....which gave Abigail the opportunity to change clothes 52 times, Gracie the opportunity to completely trash her bedroom, and me the opportunity to scream at them for undoing everything I had accomplished.  I was exasperated...the kind of exasperation that makes me call Steve and say, "I suck at this...I should never have become a stay at home mom."  Two years ago, I think these phone calls probably worried Steve a bit....now, we're far enough out that he knows that days like this happen every now and again and that when I call him, I'm just blowing off steam so I won't kill our children.  Yesterday, though, I was frazzled enough that I considered just staying home and calling my grandfather and offering up our apologies for missing the birthday party - okay I don't think I'd really have done that, because that would have been mean on a hundred different levels to a lot of different people.  But reason finally settled in when I realized that if I stayed home with them, I'd be far more likely to go completely insane than if I took them somewhere and let them run off steam.  And what better place to fun off steam than a farm full of cows and blueberries?  So, I loaded them up and we headed on over to the farm.  And I am so glad that we did.  The drive over was peppered with traffic delays because of accidents, but the time on the open road gave all three of us time to calm down.  And when we got there, Miley was so excited to see us! 

 The girls played inside for a few minutes and then we went outside and played with some bubbles.  That lasted for about two minutes before the three of them dumped the entire bottle of bubbles on the porch  and started complaining that they were hot.  So, back inside they went.  I grabbed my camera and  wandered outside to take a few pictures of the apple tree in the front yard. The birds had had their way with most of the apples on the tree, leaving large holes in the top of them.    The holes were evidently just the opening that wasps needed to get inside and nibble out the yummy fruit 

(Can I tell you how much I love my macro lens?  I swear I use it more for taking pictures of bugs than just about anything else...I'm not sure what that says about me?  )

Once I went back inside, Great-Grandaddy asked the girls if they wanted to go outside and pick an apple of the tree.  You've never seen three girls jump up faster!



It's been a while since Abigail has seen my grandfather, so she was a bit shy around him at first.  But the thought of picking her own apple brought her out of her shell fairly quickly!

And let me tell you, those apples were delicious!  Here's Miley enjoying hers!

Then, it was time to load up in the golf cart and go down to the barn and see the cows.  We rode through the pasture in front of the barn and saw some of the new babies.  This one was enjoying a little "mommy's milk"  and the one on the right seemed like it was a bit angry at our interruption.















The girls kept asking if they could get out of the cart and pet the cows.  My grandfather convinced them that if we waited until we got to the barn, he had three up there that would be less skittish.  So, we when pulled up to the barn, the girls jumped out and started squealing with excitement.  (Here's something that I've noticed...calves that are normally not skittish become  a little jumpy when presented with three shrieking preschoolers).  Gracie was determined though....after giving the cow  some hay and making sweet little clucking sounds at it, the cow finally came close enough for her to pet  (okay, I'm pretty sure this was a boy but I don't know and there is no generic term for bovine animals, so I'm just calling it a cow because I'm not sure if it was a bull or  steer....when my grandfather started explaining about castration, I kind of zoned out....so for the purpose of this entry, I'm calling everything a cow....just call me a city girl...or more accurately, a beach girl...there aren't too many cows wandering around the sand here)

Miley got in on the petting action, too.  Abigail was a little timid.  She'd stand up on the fence, but if one came a bit too close to her, she'd jump down.
















After the girls got their fill of petting (or more accurately, once the cows had their fill of being petted), we headed back up to the house.  And my grandfather parked the cart, hopped out and pulled a blue tarp off of what ended up being one of the highlights of the day.  A go-cart!  Yep, you read that right....a go-cart.  My grandfather bought himself a go-cart for his 85th birthday.  He says he's going to buy a helicopter for his 100th!  Now, I was fairly sure I knew what was gonna happen.  Miley was going to ride first and love every minute of it (I was pretty safe in this bet since she was there two weeks ago and rode it then ).  Gracie was going to say she wanted to ride, get in for about five seconds and then start screaming to get out.  And Abigail was going to flat out refuse to even sit in the seat.  After all, she really doesn't like to do things without me.  She is my baby and doesn't like to go off without me too often. 

I had to somewhat rethink what I thought was going to happen, though, when I went  inside to change my lens and came back out just as Abigail was hopping into the golf cart with my grandfather.  As they sped off to get some gas from the shed for the go-cart, she turned around and waved and hollered, "Bye Mommy!" 

In a million years, I never would have guessed that she'd have done that.  So, I started to wonder if I was wrong about the go-cart.  Well, I was...boy, was I!  All three of the girls took turns and all three girls spent their entire riding time smiling, laughing and waving.

 

After 45 minutes or so of riding, we finally went back inside for Happy Birthday singing and angel's food cakes.    Can I tell you how much I love this picture? I used my 50mm 1.4 lens, so I didn't have to use the flash, just the candlelight for ambient light - the catchlights in Miley's eyes are actually the reflection of the candles. 

And, of course, the girls had to get in on the candle-blowing-out action....
































You might think that was the end of our day...well, we still had one more adventure to go.  Blueberry picking!  We loaded up again in the golf carts (two this time...Abigail and I took one; GreatGrandaddy, Gracie & Miley in the other).  This may have been my personal favorite part of the day....I had a blast driving Abigail around in the golf cart.   We giggled and sang and the wind was picking up from the impending storm...it was just a lot of fun.    Here's a shot of Miley sitting the golf cart across from us while picked up the buckets for the blueberries.

Here's a picture of the little basket I made to hold my mother's birthday present.  I think it turned out really cute!  The template is by Lauren Meader at Papertrey Ink and the cherry paper is by Amy Sumrall at The Digichick.



And here's a picture of the girls heading out into the blueberries....

 
Now, if you're expecting lots of cute pictures of the girls picking berries and popping them in their mouths, well, you're going to be disappointed.  I climbed out of the cart and grabbed one of the buckets like the girls have.  My grandfather looked at me and shook his head and handed me a bucket like his which was strung with a rope to put over your shoulder so the bucket hangs at your side (kind of like a sideways camera strap).  And he says, "This way you can use both hands for picking.  You're gonna have to put that camera down..."  So I did.  And I don't have pictures of the girls picking berries.  But, I do have a gallon of fresh blueberries sitting on my kitchen counter this morning (1/2 picked by me, 1/2 by my grandfather).  I'd say that was a good tradeoff!

I know this post has ended up incredibly long, so if you've made it this far, thank you for sludging through it.  I'm really trying to do better about documenting our daily life!