HELLO SUMMER!! Today is the first official day of summer and we had a full day planned to kick things off! The other day I realized it's blueberry picking season and I started thinking about how much Sara Kate would love doing that. She's always asking me to buy blueberries so I thought that's how we should start our day. We headed out bright and early!
I looked up a couple of local blueberry patches and decided on one that's not too far from where we live, between Elkins and Goshen. It's called Blue Heaven Blueberry Farm, and it's a cute little place with maybe 5 acres of bushes. I asked my mother-in-law about going with us and I'm glad she came. Sara Kate loved having her there with us.
We got there about 8:30 and had a little over an hour to pick before we had to leave to get to Sara Kate's gymnastics class at 10. We heard a man say the ripest berries were towards the back so we just walked the rows, heading towards the back, and the berries were huge!! And soooo good! Sara Kate would put some in her bucket then eat some, ha! She kept saying 'Ok, ok, this is the last one!' We learned that the smaller bushes had the biggest berries!
Between the 3 of us, we picked 3 buckets full before Sara Kate and I had to rush to gymnastics. I think Sara Kate ate berries the whole way back to town. And after gymnastics, she had to have 'her bag' again. She loves them!
Chris had a photo shoot in Rogers today so after gymnastics I had planned for us to pick up some lunch and head to a friends house to swim. It was a perfect pool day! And what better activity to do on the first day of summer! :-) Sara Kate told me she wanted a turkey sandwich, chips, and milk for lunch so that's what we had.
What a goofball!
And after lunch a certain little girl was SUPER excited about swimming!! I love that smile.
But after all her BIG talk over the winter about putting her face in the water and jumping in the water by herself and swimming like a big girl, she was scared and I had to REALLY coax her away from the steps. She held onto me so tight and I couldn't get her understand that she could float with her floaties on. She did practice her kicking, blowing bubbles, and floating on her back while holding onto the side. So that's small progress. But it was our first time in a big pool this year so I'm sure after a few more times, it'll be no big deal.
I love that we have sweet friends who let us come over whenever and I love going to the pool with my girl. Being in/near water is one of my all time favorite things.
We headed home about 2:00 and I had plans to use some of those freshly picked blueberries!! I found a recipe for a blueberry cake and decided I HAD to make it. Sara Kate helped me buy the ingredients on the way home and she was so excited to make a cake.
Here's the recipe...it's soooo good!! I followed the recipe exactly, except I didn't make the crumbly oat topping that goes over the glaze. And here's my finished product...I don't think I've ever made anything so fancy looking before, ha!!
And here's my adorable little helper with our finished product. Can I just say, baking with a 4 year old gives me MAJOR anxiety!! She may have stuck her finger in the batter wanting 'a lick'...she may have turned on my mixer when it was in the off position...she may have licked flour off the counter...or maybe I'm just too high strung, HA!! That's probably it. But she loves to help and I really try my best to not be high strung and enjoy these experiences with her. I know she won't always want to be with mama all the time.
After a busy, busy day, it was an early lights out for a certain little girl! She didn't fight taking a bath, she didn't fight getting out (even told me she was ready to get out), and she went straight to sleep with no fuss. Here's hoping that an 8 pm bedtime doesn't bite me in the butt in the morning with a 5 am wake up!! Fingers crossed! :-)
Hope everyone had a great day, and despite what's going on with me medically right now, we're looking forward to a great summer!!
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