Blue Berry patch part 2

Saturday morning, we went for round two on the blue berry patch. Gunnar had work to do, so it was just the girls. Maria had really wanted to go with us on Thursday, but hadn't been able to make it up, so we went again. You can never have too many blue berries, right? And don't worry, they aren't going to waste. :)

In the morning as we were getting ready to go one of us said something about Gunnar not coming with us. Grace piped up and said:

"Gunnar going blueberry picking with his sister-in-law!! Embarrassing! Embarrassing! Hello!?!"

Maria and I thought it was hilarious. I am not sure why that would be embarrasing exactly, and we explained to Grace that Gunnar used to lots of stuff with his sister-in-law before we lived so far away. Nontheless, it kept us laughing all morning.

Anyways, back to the blue berry patch. Grace is getting pretty good at this!

This last picture is one of my very favorite pictures ever. Grace was so excited to have Maria here, she kept wanting to hug and kiss her. She is such an affectionant little girl and Tia is one of her very favorite people!

Maria's visit

Gunnar went to Anaheim on Friday night to go to a baseball game with some guys from church, so Maria came up to spend the night with Grace and I. We had a wonderful time as always, and it was great to spend time with her before she heads off to Spain for a missions trip this summer.

Seeing as we had a bounty of blue berries, we decided to try our hand at blue berry pie. The blue berry part was delicious, but something was off with our pie pastry, so it wasn't as good as we had hoped. Oh well, live and learn, right? Grace loves cooking and so she made a little pie of her own. She had such a blast making it (and getting flour all over herself), it was super cute.

Filling it with blue berries.Ready to go in the oven!
Finished pies!!
After all that blue berry consumption, Maria needed a good teeth brushing, and who better to help her out than Grace, right? I am not sure Maria agreed, but Grace thought it was a great idea.

Orange you glad I didn't say Banana?

The orange tree in our front yard has been producing oranges, and they are super juicy and delicious. There are also a bunch of people from our church with orange trees so we have had our fare share of citrus lately.

Last night I bought a orange juicer at Target, and Grace and I tried it out this morning. The oranges are so juicy Grace can squeeze them easily. She loved squeezing them and I loved drinking the juice, so we made a great team!

Berry Delicious

A member of our church invited us over to pick blue berries on his property. Grace and I love blue berries and were so excited. It was as much fun as I expected, possibly more, as blue berry bushes don't have stickers and you don't get dirty doing it. Well, unless you get board when your dad is talking to the host, like Grace did, and sit on the ground and throw dirt on your lap. But dirt on clothes is pretty much an every day occurrence at our house, so I hardly noticed. :)

Grace and Gunnar worked on a bag together. When we got there Grace had gum in her mouth and so she was doing a good job of picking, not eating the berries. A little while into it, however, she lost the gum, and from then on more berries made it mouth than the bag. :)

In case you are wondering what blue berries look like in the wild, now you know. This was actually a pretty bad example, because it looks like that front berry has met up with a bird. Unfortunately, it is the only one I took a picture of. You get the basic idea, nontheless.Some of these berries were seriously huge! Gunnar's wedding band, isn't thin, and as you can see, the berry was way bigger.
Grace and I held up one of the two bags that we got. That would be my 30 week (or 7.5 month) belly there.
I love my girl!!
Here is a look at our plunder. I am going to attempt to make a blue berry pie, so we will see how that goes. I have never had enough blue berries to try it before!
They are as good as they look!

Rain, Rain, go away...

Actually, we love the rain. It so seldom comes, that it is always a treat. Even better than rain is hail, and we were fortunate to have both for a brief period the other day. Gunnar and Grace ran outside to enjoy the hail.

Baby Care

When Elena came up a while back, Grace was so excited to feed Elena her bottle.

"It is exciting when a child can be a mother" she said.

Name Writting Progression

Grace has been working on learning to write her name. She does quite well, if I do say so myself. At first, her R looked kinda like a P, and her letter's struggled to remember which side was up. Here is an example of one of her early attempts.

In the next phase, her G and R were greatly improved, and although she always would write the letters in the correct order, she didn't always place them in a left to right sequence. See? (Sorry, this picture is a mirror image, so the letter's are backwards from what they looked like on the paper-the others pictures, however are just the way she wrote them).

And finally, yesterday she came up and handed me this:

I do apologize for the horrible picture quality, but I think you can see the general idea.

She writes cards and notes to people constantly. I think it is just another extension of her super social, verbal, extroverted side.

She knows how to write a couple words on her own. Like Mom: (it is on the envelope, and the card)
And Papa: (spelled Paapa-but she is three, so I will call it close enough)

One of her other very favorite words to write is "Love." (or in this case OLVE) Underneath that, she was wrote Elena (that is who the card was for.) She said the extra "B" was for baby.
Here is another Love. When she writes "Love" she always has a heart nearby.Lastly, one of her little people. I think this was supposed to be Tia. :) They are so cute, I never get tired of finding them around the house.