The American Visionary Art Museum is one of my favorite museums around Baltimore. We are really lucky to have such a great and unique museum so close. I had been here a few times before, but decided to revisit it with my 3 year old twins. I came away with a rather different, and very entertaining experience.

If it's a nice day, spend some time wandering the grounds. There is a giant whirligig sculpture that is enough to amaze anyone, and a sparkley tree just covered in dangling mirrors. Today was windy and the tree was loud! The Wildflower Garden has a "wooden meditation chapel" but don't let the name fool you. It's an awesome fort as far as we were concerned. In warmer weather it is surrounded by vines and flowers.

The main building is wonderful, with lots to see. This is where I would normally spend most of my time, but I don't think it was the twins favorite part. Still, they loved the giant cloth dolls by Zona Gordon and a dress made almost entirely our of buttons by Grace Bashara Greene. So maybe there is hope that I am raising future artists (or at least art critics). We bought some shiny pinwheels in the gift store and got ready to leave.

As we were heading out the door, the people at the front desk mentioned that we should check out the far building (Jim Rouse Visionary Center). "Lots of buttons to push." Those are magic words to my ears and so we hurried right over. One side of the building is dedicated to crazy mechanical sculptures. They are all safely behind glass, but they have buttons and cranks in easy reach for little people to play with. This is a fantastic collection of funny animals, boats, people, mermaids and had us all mesmerized.

The days of leisurely meals over a glass of wine are long gone, but sometimes we still try to encourage nice semi-quiet restaurant meals. Fast is key. Pasta is helpful too because I don't know any kid who doesn't like pasta. And, here's the real selling point, if you sit outside, the light rail train glides by every so often. That may not sound like a plus to most diners, but for me, it's free entertainment. I'm guessing that there is more than one parent out there with locomotion obsessed kids. Wait til the kids figure out we can actually get on the light rail and go for a ride. Nah... I'm saving that for another day.

I will admit, I didn't have high expectations when we visited Shaw orchards to go blueberry picking. I would have settled for a calm drive up to Pennsylvania, and a pint of blueberries. When we got there, we were directed to a row of bushes not too far from the car for our little legs to make it. With a little instruction, I found that even my 2 year olds got to work filling their buckets. My son hid under the bushes and carefully collected the biggest, ripest berries he could find. 4 pounds of blueberries later, we headed back to the car.

I'm definitely coming back for apples in the fall!

Picture a room full of shiny red fire engines - toddler heaven, right? Of course, this is a museum, so that means lots of things that you can't touch. Fortunately, the good folks at the Fire Museum understand, so they included a play room that is complete with fire fighter uniforms and a real (kid-proofed) fire engine ready for "test driving". They can even ring the bell. My little fire-fighters keep asking to go back.

Springfield Farm is a natural farm just north of Baltimore. We picked a perfect sunny day and headed out for a visit. I'll warn you, when we pulled in to the driveway, I was pretty sure I took a wrong turn into someone's private drive, but a friendly family member assured me I was in the right place. The farm store, is in fact in the basement of the family's home. In the store, we were told we could wander around the farm as we pleased (but please let them know you are there first) and were pointed in the direction of various chickens, pigs, goats, and ducks to visit. Everything here is spaced kind of far apart, so it was a bit of a challenge with my toddlers, but totally worth it. The chickens are free range and no hormones or chemicals are used. My 8 year old thought there were a lot of weeds, but after we talked about why a natural farm would have more weeds, she thought that was just fine. After a bunch of exploring at our own pace, we headed back to the store to buy some farm fresh duck eggs, Flintstone sized goose eggs, and delicious sausage. The owner magically pointed us to the free freezer pops just when it looked like we were going to have a meltdown. We petted the cat goodbye and made our get-away.

Springfield Farms also carries natural chicken, duck, goose, turkey, rabbit, lamb, pork and beef. They carry dairy products from Trickling Springs Creamery.