Blueberry picking

We made our annual blueberry-picking trip last Saturday. Every year I consider changing it up by choosing a different farm, but every year we decide to go with what works. I suppose there is something to family traditions and it's fun to know the kids are old enough to remember and look forward to it. It is only once a year, after all.
We started out at The Blueberry Patch in Sawyer, Michigan, and picked for about 3 hours (I think that included trips to the restroom, diaper changes, sunscreen application, and some snack eating). After paying for our (approx.) 15 lbs. of berries, we drove a mile over to Warren Dunes State Park for a picnic lunch. My husband and the kids made the trek up the giant sand dune while I hung with the baby and our guest on the beach. We enjoyed the sand and the warmish lake water until the sun set. Almost exactly like we did last year.
People have asked me how we choose farms for picking and I predictably look here every time we pick something (I've used it for picking in IL, WI, MI, and TX). Checking your local paper archives may be good, too.

A day in Lincoln Park

Chicago really is wonderful in the summer. We've been enjoying the strangely comfortable, though on the verge of cool, weather with multiple trips to Lincoln Park. My kids are loving it. Admittedly, we're spending so much time there because we happen to have a free parking pass through the end of the month, so I can't say if our visits will be as frequent come August. But I have to put in a little plug for this area in case you live near here or plan to visit.
Here are some excellent things to do in Lincoln Park that all happen to be FREE and within walking distance of each other.

Green City Market-Wonderful farmers' market with a wide variety of delicious foods to sample, purchase raw to carry home or cooked for lunch on the spot; live music; chef demonstrations and more. Open every Wednesday and Saturday year round. Check out the chefs' recipes section on their website. Yum!

Lincoln Park Zoo-Some very nice exhibits (especially the newest African animal habitats), but we tend to be most attracted to the landscape and the children's climbing structure.

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool-I can't believe we just found this lovely little urban oasis. Where have we been? Prairie-style architecture (nice shaded pavilion for resting, snacking, drawing, etc.) and landscape design, water lily-covered pond, waterfall, and plant and tree lined stone paths with nooks for pond and wildlife gazing. Also seems to be a popular spot for wedding portraits.

Lincoln Park Conservatory-An especially nice escape when the weather turns cool, but beautiful any time of year. Unusual and beautiful varieties of trees, plants, and flowers housed in an 1800s Victorian glass house.

My advice: Head out pretty early in the morning and hit the market first. Snack on some of their offerings (the lamb-mushroom and strawberry-rhubarb hand pies and blueberry mint sorbet were amazing, as were the million varieties of cheese), make your way through the zoo and conservatory, stopping to picnic on the zoo grounds or gardens outside, then take a relaxing stroll through the lily pool, making sure to dip your feet in the cool water at the fall. Be sure to bring your shopping bag and camera!

Breakfast alfresco

Lucky for us as parents that children are satisfied and sometimes absolutely thrilled with activities that are easy to throw together, don't cost any money or involve a car trip, and allow us to relax for a minute in the great outdoors. I suppose the key is often that the activity just happens to be out of the ordinary with regard to our normal routine, but I'd like to think that some of these activities would always be exciting. Like eating breakfast out of doors.
We don't happen to have a yard or even a porch (and also experience winter for about 9 months of the year), so breakfast outside is novel. We thoroughly enjoyed having ours on my parents' back porch.
Besides being enthralled by watching the sprinklers as they popped up hissing and spraying, feeling the warmth of the sun before it rose to scorching, and identifying the hungry birds that pecked at the feeders, the kids remained intrigued by the occasional airplane flying overhead.
I loved being outside with happy children and was thankful for eager hands to set the table.

By the way, we are home now, but I'll probably be recalling our Texas adventures for a while. We were way too busy to record our activities while there!

Summer fruit

Ahhh...don't you love the fruit of summer? I'm making my plans for strawberry-picking, blueberry-picking and any other picking we can manage. I just learned that Michigan is the number one producer of tart cherries in the US. Hmm. Wonder what we can do with that. For those of you in California and anywhere else with access, go pick cherries!

