iPhone Rewind: Vacation Edition

We just got back from San Diego and we had a great time!  And I could write for days about all of the things we did, but I thought I'd just do one quick iPhone rewind of a glimpse of some of the pictures I took.

Cooper was all ready for his first flight!

Paw Patrol Headphones, a paci, and Daniel Tiger on the iPad made flying a breeze.

Our first full day in San Diego we hiked at Torrey Pines.

Cooper loved hiking with his cousins!

A group photo at the top

Unfortunately Cooper lost his motivation along the trail and just wanted to play in the sand.  It took a long time to coax him back to walking, but we finally made it to the end.

And then we found the beach!  We let the kids play a little and Cooper was so excited about the ocean.

Monday we checked out some museums.  The Fleet Science Center and the Natural History museum were in the morning and both were awesome.

We spent the afternoon at the USS Midway Museum per the recommendation of some friends and it was really neat.  Cooper loved all the mannequins and cutouts of pilots.

All the rules went out the window for vacation eating... Cooper was double fisting his donuts for breakfast one morning.

Tuesday we took this sweet crew to the San Diego zoo.  There is so much to see and do and we got through about half of it, but we had a great time!

Giraffes are Cooper's favorite.  And his cousins and Aunt loved that when you ask Cooper what a giraffe says his response is "Oh Gerald, you're so weird" from the book Giraffes Can't Dance.  They asked him this over and over again all week and Cooper happily performed and laughed with them.

Last stop at the zoo was a trip on the Skyfari tram.  Cooper loved it.

And we had to get a picture in our matching shirts.  My mom asked me to make shirts for everyone and after some trial and error I think they turned out well.

That night my mom watched the kids and we went out for David's birthday.  Vacation date night was perfect.

Wednesday we went to the aquarium in the morning.  Cooper didn't have much interest in the fish, but loved this water table with his cousins.

Wednesday was also the only day Cooper got a nap at the house-- every other day he just napped in the car and got short naps between places, but we planned to spend Wednesday afternoon at the house so he could have some downtime.  Our house had this pool and a great view in the yard.  It was pretty cold for swimming (in the 60s all week) but that didn't really stop the kids from trying it!  Cooper pretty much just hung out outside the pool watching his cousins.

Thursday was LEGOLAND!  This was Cooper's first amusement park ride-- a boat around looking at the all the fairy tales made of legos.

Cooper took a very short stroller nap with my mom while all the rest of us rode a roller coaster.  We spent the afternoon at the Legoland water park and it was really fun-- there was so much for Cooper to do and he had a blast!

Friday was our last full day in San Diego so we headed to the beach.  Cooper loved chasing the waves and letting them chase him.

And digging in the sand was another favorite.

That night David went to a San Diego Padres game with my brother and nephew.  He said it was a great night to be out at the ballpark.

On the flight home.  We were all vacation tired!  Cooper slept a little on the plane and then enjoyed some more shows in the iPad.

It was a fun week!  There is so much to see and do in San Diego.  We were on the go most of the time and it was so much fun.  Cooper's favorite part was a week with his cousins around all the time.  He would wake up in the morning saying "hi cousins" over and over in his bed until we got him up.  Such sweet memories with family!

Ham Orchards

Well Cooper had so much fun blueberry picking, that we decided to go blackberry picking this week too!  We had been to Ham Orchards a few years back with some friends and I've been wanting to take Cooper but we hadn't yet.  So when I saw that their blackberry patch would be open another couple of weeks I asked David if he wanted to go with us and he said he did.  So we put it on our calendar for Saturday morning since it's our last free weekend before we're out of town for a couple of weekends.

We stopped and got breakfast at Chick-fil-A in Forney on our way out to the orchards in Terrell.  The drive is a little less than an hour from our apartment, but I used to be in Terrell or Forney almost every day for work, so it was a little weird being back out that direction after not being there for so long.

We grabbed a bucket for picking and headed to the blackberry patch.  Before we started picking, David and Cooper had a talk about how we weren't going to eat any of the blackberries until we paid for them.

And then we got to work picking!  He did a really good job finding the ripe ones and leaving the red ones on the bushes.

And he started off strong with putting them in the bucket instead of eating them.

After a few rounds of him stuffing them in his mouth, he and David took a little time out to talk about it again.

And then he was back to picking.  It took lots of reminders and even several times of us physically guiding his hand to put the berry in the bucket instead of his mouth, but he really did a good job not eating too many until we could pay for them.

We were out picking near another family and I saw them grabbing a selfie so I offered to take a picture for them and they returned the favor.  Love these boys! 

After a little while Cooper was much more excited to run free in the rows of bushes.  We got there right as they opened so it wasn't too crowded so he had lots of space to run.

He was a happy boy out in the fields!  But once he heard there was ice cream back at the store he was ready to call it a day.

