So Kristoffer put his cherry-pickin' gang to work on our lone sweet cherry tree.

Although it would no doubt have been much quicker and more efficient to just pick them himself...

Karter, at 8 years old, is a good little helper.

He picked more cherries than the other three children put together!

Kaden (6 years old) was much more interested in the ladder-climbing than the cherry-picking.

He'd much rather play basketball than pick anything!

Conquering the ladder was a HUGE feat for 3-year-old Kassie!  Not a risk-taker at all, she's scared of lots of things but has come a long, long way!

And someone's got to hold the bowl for the other pickers!

Her twin sister Kelsey, on the other hand, is scared of NOTHING!  In fact, her fearlessness scares US!

Of course, there were lots of cherries that never made it into the bowl...

...and a few breaks were taken along the way...

Rumor has it that Kristoffer planned to make a sweet cherry pie.  But after working an hour to pit 1 cup of cherries (and his recipe called for 5 cups), he changed his mind and decided they would just eat them fresh instead.

And I was so looking forward to a pie of fresh pie with ice cream, made from our homegrown...

...sweet cherries.