Saturday
Saturday morning began with a family walk before Rhett’s morning nap. Though I still wouldn’t say we have Rhett on a totally predictable schedule time-wise, he is now on a two-naps-a-day schedule and that feels really nice. For a while there, we were trying to squeeze in an extra cat nap here and there and it was just kind of exhausting (for all of us!) so knowing we can usually count on two semi-solid naps from him every day feels like a victory.
Oh! And guess what!? Rhett is officially EIGHT months old!!
He turned 8 months old last Thursday and seems to want to celebrate this milestone by inch-worming all over our house. It’s the cutest little semi-crawl and man oh man is that little baby determined to get wherever Sadie is at the moment! Between his big brothers and Sadie, he doesn’t’ want to be left out of anything and if he’s awake these days, he’s moving and groovin’.
After our morning walk and Rhett’s naptime, we had our big adventure of the day on the agenda! We had plans to meet up with our good friends Kevin and Chandra and their two boys at Patterson Farms for strawberry picking!
(Getting 5 boys 5 and under in one pic is no small feat, I’m tellin’ ya.)
We kicked off our time on the farm in the barn with our animal-loving crew.
The boys all loved feeding the animals and checking out the baby chicks and baby goats that were all kinds of adorable.
We’ve been to Patterson Farms a bunch of times over the years and love it so much because it’s a true kid paradise. They have a large play area where the kids can run around as well as animals, seasonal activities (pumpkins, strawberries, etc.), mini train rides, a hay ride in the fall and more. It was Kevin and Chandra’s first time visiting and we had no problem spending several hours running all over the place with our friends and the boys.
As for the strawberries, Ryan and I said we majorly lucked out by snagging tickets on the first day of strawberry picking season because the berries were plentiful and so sweet and juicy! We filled a large bucket and I’m pretty sure the boys ate their bodyweight in berries as they picked.
Ryan and I were kicking ourselves on our way home for not freezing the ice cream bowl from our ice cream maker so we could make fresh strawberry ice cream that evening! (FYI, our ice cream maker is on major sale — 58% off! — on Amazon right now!) We still managed to make the most of strawberry haul and threw together a delicious strawberry shortcake bar to enjoy with my father-in-law, Greg, when he joined us that evening as we all watched the Kentucky Derby together.
I promise there is some shortcake under there somewhere. I’m just an ice cream + homemade whipped cream lover through and through, so they took center stage in my bowl.
Sunday
Sunday kicked off with a semi-chill morning (“semi” because, well, #kids) and we hung out close to home before Rhett’s morning nap. As he snoozed away, the big kids played in the yard, Ryan did some yard work and I streamed a Burn Boot Camp workout in the driveway.
Rhett’s nap lasted around 75 minutes and once he was up and fed, Chase and Ryder hopped on their bikes and we rode to the marina near our house to check on the turtles and fish.
I’m not sure how well you can see it in the above picture, but to the left of Ryder’s helmet you can see one of our turtle friends. They love to sun themselves in this spot and we’ve seen up to 15 chillin’ there at one time! A while back, a friendly man told Ryan and the boys that you can tell spring is here when the turtles come back out to play so now whenever we see them, the boys say, “It’s spring!!!”
Rhett was just happy to have some grass + blanket time. He’s an outside lover like his big brothers, that’s for sure!
I threw together lunch for everyone once we arrived back home as Ryan headed off to his afternoon soccer game. I kept the big kids home with me and managed to get Ryder and Rhett to nap at the same time (woohoo!) so while Chase had some solo quiet time, I worked for about an hour. Once I put my computer away, Chase and I then had some one-on-one time together before the little dudes were up. He helped me make strawberry recipe #2 — Smitten Kitchen’s Summer Strawberry Cake.
A bunch of you recommended this one to me via Instagram Stories and it was a HUGE winner!!!
Ryan arrived home from his game in the late afternoon and then Greg joined us again for dinner as we grilled out and enjoyed the sunshine!
And now Monday is upon us and it’s time to get this weekday rollin’. I hope you all have a great day and, as always, thanks for making my blog a part of it!
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Hi! What did you use for your shortcake? Planning to make strawberry shortcake this week!
Hi! I followed this recipe –> https://www.littlesweetbaker.com/strawberry-shortcake-recipe/ Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it (which is why I didn’t link to it in my post — I just didn’t want to talk negatively about another blogger) but THIS is the recipe I want to try next –> https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11823-strawberry-shortcake
Hi Julie, it looks like you and the boys had a blast this past weekend! When I look at your life, I see my life in the future because I’m about to have my 3rd boy this June. Really looking forward to all the boy things all the time 🙂 I noticed in the last picture that Chase was using a child’s knife. My boys are 4 and 2.5 and I was wondering if you thought it would work well for their ages to “help” in the kitchen? Thank you!
Hi! Yes!! Both of our boys love “helping” with them and they’re under $10 on Amazon –> https://amzn.to/3vXMhNN
So much fun! That’s great that Rhett has gone down to 2 naps- I am trying that right now with my 7 month old and it’s hit or miss!
My Rhett is 7.5 months and is down to two naps and its WONDERFUL! He also LOVES sleeping on his tummy and now naps 1.5/2.5 hr naps, when he used to sleep 30 dreaded minutes! Blessed be. Now to get his night sleep better, phew.
Hi Julie! Just letting you know I tried the NY Times recipe last night and it was great. I made a few tweaks — the dough made more shortcakes than the recipe called for, at least for me, and I used half of the sugar called for with the strawberries and still felt like I could have used less with how syrupy they were. I also added a bit more cream into the shortcake mixture to bring it all together. Thanks for the recommendation!