Mother's Day Brunch || Taking a Look Back

In case you aren't aware, Mother's Day is just around the corner!
Seems like we are full speed ahead on 2016, doesn't it?

I wanted to share with you a wonderful Mother's Day event that we had at our church,
Family Life Assembly, last year.
My sister, Lisa, headed this up & it was a really fun day!

The concept was this:  the ladies from our church were assigned a table & they were to decorate it
in any way they wanted, working together with others from their family (or those that they were partnered with) to set a lovely table to accommodate their group & invited guests.
It was so fun to see the creativity & all around pretty tables!

Before we get to pictures of the individual tables, I'll share a few pictures of the buffet.
What a delicious variety we had!

We certainly didn't go hungry!

Now, take a look at all these pretty tables!

Each guest at this table enjoyed eating from delicate china 

& got to take home a lovely potted Gerbera Daisy.

Lots of pretty details to take in here.

Aren't the springy yellow plates such a great pop of color?

Love the accents of bunnies, birds, & vintage doilies ... even some pretty pearls on display.

This table had such pretty flowers, fresh cut from the garden & what a gorgeous candelabra! 

How fun was this table:  watermelons!

The watermelon fruit basket, napkins & crocheted napkin holders were perfect accents.

Lastly, this was a garden-themed table!

My sweet daughter-n-law, Abigail, had the vision for our table & I have to say, it came together

just perfectly!

We had great fun shopping & gathering the supplies to make this just right.

 

After we had lunch, each lady got to take home a prize ...

they just had to put it together first!

There was a station set up complete with all the ingredients to make 'cookies in a jar' ...

flour, sugar, chocolate chips, & so on.

Each of the ingredients were layered in a quart jar, topped with the lid & the recipe tied on top.

(Wish I had a picture of the completed jars!)

We had a game & another couple activities ... 

& 2 moms were given a daily survival kit, filled to overflowing with all sorts of goodies.

Here are a few pictures of my sweet momma, my lovely girls, & my sister ...

And our lifelong friend, Ms. Robin.

 God sure blessed our family with these two ladies & I love them like they're mine.

 Thankful for Paula ... a friend to my mom & to me!

 What a beautiful group of ladies!  Such a honor to make a special day for each of them.

Aleisa, in good company ... a Richmond momma & a Greenwood momma ;) 

Abigail & Robin ... lovely x 2.

Robin & Paula ... appreciate their influence in my life.

What a really great day!

I wanted to share this last year right after our event, but time got away from me ...

but here it is now.

It's always fun to look back on good times with family & friends through events like this.

Spending time together & making memories ... priceless.

And if you are looking for something a bit different to do with the ladies at your church, 

whether it's Mother's Day or anytime during the year, this one is lots of fun.

Just takes a bit of planning & arranging ... all of us are creative & this provides a fun outlet for it!

Thanks for stopping in for a visit!

Toodles ~ 

Who doesn't love a good party?!
You can find me here linking up with these great blogs.
Monday           Amaze Me Monday     Coastal Charm    The Dedicated House
                     I Should Be Mopping the Floor     The Hankful House     The Modest Mom
Tuesday         Titus Tuesday  A Stroll Through Life
Wednesday   Raising Homemakers        Savvy Southern Style      
                              The Thrifty Home   A Wise Woman Builds Her Home
Thursday    Between Naps on the Porch    Katherines Corner 3D Lessons for Life
           Hope in Every Season   A Delightsome Life     Lamberts Lately  
Friday      Rooted in Thyme  The Thrifty Groove   Farm Blog Hop   Flea Market Friday   Missional Women
 Best of the Nest  Anything Blue Friday   French Country Cottage  The Girl Creative
Sunday    Nifty Thrifty Things   Simple Saturdays    Sew Many Ways

'A Get Outta Town Saturday' Trip to the Amish Store

Some Saturdays you just need to get outta town.
That was my sweet husband's theory this past Saturday anyway.
I hadn't left the house since Sunday, under the weather in more ways than one,
& he thought it may be good for us, in both body & spirit, to take a little road trip.

Boy, he was right.
We even stopped in to visit his parents since we were in their neck of woods,
but I'll get to that in a minute.
I'm getting the buggy ahead of the horse.
;)


Our first stop was at our favorite Amish grocery.
I've posted many times about our fondness of all things Amish & shared many pics,
so I didn't snap too many on this trip.
{Since I haven't been feeling well, I was concentrating most on holding on to my buggy.}

I could not pass up taking a picture of these delectable little local-grown strawberries!
I should've bought some too.

My sweet DIL, Abigail, & I have been talking a lot about flowers & such recently.
{Gunnar & she has been planting their flower & vegetable gardens & we've been down to help them
a time or two.}
She's loving succulents right now & didn't know about 'Hens & Chickens' ...
I had to take a picture of these to show her.
My dad always grew these.

One of our favorite things to buy from the Amish store, outside of food stuffs, are hanging baskets!
They are SO big & full ... & a fraction of the price of what we see around our house.
We planned ahead & took a sheet to cover our back seat so we could load it full.
It was end to end flowers.
This is only two of them cause I couldn't fit the one to the left in the shot.
We bought one for us & one for each of our girls.
{It's so fun having girls ... did I mention that?!}

Here is the basket that didn't fit in the above pic ... fitting perfectly on my porch.
Blooms for days!!

We bought some of our usuals ... meat & cheese, lemon bars, bread, and a cart full of other things.
In all the Amish stores we've ever been in, however, I've never seen Lemon Marmalade.
I had to get a jar of that.
I've not tried it yet, but I know it'll be scrumptious.