I have our belt tutorial ready to go, but am running short on computer time. I hope to post it tomorrow. And the Craft Social was awesome! We are expecting to gather and post pics soon.

Oh, I forgot to mention when I posted this earlier-I love my cherry pitter. I got this one a couple years ago after using a similar one at my parents'. It works great and I love the shield feature. It really makes a difference. Keeps the squirts off your shirts. For those of you not into the gadgets, I've seen several different methods for pitting cherries without it-paperclips, nails, pastry bag tips, pencils, bobby pins. Most of these methods are messy but frugal.

Nature themed morning

Today at our homeschool co-op, the preschoolers participated in nature themed activities. It was a gorgeous day to do so.
We began with God's story of creation from the Bible then moved outside to do some exploring and collecting. I prepared a scavenger box for each child in advance, knowing we wouldn't have time for the children to design their own. I labeled ours "Color by nature scavenger box." You can find these boxes described in multiple places online, but the basic idea is: paint your egg cups with a variety of colors and place your (small) found object in its corresponding cup.
We were able to find several dandelions and tried painting with them-actually pressing and rubbing the flower part onto the paper. They do make a nice yellow color on white paper. We used many of the other items for gluing onto collages.
The kids used tempera to paint some large smooth stones I'd picked up at the beach last summer. I love seeing the pretty rock my son painted so I'll probably pull out the rest of our collection and have my daughter paint some.
The kids were duly impressed, and slightly confused, by the dirt cake we had for our snack. This has been around for so long, but it's always a treat to serve it to a child who has never seen it before. I layered it in a lined pot and stuck a flower in to do the dessert justice. We also sliced apricots, apples, pears, and an orange and compared the seeds from each fruit.
It was a nice morning.

Could tulips be any more beautiful?

Simple answer...No!
I don't garden and I don't know much about flowers, but I am certain of my undying love for tulips. Red, of course, but I'd take a tulip in any color. I haven't made the neighborhood rounds with my camera in hand yet, but we had the good fortune of discovering some abandoned tulips (unfortunate for someone else) on the ground next to our back door and brought them in. Absolutely lovely.

Unrelated: Given the response to those creepy spaghetti dogs of my last post, I think I may have to consider starting a blog dedicated to disgusting, yet edible, food art. Not really. But I do think I could dedicate a small amount of time to finding some other silly food activities. Or maybe I'll just have friends send me the links and I'll do the projects. That's more like it.

Sledding, finally

Despite having an ample amount of snow, we haven't been sledding much this winter. While we enjoy sledding, we much prefer to do it when the kids enjoy it. Meaning, it needs to be above 20 or 30 degrees. We finally got our chance this past weekend, with a whopping 35 degrees, and went twice. Sledding sure is fun.
I have to say, our baby had that Randy thing going (from A Christmas story) the way she was bundled up. She couldn't walk up the hill by herself, nor could I carry her up without slipping, so she took several rides up flat on her back while I pulled the sled. Very entertaining to watch.

How do you like them apples?

We went apple-picking this week. Always fun. We've been to a number of different orchards around here and have never been disappointed. This year we tried Royal Oak Farms and found that we really like Liberty apples. I'm looking forward to cooking and will definitely share recipes as I find good ones. What do you do with your apples?

The Zoo

I really enjoy visiting our local zoo, the Lincoln Park Zoo. I am a bit disappointed, though, when we discover (what feels like) the majority of the animals taking indoor breaks instead of strutting their stuff outside. I get tired of passing habitat after habitat explaining, "Well, I guess that one's inside for dinner," or "The sign says he had to go to the doctor" or whatever. I've even been inclined to think that some of the animals listed don't even exist. Within the zoo, I mean. But despite that, I've come to love the beauty of the zoo grounds and the enthusiasm evident in my children.
We usually go in the afternoon and spend two hours. This is a good amount of time to catch a portion of the zoo (which now always includes a visit to the fantastic tree-climbing structure in the Children's Zoo), leaving a different section to explore during our next visit. Honestly, I find the zoo a welcome change from following my kids around the playground. Much more interesting for me while physical and educational for my kids.
Above, you see two of my current zoo favorites: the beavers and the lovely fall foliage. Below, you see one of my kids' favorites: the animal statues (Those belong to the Brookfield Zoo, but their fondness for animal statues extends to all zoos). Really, this is why it doesn't matter if any of the animals are out or not. The only other thing that excites them nearly as much as the statues is the animal poop. If they only had beautifully landscaped pooping-animal-statue parks we wouldn't really even need the zoo.

