The Baranko Family: Blueberry Bonanza

Growing up I have vivid memories of blueberry picking with my maternal grandmother in the blueberry fields of North Central Indiana. We had blueberry picking hats and big coolers to put all those plump berries in, and the folklore is that Kristin once threw up from eating too many blueberries. I was excited to share the experience with my own family now, cultivating new memories while having fond flash backs of my Grandma winking at me while popping berries in her mouth while picking. The experience did not disappoint. It was a beautiful summer day and the pickin' was fine! Luke ate so many blueberries we were sure he would follow in his aunt's alleged upset stomach footsteps, although he didn't. The kid seriously ate handfuls and handfuls of berries, hardly getting any into the bucket at all. He had a grand time, though.

Swiper swiping berries from our buckets throughout the morning.

Potty time (for Luke that is)!

Since we had to drive pretty far out into the country to get to the nearest u-pick blueberry farm, we decided to hit some other sights before we headed back to suburbia. It just happened to turn out that we were but 5 miles from the IL Train Museum - what a coincidence. Luke was in heaven at the train museum, it was tough to get him out of there.

Riding the trolley

As if that wasn't fun enough, we had planned to "camp" in our backyard that night to do a dry run of a camping experience before we tried the real thing someday. So when we got home from our blueberry and train outing, Matt set up his parent's tent, we had a bonfire and then the three of us slept in the tent all night in sleeping bags. (We decided to keep Claire in her crib for this "dry run", keeping the monitor close by. Spumoni also decided to sleep inside!) While it was fun to have s'mores and sleep in a tent and use flashlights and listen to the cicadas and all, I think I got my "camping" itch scratched and I'm good until next year:) Full disclosure, I actually didn't end of sleeping in the tent all night. I got up around 3am to feed Claire, and then went back to my regular bed instead of going back into the tent. It was because I didn't want to disrupt Luke and Matt by crawling back into the tent and sleeping bags, it certainly wasn't because I wanted to get a better stretch of sleep!

Hot dog cooking

There's our little tent

S'mores

Reading stories before bedtime for Luke in the tent.

On Sunday Mom and Dad came down because Mom and I had a bridal shower for cousin-to-be Julie in Schaumburg. Before we left Mom fed Claire her first solid food since rice cereal, avocado! Claire was not a fan. The shower was nice, and it was great to see all the Kurz side relatives. The highlight may have been when cousin Tracy's new baby Nora came to meet everyone. She is just a few weeks older than Claire and it was wonderful to finally meet her. Quite a smiley girl.

Avocado time!

Not sure about this stuff...

Kurz family table. The shower was beautiful and elegant.

Bride and groom to be

Tracy and baby Nora

Aunt Barbara and Nora

Really cool shower idea - everyone brought a bottle of wine with a stated 'occasion' when the couple should drink the wine.

Cupcake cake

Hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa enjoying a Chinese food dinner, after the shower, but before they went home.

Kid update news, spoiler alert, most of this week's are about Luke:

Luke likes to run full speed into you on purpose and then say, like he's surprised he ran into "Oh, sorry! It was just me!" As if it being "just him" makes the collision ok.
Luke likes Matt to wrap him up in one of his blankets and carry him around like a sack of potatoes.
On Matt's nights to put Luke down, he usually takes a shower instead of a bath, and after he gets out of the shower he runs down the hall naked shouting "MOMMY!! I TAKED A SHOWER!!!!" No matter how many times I correct him with "you TOOK a shower" he says it the other way. I'm going to be kind of sad when he starts getting it right, to be honest.
I'm typically in Claire's room feeding her when Luke comes back from his shower, so after his declaration of having taken a shower, he comes into Claire's room and dances and swings his arms to the lullabies that I have playing as part of Claire's bedtime routine. Sometimes he invites Matt to come and dance to the lullabies with him, and sometimes he tells Matt to "stay out there". (Separately, he can get pretty bossy - we'll have to nip that in the bud. We're trying to get him to understand the concept of being "respectful".)
Potty training is still going well. He can pee all my himself with no help from an adult. He likes to sing the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood song (a cartoon he likes to watch) which goes "When you have to go pee just STOP! And go right away! Flush and wash and be on your way!" when he's going through the steps. A couple times, though, he has tried to pee standing up by himself and it has meant a puddle on the bathroom floor because our toilets are too high for him to reach properly. He also had a tendency to tuck his shirt into his pants and underwear when he pulls them up, which is really funny. I would say he is almost 100% potty trained with the peeing when he's awake. Sleeping is another story, he is still having tons of accidents on that front during nap and night time. The pooping is also another problem, he doesn't tell us when he has to go and is constantly having accidents in his underwear. Yuck!
This isn't really new, but I just thought I should document that Claire is generally a super happy baby, but the only time she gets mad and really loud is when she's hungry. She goes from happy to super upset in about 3 seconds when she decides she's hungry. I think she gets that from me:)