Birthday & Berries

  Destiny just turned 11 this month. ELEVENNNNNNNNN.

{Pretend there is a nice photo here}

 I haven’t done her 11 year photo session yet, but soooon! 🙂

Here is our Little Miss, just a few weeks old…. 

And what about us?  Two babies with their first baby.  Dale is 22 in that photo, I am 21. 

How is my baby ELEVEN?!  A preteen?

When did this happen?

  We don’t typically do large birthday parties for our kids beyond the first 2 years, but each child gets to be King or Queen of the day, meaning NO chores.  They also get to pick where we eat, what they want for dessert etc.  They are given 3 gifts from us, just like at Christmas time.

  Well, this year, since our kitchen is all ripped up, we went out to eat.  The kids get so excited when we eat out, they totally think it’s a treat, as they very well should.  Eating out is a privilege, one that can be quickly lost by fussing kids and disrespectful antics.

  She picked Olive Garden.  Right away Tylan says, “Woah, this place is FANCY!”

Avery leans over during the meal, “Can I wipe my mouth on this napkin? It’s like a shirt!”  Bahahaha!  They used great manners and I was so proud of their behavior.

Then it was time to head back to Nana’s to open gifts and eat pie.

Destiny wanted to take some pics with Nana’s cell.

Gift time:

Yes, those are happy tears.  She has wanted a “real” bow and arrow for a LONG time!

Of course we had to head out back and try it out.  Thank you to Nana, for using her cell to capture every photo in this post.  I totally failed to grab my camera! WHAT was I thinking!? 

Such a fun day!

  It’s been a wet summer, hallelujah! After several years of drought, we are so thankful to see lush green trees, a producing garden and BLACKBERRIES again!  Finally, after 3 long summers of barely any at all.  We picked 5 gallon day one, and 4 gallon day two.

  Blackberries are covered in small prickly thorns, and let me tell you, they grab ya! Even through pants and long sleeves.

We decided this year, each and every kid was old enough to get on long sleeves and pants, and head out to the blackberry patch with us.  They were great little berry pickers! And they were rewarded with ice cream and berries for dessert.

Picnic style lunch break

Then back to work!

The rewards are oh-so sweet! 

~T

Our favorite Cobbler recipe found here: