Fun Fridays...my favorite things

Poetry.

Here's one of my favorites...


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow,
You might succeed with another blow.


Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to the faint and faltering man.
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down
How close he was to the golden crown.


Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

I needed to re-read over these words myself today! I hope they find their way to someone else who needs some encouragement today...

Just wanted to share Kelton's birth announcement with all of you!

Baby and Mommy continue to do well.

He has filled our hearts with so much joy, in such a short period of time.

I Love You Keltie!

Tuesday TRUEism

Complaining is like a rocking chair.


photo credit

At first it feels comfortable and you

feel like you're accomplishing something,

but you don't end up getting anywhere.

Have you also ever noticed that people who

tend to complain

attract more situations to complain about...

food for thought.

It's Pickin' Time

Cade, Gracyn and I headed out early

this morning for a new adventure.

After meeting up with friends at our church,

we hit the road south toward the hill country!

Our destination... Marble Falls,

to visit the

Sweet Berry Farm's Strawberry fields.

The drive down was peaceful.

Beautiful flowers in bloom everywhere you looked and

Lightening McQueen playing in the background :)

Upon arrival we were promptly outfitted with our baskets

and headed to an open field.

The strawberries were overflowing to put it mildly!!!

The sweet scent of fresh fruit filled the air and

the butterflies were abundant among the fields.

Cade struck out on his own and our friend, Miss Julie made sure

he stayed out of the mud!

She overheard Cade saying to himself ,

"I am REALLY GOOD at picking strawberries"

apparently we have no self-esteem issues!

The strawberries themselves were gorgeous!

Plump,

perfectly Ripe,

and Ready for Picking...

While I was helping Gracyn with her basket,

Cade was determined to pick his entire row clean!

I think he picked every strawberry for a quarter mile...

Check out the basket on this guy,

AND

that satisfied smile!

This is an active farm, with horses, goats, and donkeys!

Gracyn liked the horses the best of all,

she even fed them some of her strawberries...shhhh don't tell anyone!


Some of our little LaDiEs

{ L-to-R: Landry, Gracyn, Hannah, Bethany, & Bella}


After laboring in the strawberry fields we treated ourselves to some of the farm's homemade ice cream.

Cade chose vanilla {no big surprise there}, but Gracyn tried their Berry, Berry Ice Cream which was out of this world delicious.

It's a combination of strawberry and blackberry ice cream.

It was seriously the best fresh fruit ice cream I have ever eaten,

and apparently the best Gracyn has ever eaten too b/c I had to pry her grubby fingers away from the plastic cup for the 2 meager bites I did ingest!

Here she is in all her ice cream glory with strawberry pulp on her tooth!

Hilarious

While we were walking back I asked Cade if he'd
had a good time and he replied,

"THAT WAS A BLAST, MOM"

Check out the weights of my two pickers...

Yes sir-eee, that's no joke.

Gracie picked 4 lbs

&

Cade single handedly picked 6 POUNDS of strawberries!!!

Our immediate future includes:

- strawberry pie for dessert tonight

- strawberry preserves

- smoothies for breakfast tomorrow

I plan on sharing the recipe and photos of our luscious strawberry pie!

I guess if kids are going to pick something,

I'd much rather it be strawberries :)

Conversations with a 5 year old

On our way to school this morning...

Cade: Mommy, look at that red race car!

Me: {seeing the red corvette zoom past us}

Wow, it's really pretty and so fast I barely saw it!

Cade: Speed up to 70 Mom so we can look at it some more.

Me: I can't go that fast Cade, the speed limit is only

60 and besides my car isn't a race car.

Cade: Yes it is Mom, your car goes to 120 miles so we

ARE

a race car!

In the realm of 5 year olds even a Tahoe can qualify as a race car!

Happy Friday,

we'll enjoy driving our race car around

all weekend.

Way Back Wednesday...gone to the DOGS!!!

I was cleaning out some photo folders the other day and came across these

pictures of Samson right after he joined our family

in February of 2006!

