Strawberry Day!

Towards the end of last week, the kids decided they wanted to come up with some themed day ideas of their own.  Dylan was quick to say she wanted to have a Strawberry Shortcake day (which we changed  to a Strawberry day). Jackson wanted a Pirate day, and since his next birthday party will be Jake & the Neverland Pirate themed, I thought we could get in some good practice for that and maybe even sneak in a few decor ideas that we can use later on for his party.  Zaine decided he wanted to have an Indiana Jones day complete with watching one of the movies (and just skipping past the scary parts).

So needless to say, I spent the last few days searching on Pinterest, trying to find some fun ideas at little to no cost, which just so happens to be one of my favorite things to do.

So today, our theme was "Strawberry Day"

Although our day started a bit later than originally planned, due to the thunderstorms, our first bit of business after running a few errands, was to head out to a local strawberry patch. I went online and found two that seemed pretty popular with friends of mine, Skelly's Farm Market & Susie's Garden Patch. We ended up trying out Skelly's Farm Market today but we'll also try to stop out at Susie's sometime this summer and check it out.

Once we arrived I was a bit nervous that we wouldn't get to head out into the fields because of all of the rain we received, but luckily we weren't disappointed. Since we couldn't drive our car out into the fields because of the rain, they personally drove my 3 kids and I out to the field in their "Gator". Needless to say this was probably the highlight of the day for them, especially Jackson, the look on his face was priceless! He really felt like we were on safari and he was bouncing in the back of a jeep. In fact on the way back he decided he was Indiana Jones and made a gun out of his hands and shot all of the bad guys.

The kids did a great job only picking from our designated row and we all had a really great time.  After picking a couple of pounds worth of strawberries, we headed back to the play area.  My kids loved the wooden pirate ship, castle and barn.  They played for a good bit before coming inside to enjoy some fresh, homemade strawberry donuts.  And I won't lie, I could have ate an entire dozen all by myself! They were so delicious! 

 Overall it was a great experience for them and for me. And even if you just came out to pick strawberries, they are only around $1.50 for a pound. We picked a couple of pounds and the total price came to just over $3.00, not bad for a fun day out!

We will definitely be heading back out there again soon. And I'm looking forward to seeing all they have to offer during the fall!

Once we got back home, we were quick to make some Homemade Strawberry Ice cream.  Last year I tried a very simple recipe from KevinandAmanda.com and made her chocolate chip version. Crossing my fingers that this version will turn out equally yummy :)

Dylan and I made a few different strawberry (and other fruit inspired) cards that we will be sending out this week.  Dylan loved creating our own Scratch 'n' Sniff cards! You can find an easy tutorial here.

Then Zaine and I made Strawberry Applesauce (recipe found here). He was such a helper and really felt proud of himself once it was all done. It turned out incredibly yummy! We will definitely be making a bigger batch soon!

And that pretty much sums up "Strawberry Day" We were going to pick up a book that my daughter had read a few years ago, The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey Woods.. but we never made it out to the library with all the other running we did today. 

Tomorrow's theme will be Jake & the Neverland Pirates (picked by Jackson), should be a good time!