Workin' those strawberry fields (2 years later)

So almost exactly 2 years ago, my dear friend Rachael and I took our girls strawberry picking and I blogged all about it here. I can't get over how little they were. Today, we went to the strawberry fields again and now she has 3 girls and I've got little Noah that just adores his big sister.

Strawberry picking 2013

strawberry picking 2015

The actual strawberry picking session only lasted half an hour. It was way colder than we expected and crazy windy so it wasn't long before 3 out of the 5 kids starting exercising their vocal abilities to indicate their displeasure with the environmental status. However, Sienna and Natallie had a great time and took the job of "hunting" strawberries really seriously.

Here is each kid with their first strawberry.

Noah, on the other hand, wanted to help too but didn't get the concept of carefully plucking the strawberry off...instead he would see a juicy berry and then squeeze the living daylights out of the strawberry until he practically had strawberry jam in his hands. Good effort my son.

 And then after the winds picked up, Noah just clung to me like a koala and I finished filling up his bucket with him on my hip. Oh and in case anyone was wanting ideas for insane quadricep workouts, try holding a whiny and wriggly 25 pound sack of potatoes - I mean my lovely baby -on your hip, bend down low enough for him to reach the ground level strawberry and then stand back up to put the strawberry in the bucket. And then do it 55 times.
 But eventually we filled two little sand pail buckets and happily paid our $7 for our hard-worked loot.

Coming back to the fields just makes me realize how fast Natallie is growing up! Two years ago, I was why I was stooping down in the hot sun picking strawberries when I was 7 months pregnant. I was envisioning headlines of "Crazy mother gives birth in Strawberry Patch". And two years ago, Natallie was much like her Hulk-like brother, pulverizing strawberries in her little fists and now she filled the entire bucket with red, ripe berries all by herself.  I know its a small thing but its a proud mom moment.

how much 2 years makes!!! from little chubby toddler to my beautiful little girl

Run for Gwatermala.

 Natallie woke up Saturday morning excited for "the great race"! She picked up her pink Frozen T-shirt, blue shorts and her Frozen running shoes convinced that the outfit would make her faster.

The kids were all so excited to have official race bibs. Natallie wanted to be number 1 but quickly got over that number 1 wasn't available so settled for 4260. Haha.

We cheered for the Brian (superstar dad) who ran 5K with his twins and was the first male to finish the race!

 

 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, GO! Natallie ran through the starting line and kept a great pace the entire 1K with me running with Noah in the stroller. At one point, she said she needed to hold my hand but as soon as she saw the finish line, she got the adrenaline burst she needed to finish strong all by herself.

 The girls all give eachother a victory cheer! Your little legs sure do go fast!

 Natallie was clearly feeling the post-run hype because she wanted to run the toddler 50K dash too. She was so keen on running that she did it back and forth about 10 times.

 Noah ran part of his race and then I ran ahead to try to get a picture of him and then he started to cry and refused to run.

 And then Noah and Natallie stole the finish line balloons and ran away with them.

 Then auntie Rainbee told her she could keep the finish line balloons and she was thrilled.

 But maybe not as thrilled as getting to meet Anna and Elsa! She is wearing her Frozen shirt and Frozen shoes in the picture (you know you're Frozen-obsessed when......)

Thank you to everyone who supported Natallie and Noah, together they raised $400! That gives 4 people access to clean water for LIFE. I believe the grand total raised was over $71,000! That is incredible. So glad that Natallie got to participate in an event that is going to change hundreds of lives for the better!