Camping for a day

I love camping. Funny, because we didn't camp as a family when I was growing up, but I've since discovered it's one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend. We haven't had many opportunities to camp in recent years, or maybe just haven't seized the opportunities, but are still excited about introducing our children to the joys of living for a weekend in the great outdoors.
Last time we camped, my oldest was 16 months old and I was 7 months pregnant suffering from sharp back pain. At that time, I came up with some criteria for our camping eligibility: must be less than 7 months pregnant, must have immobile lap baby or walking baby (I wasn't keen on the idea of keeping a crawling baby out of danger at the campsite. I think that's why we didn't camp the summer I wasn't pregnant.), and must camp with other people (unless children are old enough to help out or at least be free from danger for a few minutes). That's it.
But this summer I was hit hard with the camping bug. I was hesitant to break my second rule, however, so to test the waters, we spent a day camping with some friends. This turned out to be loads of fun (minus, of course, some setbacks like getting the day started much later than planned and having a child fall and scream in alleged pain for an hour or two--yes, same child that fell at the grocery store).
First, it was a beautiful weekend. We began our adventure with a picnic when we arrived at the state park. We walked for an up-close view of the river then hit the creek. I've mentioned before that I love wading. This time was no exception, just different. With a baby strapped to you and a small child or two pulling on your hands, your sense of fallibility is a lot keener (or your sense of fall-ability, whatever you want to call that). Still, I loved pointing out the crawdads, minnows, clam shells, slippery moss-covered rocks, etc. just as I loved my dad pointing them out to me and my sister. And, of course, I loved the feel of the clear, cool water over my feet and up my to my knees. We walked, waded, and climbed until the creek joined the river then paused for snacks at the river's edge.
Several times this summer, my daughter and I have played "campfire" at the playground and have eaten imaginary s'mores, so I was looking forward to seeing her reaction to the real thing. After our wading trip and some time spent at the playground, we set up "camp" and prepared our fire. The kids loved playing in the tent, although, without being staked down it became a game to bounce around inside causing the tent to roll over. No matter.
We roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, instructed the kids in the art of building the perfect s'more, played around in the moonlight (gorgeous full moon), stargazed a bit and packed up. At the end of the day, I figured the only things we lacked in making this an actual camping trip was sleeping and eating breakfast, which I felt pretty confident we could handle. Wow, I had even broken rule number two.
Unfortunately, it's too late for us to squeeze in a camping trip this summer, but I'm going to plan early next year (Can someone hold me accountable to that?) and wholeheartedly recommend to anyone dragging their feet about family camping that you try a day camping adventure to get your feet wet (actual wading, optional).
In case you're wondering, here are the criteria I went with for choosing a park: accessible water for playing, picnic space, playground, fire pit, drive under 2 hours, no park fees, convenient bathrooms, space for free play and crawling. Additional criteria could be: stroller-accessible trails, fishing, swimming, canoeing, etc. So many options!
Happy belated camping!

P.S. Pardon me for being so wordy this week or thank me for the brief nap you may have taken while attempting to read my blog.

Still summer

My kids are not school-aged yet so we're not buying supplies at Target or buying fall clothes or even getting on the bus for school. But with so many around us doing so, it's hard not to feel a bit of impending doom that means winter is around the corner. (Maybe that sounds dramatic, but come on! Last winter was rough!) I intend to savor summer as long as possible here in Chicago where it feels so brief to begin with.
Today, I just thought I'd remember wading through the fountains in the warm sun at Millenium Park while wishing it wouldn't look silly for me to join those kids under the water spout.

Parking lots and puddles

Thank goodness children are fascinated with the outdoors. Don't you love summer? I rarely need to plan activities for these guys (and be certain, I don't) as long as we can go outside and explore. Here are a million pictures of today's adventure.