Our second stop was to the Warm Glow candle store.
In all the hundreds of times we've passed this place, we just now stopped in for the first time.

Such a neat store & how we got out of there without buying a candle, well, I just don't know.

Next door is a cute garden shop called The Watering Can.
We fell in love with the pavilion area.
How fun would this be to have on your property ...
to have parties, play corn hole, have big outdoor dinners?!
We decided that if we ever have a country home, we'll need one of these ;)

The ceiling was our favorite!

All this shopping worked up our appetite, so we headed to dinner.
Last year while antiquing along US Highway 40, we stopped in a brand new shop in Cambridge City
called the Silver Fox Antiques & Uniques.
It was their grand opening & I entered in a drawing ... & won!
So, we used the $25 gift card towards a delicious dinner at No.9 Grill.
It was our first time to eat there but we'll be sure to come back.

Wanna take a guess which meal belonged to James?

And the icing on the cake for the whole day was dropping in on James' parents.
We had such a good visit & so wish that we were able to do that more often.
If we lived closer, we would, that's for sure.
Sometimes you just need a hug from your mom & dad.
Ya know ...?

Not sure we'll have have another 'get outta town Saturday',
so I'll cherish the memories of this one until we do.

Who doesn't love a good party?!
You can find me here linking up with these great blogs.
Monday           Amaze Me Monday  The Dedicated House
                     I Should Be Mopping the Floor     The Hankful House     The Modest Mom
Tuesday        A Delightsome Life    A Bowl Full of Lemons   So Much At Home
                                    Titus Tuesday  A Stroll Through Life
Wednesday   Raising Homemakers        Savvy Southern Style      
                              The Thrifty Home   A Wise Woman Builds Her Home
Thursday    Between Naps on the Porch    Katherines Corner   Lamberts Lately
Friday      Rooted in Thyme  The Thrifty Groove   Farm Blog Hop  Best of the Nest
                                French Country Cottage  The Girl Creative
Sunday    Nifty Thrifty Things  Sew Many Ways

June Blooms

credit

In June

I saw a charming group

of roses all begin

to droop.

I pepped them up

with chicken soup!

Sprinkle once

sprinkle twice

sprinkle chicken soup

with rice.

a poem from one of my favorite authors

Chicken Soup with Rice ~ A Book of Months

by Maurice Sendak

I think the 'June' month in this delightful book is my favorite.

The mere thought of pepping up my little 'Knock Out' Rose bush
with chicken soup with rice makes me giggle.

Some of the blooms are fading, while others are in their prime.

 And the anticipation of all these little buds opening makes me happy.
This bush is loaded with them.

And if I decide to experiment with chicken soup as a fertilizer,
I'll let you know ;)

Ha - imagine the buzz that would create in Blogland & in Pinterestville.

Happy June 1st, everyone~

Shopping For The Garden

I can't remember the last time I went through the gardening area to look at something other than flowers.
I take care of that department ... and James takes care of the vegetable plants, etc.

However, we got a new Rural King recently & they have a delightful bunch of interesting plants!
I couldn't help but snap a few pictures of them -- such a wide variety.

A Citronella plant ... a Stevia plant ... how neat are these?

Cinnamon basil ... never knew there was such a thing.
There were maybe 5 or 6 different varieties of basil!
We bought the sweet basil plant.

And the lemon balm smelled perfectly lemony.

We went through smelling every other plant ;)

I could've gone on & on snapping pics of plants I'd never seen before.
By the time we were done, we were wishing our garden was a bit bigger.

We made our purchases & put them in the raised bed garden as soon as we got home.
(Gunnar built it two years ago -- take a look at it if you haven't before.)

Here's the little sweet basil.
It's ganna be delicious in something Italian.

All done.
We've got it chock full ... maybe too full.
Along the back side of the bed, we planted our tomato plants in containers
& we planted a couple cucumber plants under the tree.
That was an experiment, so we'll see how it goes.

You can see the bunch of chives in the above pic.

We planted those two years ago.

I cut off a whole mess of those & soaked them in a bowl of ice water to clean them.

I let them dry on a kitchen towel, chopped them a bit finer & bagged them up ...

one for us & one each for our married children.

We've been enjoying these chives in salads & potato dishes.

 

And this lovely bouquet of flowers, well, these are from the chives too!
The lavender blooms are actually edible too, but we never have.

And lastly, this adorable bunch of flowers are been sitting in my window sill too, waiting to be planted.

These were a gift from my sweet young friend, Hannah, as a Mother's Day prize.

Aren't they so fun?

We are looking forward to all our vegetable plants taking off ... and it'll be good eating soon.

Nothing like fresh, homegrown garden food.

All the flowers in the front garden, along with the pots & containers in the back have been planted too.

I'll show you those tomorrow.

Take care, sweet friends~

Who doesn't love a good party?!
You can find me here linking up with these great blogs.
Monday           Amaze Me Monday  The Dedicated House
                     I Should Be Mopping the Floor     The Hankful House     The Modest Mom
Tuesday        A Delightsome Life    A Bowl Full of Lemons   So Much At Home
                                    Titus Tuesday  A Stroll Through Life
Wednesday   Raising Homemakers        Savvy Southern Style      
                              The Thrifty Home   A Wise Woman Builds Her Home
Thursday    Between Naps on the Porch    Katherines Corner   Lamberts Lately
Friday      Rooted in Thyme  The Thrifty Groove   Farm Blog Hop  Best of the Nest
                                French Country Cottage  The Girl Creative
Sunday    Nifty Thrifty Things  Sew Many Ways