Birthday Girl & Farm Camp

Saskia is 1! I can't believe it has been a year since our little girl was born. She is such a curious, busy girl. She loves her big brother and tries to keep up with him. That's probably the reason she started walking two days after her first birthday... and never crawled again! It didn't take her long. She has been practicing for a week or two by standing up in the middle of the room. Whenever she did, she'd clap for herself.

Just a few days after Opa & Opa left, Grandma & Grandpa arrived. The kids were used to sharing a room by then and there weren't any incidents of Kiefer waking the baby, which he had done at the beginning of Oma & Opa's stay. Grandma & Grandpa took the kids strawberry picking. Kiefer did a little picking and Saskia supervised from her stroller. My mom and I made a strawberry cake for her first birthday. The girl loves to eat and after a nice dinner in the backyard, we put the cake on the table in front of her and began singing happy birthday. She was trying to reach the cake while we were singing, and managed to swipe a strawberry!

 

My wonderful friend, Karen of k.reb photography, came to our house and took some beautiful photos of Saskia (and Kiefer, who definitely wanted some of the attention on him). She got to model her very first tutu t-shirt form Tutu Pour Mon Deux!

As he usually does, my dad helped us out with a project around the house. He installed a "new to us" kitchen sink. They got new counter tops and sink for their kitchen and offered us their deep stainless steel sink. Washing large pots is so easy now! I am amazed at all the handy things my father can do. I'd be stressed out just thinking about trying to do some plumbing. We plan on tiling our backsplash when they come to visit again in late October!

A couple days after my parents left, Kiefer went to farm camp for a week. Holly, his daycare provider, usually takes the week of the 4th of July off so when I learned that Red Gate Farm had a camp that week for kids aged 4-6 or "Sprouts," I signed him up. That was back in February! The camp is about 20 minutes from Greenfield. Kiefer was really excited to go and then a little nervous when it was time for us to leave him. I couldn't wait to pick up up to see how he had done. He looked so cute toting his backpack and exclaimed: "I love farm camp! I want to go every day!" He helped collect chicken eggs, learned about bees, bulls and bugs. He told me that chickens have to stay inside a fence "so predators can't get them." On the last day, they hosted a picnic of goodies from the garden and performed some songs. Needless to say, he had a great week and he'll definitely be returning next year.