Apple Picking

In an attempt to enjoy whatever “warm” weather there is left to this year (remember, I’m trying to be more positive?), Josh and I have been going a bit ‘pick your own’ crazy.

We did strawberry picking last week, which was fun.

So I thought we should try a different crop, as we now have about five pounds of frozen strawberries sitting in our freezer.

Little did I know just how many options there are for picking your own fruits and vegetables in England.

Apparently there are numerous farms and/or garden centres in our area which each have numerous pick your own crops.

I’ve been wanting to make some homemade applesauce, so this week, Josh and I went and tried our hand at picking apples.

It was fun but I’m not sure how easy it was for Josh.

Poor guy. All that effort and I don’t think that apple was even ripe yet.

Don’t tell him, will you? He was so pleased with himself.

We ended up over in the raspberries eventually. I think Josh found those much easier to pick.

And of course, much easier to eat.

Strawberry Picking

On Monday, Josh and I tried something new.

We went strawberry picking.

Having grown up in California, right in the middle of loads of strawberry fields, it seemed a bit odd that strawberries are still in season this late in September. I think the season is over in June in California.

Either way, a friend had told me that the strawberries were at their best now, so Josh and I decided to give it a try.

We had a blast.

It probably helped that it was sunny and we were the only people there, which meant Josh had full run of all the fields.

Well, him and the tractors.

There were lots of other fields full of other fruit and vegetables, including corn, or sweetcorn as it’s called here in the UK.

We made our way to the strawberry field and set about picking some strawberries.

It was really fun to show Josh how to pick strawberries.

He got to be very good at determining whether a strawberry was “not red yet” or “too old,” by the time we were done.

He also got very good at tasting the strawberries when I wasn’t looking.

I guess picking strawberries is hungry work.

An End of Summer Science Museum Adventure

Fall is in the air.

I decided Josh and I should have one more adventure out (while we are still able to wear shorts) to celebrate the end of summer; and so last week we headed off to the Science Museum.

I’d been bringing Josh here since he was barely able to walk, but always bypassed all the galleries and just headed straight for the children’s play area in the basement.

As he’s a bit older now, we decided to walk around and explore a bit.

Josh was in heaven.

Planes, trains and cars everywhere you looked.

I felt pretty silly for not having realised all this was there long before.

I mean, it’s pretty hard to miss a big rocket, right?

But Josh really enjoyed exploring and looking at all the old cars on display.

He also liked the space section, though not as much as the cars.

I suppose a command module just isn’t quite as flashy.

I’m sure he’ll come around eventually though.

The museum had loads of fun things for kids also, including a little play area dedicated to patterns.

Josh especially enjoyed the big fish display on the floor which reminded me very much of an iPad app Tara downloaded for her cats to play with.

All the kids were gathered around tapping the water and trying to catch the fish.

It was pretty cute.

After we left the museum, we walked down to the Natural History Museum, which is right next door.

I was curious to see if Josh was half as interested in dinosaurs as he is in cars.

We didn’t spend much time there though; the animatronic tyrannosaurus rex wasn’t a big hit with Josh, as you can see from the terrified look on his face.

Maybe I need to start with the fossils next time.

Little Book of ABCs

I am so excited with the results of this project, I just had to share.

I had seen the idea for alphabet books on pinterest, specifically here, at Modern Parents Messy Kids.

Basically, the idea is to use photos of items from around your house to make a personalised photo book for your child.

It sounded like a wonderful idea and I thought with the amount of photos I take of Josh, it would be a breeze.

I was wrong.

It took several days to go through all my photos, desperately searching for any photo which might have some tenuous link to a letter of the alphabet.

On several occasions, I gave up and just took new photos. I remember walking around the house on one occasion mumbling “Q? What the heck starts with Q?!”

I eventually found something.

Who knew living in England would come in so handy?

Josh adores the book though, which makes it all so worth while! When we read it out, I will say “A is for…” to which he shouts out “animals!” with a big grin on his face.

Here are a few of my favourite pages.

And this is Josh’s favourite page.

Last night, we never got any further than this page, as Josh went into immense detail about what colour jelly beans he wanted to eat and refused to let me turn the page, content to just stare and talk about jelly beans all night.

That’s my boy!

Lazy Weekends and Curiously Easy Recipes

It was such a nice, relaxing weekend here.

The weather has been warm and sunny and most of our Saturday was spent just lying on a picnic blanket in the grass, staring up at a blue sky.
I’ve really been trying to get back into writing every day, not on this blog, but rather on other bits and pieces I’ve been working on. And, for the most part, I have been and am really happy about that.

I know it means I haven’t been putting up as many photos of Josh lately, to which Grandma says she feels out of touch and I am sorry for that. But as she pointed out, it’s only 11 weeks till we get to see her in person. Just enough time for her to brush up on all the Cars names, though she already seem to have them all down!

I assure you, I will still keep updating the blog, though probably only once a week or so. Hope that’s ok.

In the meantime, to go with my relaxing weekend, I wanted to share an easy recipe for Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats.

I was looking for a quick and easy treat to make this weekend and stumbled upon these.

Making these took all of about five minutes and only required three ingredients.

5 cups of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, or as it’s called here in the UK, Curiously Cinnamon;

4 cups mini marshmallows; and

5 tablespoons of butter, or 70 grams for those in the UK.

All you do is melt the butter in a large pan on the stove.

When it has melted, add the marshmallows.

Stir them on a low/medium heat until they have melted and are a smooth consistency.

Then grab your cereal.

Isn’t that the funniest name for a cereal? Maybe because in my head I say it in a British accent.

Turn off the heat and pour them into the pan, stirring to coat the cereal.

Once they’re coated, pour them into a pan and let them set till they are ready to eat. I actually ended up putting ours in the refrigerator for an hour or so before we cut them up and they turned out just fine.

Better than fine.

They were curiously delicious.

Another Round

Two golf posts in a row?

I know.

We just had so much fun with Josh the other week at the golf club, we decided to see if he could handle a bit more.

He can.

Tim had a late start at work, so we were all up early today and on the golf course.

Well, not a real golf course, but a little one with only 9 holes.

Still though, it’s quite a walk for a two year old and even the couple playing behind us commented “he’s doing well keeping up. He’ll sleep well tonight!” in their chirpy British accents.

I didn’t bring my camera, so as usual, I just used my iPhone to capture of few shots of Josh and Tim playing.

Didn’t I say last week it would be the first of many?

I knew it…

Either way, Josh seemed to enjoy it just as much as the last time, even if he did take the golf ball and dribble it around like a football for a while.

He also insisted that his two friends come along for the ride.

In Daddy’s golf bag of course.