We managed to get a pretty good haul with David and I both picking berries as we went too!  And it was a pretty good price for all of the blackberries we walked away with.

We headed back to their store and paid for our blackberries.  Then we got some homemade ice cream.  David got strawberry and I got peach and they were both really good.  We shared with Cooper which he liked, but it wasn't long before he took over my cup and spoon...

The many faces of a happy ice cream eating toddler!

After our ice cream we went back in to the store to buy some salsas and other goodies.  Since it was starting to get crowded I put Cooper in the carrier on my back to help keep him contained and he was happy as could be.  They have a ton of salsas, jams, honey, produce, fudge, pies, cobblers, dressings, etc. etc. etc.  We got a few salsas and jams and called it a day.  They serve BBQ for lunch but we would have had to wait a while before it was ready so we decided to head home and eat on the way home instead.

It was a fun morning with our little family!  I think this might become an annual tradition for us because there is just so much to do out there, it definitely feels worth the drive.

The Blueberry Farm

Today we had a fun adventure to pick blueberries at Blase Family Farm.  This is the same place where we went to the pumpkin patch in the Fall and every June they have a pick your own blueberry patch.  I had wanted to take Cooper somewhere to pick berries (since they are his favorite food ever) so when I saw that it was on the McCullough's Spring Bucket List I told Erin we'd love to go together.  We've been watching some of the local places closely and their schedules are a little all over the place sometimes, but we found a time that would work and booked it!

Cooper was so excited.  He was ready to go way before it was time-- while I was getting things packed up he came into the kitchen with his rain boots and his baseball cap on talking all about the blueberry farm.  While we drove there, any time we stopped at a light he would yell "we're here!  The blueberry farm!"  After much anticipation, we made it and met up with our friends.

Each kiddo got a little bucket to carry and we headed to the blueberry bushes.

There were lots of reminders to only pick the blue ones.  And Cooper needed lots of reminders not to eat them until after we paid.

Picking blueberries with friends.

About the best group picture you can get with 3 two year olds!

Almost every picture I took of Cooper has him with his hand in the bucket.  I tried really hard to keep him from eating them until we paid, but it was just too tempting for my blueberry loving guy.

Heading back to the front to pay for our berries!

After we paid for our blueberries and got them bagged up, we had lunch at the picnic tables.  None of the kiddos lasted too long with their food since they just wanted to play.

We joked that their favorite part was just running free in the area right by the picnic table-- who needs blueberry picking?!  But honestly it was a pretty great day for it.  It wasn't too crowded so they were able to explore a little without us worrying about losing them and the weather wasn't too hot today.

We finished off the day with one of the farm's homemade popsicles.  Cooper chose lemonade flavor and he was a big fan.  Then we packed up and headed home.  It was a fun adventure to kick off one of our first free weeks of "summer" now that we are done with our weekly activities, moving, and our church's VBS.  Thankful for fun adventures with friends!  And I know Cooper is looking forward to finally being able to chow down on all the blueberries, we'll see how long they last!

National Donut Day

With all the things going on in April and May we kind of took a break from our oddball holiday celebrations for a couple of months.  But I decided to pick them back up with National Donut Day this week.  We had VBS at our church all last week so we've been pretty busy with not much time to go out and get donuts or think much about it.  But I realized I had saved a few different low carb donut recipes over the past year or so that I have been wanting to try, so I decided to try my hand at making some donuts while Cooper napped yesterday.

I was really tempted to buy a donut pan for making donuts, but I restrained myself.  I had seen some ideas for making a donut pan out of a muffin tin with foil.  I decided to try out my mini bundt pan and my muffin-top pan--I baked these whole and then used biscuit cutters to cut a hole in the middle after they were baked so we also had some donut holes.

I made some chocolate donuts and some regular donuts.  On the big ones I put a chocolate glaze or a butter glaze.  The "donut holes" I dipped in powdered sugar substitute (I use swerve) mixed with cocoa powder for the chocolate ones, and granulated sugar substitute mixed with cinnamon for the regular flavored ones.  

Honestly, neither kind we're great so I'm not going to share the recipes I tried since I wouldn't necessarily recommend the process at this point.  They were nowhere near donut consistency-- I don't know if it's because I didn't have the right kind of pan or if that's just how it goes with trying to bake donuts.  I liked the ones without glaze, just rolled in a little extra sugar the best.  

But Cooper didn't really know any differently.  He has only ever had a donut on his 2nd birthday, so this was a fun snack for him and they weren't so terrible that we didn't eat a few.  I debated taking him to a donut store after nap since these were not awesome, but we stayed home and made do :)

One of the instagram accounts I followed posted about how she talks through the "Donut Gospel" with her toddler whenever they eat donuts so we did that too.  We listened to the song "Life without Jesus is like a Donut" over and over again while we ate our snack and Cooper loved it.

Even though the donuts were a bit of a letdown, it was still a fun afternoon treat to share to end the week!