Walking up and down stairs and slopes. Jumping from the same.

Sitting in out of the ordinary places.

Scaring strange bugs.

Splashing in puddles left by yesterday's storms. This is actually a favorite activity of ours. We have figured out that the poorly cared for parking lots at the local elementary and high schools are prime locations for puddle-splashing. The kids come home as wet as if they'd been wading at the beach. It provides a wide open area for them to run around playing newly invented games, too. I never knew parking lots were so much fun.

Finding treasures. So glad it's a plastic bottle cap and not the condom I saw floating in the puddle. (Oops, did I just strike myself out of the family-friendly blog category?)

Picnicking on the steps. (Look at those lovely sit-upons turned placemats!)

Watching the patient baby nibbling on bread. She did get to roll through the puddles and was significantly splashed by her siblings.
Hope you're having fun outdoors!

Blueberries, blueberries

We went blueberry picking in Michigan on Saturday and came home with 16 lbs. of berries. Each year we've gone, I think we've picked roughly between 15-25 lbs. so I was satisfied. Our favorite way to pick blueberries is to make a day-long adventure out of it. We drive a couple hours to the farm in Michigan, pick blueberries, then drive a mile to a nearby state park to picnic and play at the lake the rest of the afternoon or evening. It's a great day. The beaches are so nice on the Michigan side of the lake. Our kids enjoyed all of it (notice our fearless beach baby above) except the cleaning up to come home part.
Now, what do I do with all those berries when we get home? Even though I've read before that you should freeze your berries as they are, I like to wash mine first. I rinse them and spread them ALL out on our table to dry. (I've done it both ways and only saw advantage in this method). This gives me a chance to pick out the little sticks and green or shriveled fruits that made their way into the buckets. When they dry, I pack most of them into quart-size freezer bags. When I use them throughout the year, I don't have to worry about rinsing them (I hate what that does to frozen fruit) or picking out the yucky bits. As for the remaining berries, I stick those in the fridge for immediate consumption and for use in unhealthy baked goods. Such as...blueberry pie and pound cake. These are two treats that I tend to make each time because I just like them that much. Then I always try to make something new. I'm not sure what that will be this year, but I better hurry! (Let me know if you have really tasty ways to use fresh blueberries.)


This pie is made with the same recipe as our strawberry pie, you just substitute the type of fruit and the flavor/color of jello. I tend not to like baked blueberry pies and cobblers as much as I like this cold one. I don't know why. I like blueberries cooked in sauces and cakes.
Like this pound cake. We usually eat this plain, but I've also made it for a 4th of July picnic and served it with mashed strawberries and whipped cream.

Blueberry Pound Cake
1 c butter, softened
2 c sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 c flour, divided
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 pint blueberries ( 2 to 2 1/2 cups)

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Sift 2 cups flour with baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture and beat. Dredge blueberries in remaining 1 cup flour. Fold berries and flour into batter. Pour into a buttered and sugared bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
(I have no idea where this recipe came from.)

For pick-your-own fruit farms, see the strawberry pie recipe post linked to above.
If you live near us (Chicago), we can personally recommend these locations: Tammen Treeberry Farm (in Wilmington, IL) and The Blueberry Patch (in Sawyer, MI).

Go here if you live in Chicago

I didn't really intend to have many posts on "where we went today..." but it's hard to help that in the summer. So much of our time is spent at the playground and not so much on projects that if we happen to go somewhere interesting it feels worth posting. (Unlike my parents, we don't have a wading pool to entice us to experiment with outdoor art activities. )
So, anyway, this is my recommendation for the North Park Village Nature Center in Chicago. So green and pretty, shady, spotted with not-so-wildlife wandering around, ponds crowded with lily pads and other water life, picnic tables, walking paths, playground, etc. Makes for a great afternoon of play, exploration and a feeling of being out of the city. I think we'll go often this summer.
Here's an example of the not-so-wildlife. City deer. (Today we saw about 5 of these, last time I saw 15.)

Hanging out in the parking lot.

Nursing in public. (I hear she was scolded by offended passersby later.)