Nathalie-Ann's First Birthday.

  

 

 
 

It was a wonderful day yesterday. Our little girl turned one year old! Amazing how the year flew by. Nathalie-Ann really enjoyed her birthday yesterday. Early in the morning Hanna and Marius sang "Happy Birthday" and "Lang zal ze leven" to her. Then she got to open a few presents with the help of her big sister and brother. At the end of the afternoon we had a small party. Our best friends came over to have dinner with us. We had a great time.

For the first time Nathalie-Ann tasted a bite of birthday cake and she loved it. Since we don't use refined sugar anymore, I had to find an alternative recipe. I made a whole wheat vanilla cake sweetened with mashed banana and a little fruit juice concentrate. The topping was cream cheese with jam (also free of refined sugar). For the apple pie I used a little honey.

Just before she went to bed she still had a huge smile on her face and she proudly went on the picture with her "Jip en Janneke" hat on.

A beautiful Saturday in September.

Apple picking in Stone Ridge

Saturday, September 19th


After a quick breakfast we headed upstate for a day of apple picking at the farm. Our first stop was Hudson, we had a lunch here at a nice and pretty healthy restaurant. The pizza's were awesome, I am gong to try them at home on day. Hanna and Marius loved their pasta with marinara sauce

After our pitstop we tried to find the organic apple farm not far from Hudson, but after asking a few people, trying different directions, we gave up and drove to the farm second on our list. The orchard is located in Stone Ridge It is not an organic one but they practice IPM, which stands for Integrated Pest Management. It says in their bulletin:"Eco Apple farmers use a combination of old agricultural methods and leading-edge technologies to minimize spraying and other enviromentallyy disruptive practices".

It is a beautiful location, hilly, green and foresty.

We got our bags and baskets at the stand and went in the orchard.To our surprise they also still had raspberries. So we went raspberrie picking first. They were so yummie, I bet half of our harvest ended in our tummies
For the apples we had three bags and it did not take us a long time to fill them up.

It was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot just right.

We had brought lots of good food, so after our "labor" we enjoyed a nice picknick under the trees.

The apples are good, I already made applesauce and I am planning on making an apple pie this weekend, especially since it is Nathalie-Ann's birthday coming Monday. Our little girl is gonna be one year old. We are all so much looking forward to her big day.