Blueberry Picking

Taking Jaden and Cody blueberry picking at 4-years-old was significantly easier than it was at 3-years-old last summer! For one thing, our family was still getting used to the Texas humidity, so the boys' energy fizzled out very quickly last year. Also, this year, Jaden and Cody were able to carry their own buckets (at least most of the time) and pick berries that were a little more ripe. Win-win! We were happy that the newest Texas residents, Grammy and Papa, were able to join us this year, too. The original Texas family, Matt and Kim's crew, sure have started a fun tradition!

A few pre-berry picking photos:

These three 4-year-olds started out pretty eager to fill their buckets with berries. They didn't even stop to sample that many at the beginning.

Finding good berry-picking bushes was a little challenging at first.

We still found enough to start filling our buckets, though!

I was proud of all that my boys could gather independently this year-- without any bucket-holding help too!

Eventually, Matt and Jonathan discovered some rows that were much more densely covered with berries. Our picking became a lot more productive after that!

Papa found some of the greatest angles for berry-picking! He wasn't deterred by the dense bushes! :)

After a good 45 minutes or so of picking, Cody, Jaden and Ryan became less interested in the berry gathering and much more interested in the concept of running from row to row, ducking under all the bushes. Kim and I spent a good portion of our time following after these 3, making sure they didn't get lost! It took all of our focus to keep up with them at times, so we didn't capture any pictures of their blueberry mad-dashes. :)

The day was still a hot and sticky one, so we took a couple breaks for water and snacks.

Isaiah and Nathan

Ryan, Cody, Jaden

We enjoyed our day of blueberry picking and the delicious blueberry pancakes we had for lunch that afternoon, too! Yum!