He was only 8 weeks old.

His original name was Misty Mountain Echo, named because he looked just like his father, but we renamed him Samson because of his beautiful black silky hair!

I'll never forget how nervous he was when we drove him home from

Hendersonville North Carolina. I had him wrapped up in a blanket but

he still shook all the way home from being so nervous & scared.

And come to think of it, now even 3 years later he still is not fond of car rides.

But he IS fond of...

- napping next to me on the couch

- napping on the couch any other time he can get away with it

- catching bubbles that Cade and Gracie blow

- chasing his squeeky ball

- treats

- hiding from people who come to our house

- marking his territory

- and licking everyone, especially Gracie because she's short :)

But we still love you Sam-skee-gee!!!

The Beautiful Blogger Award

WOW, I received my first blog award!

Thank you Jennifer,

how very thoughtful of you.

Here's how this award works:

1 - Thank and link to the person that gave you the award

2 - Pass this award on to 15 bloggers you've recently discovered

and whom you think are fantastic

{ ummm...i don't think I know 15 bloggers, but I'll do my best}

3 - Contact said blogs and let them know they've won

4 - State seven things about yourself

Spreading the LoVe to these Beauties...

Melissa @ Trcka Talk

Rebecca @ Our Online Tome

Amanda @ Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Kelly @ Kelly's Korner

Aunt Ruthie @ Sugar Pie Farmhouse

Ashley @ Patterson Pages

Ginny @ 5 Texans

Melissa @ 320 Sycamore

Darby @ Fly Through Our Window
Susie @ Bienvenue

and

Edie @ Life in Grace

You ladies bring beauty into my life

and

inspire me.

SeVeN ThInGs AbOuT Me

1. I was a perm-a-holic as an elementary student.

I would beg my Mom to perm my hair and then cry and throw a

ca-nip-shion fit

because I couldn't breathe all the way through the actual "perming" process.

The strange thing was when the lovely poodle perm would wear off,

I'd beg for another...and my Mom would DO IT.

God bless her.

2. I am a Southern Girl to the core.

I love God.

I love my family.

I love my state.

I tear up at Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA"

I love living in the heart of Texas.

I love Sonic.

I use words like CA-NIP-TION on a regular basis.

And I stop at every 5th Dairy Queen on road trips.

3. I have lots of little freckles and I love them.

They are part of who I am and when I was little my Granny Tot

told me they were angel kisses.

That when I slept at night the angels would come down from heaven,

just to kiss my face because I was so precious.

She told me that story with such conviction that I accepted

it as absolute truth till I was in 5th grade.

And now, I tell Cade and Gracyn the same story.

4. I was on drill team in high school. We were called the Toy Tigers, ha!

5. I actually enjoy cleaning my house. GASP...I could seriously vacuum

everyday if i could find the time.

I find that when my house is a mess, so is my mind!

6. My greatest joys in life are with my children.

They make me smile more, laugh more, question more, worry less,

and try more things I wouldn't normally do....and I really cherish that.

7. I have a new love in my life.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I am committed to some how finding the time

to devote to honing my skills in this area.

And well, let's be honest...if you've seen my photographs, I'm gonna need

A LOT of time.

There is just something about certain photographs that are able to capture

a moment that would have otherwise been lost forever that intrigues me.

Maybe one day I will be proud of my own.

Thanks again for the award Jennifer, I am humbled.

Menu Monday at a friend's house

My wonderful friend Jennifer over at the

JANE DEERE BLOG

sent some cooking love my way

by posting her review of my Crawfish Pasta!

She even posted a gorgeous photo of the

creamy crawfish pasta dish!

Go check it out...

http://janedeereblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/creamy-crawfish-pasta.html

Thanks for the nod Miss Jen!

Love ya

Tuesday TRUEism

Scroll down to my music play list and click on the pause button at the top.

By doing this the blog music should stop playing.

I don't want you to miss a single word of this

beautiful, beautiful

song.

I kind of want to adopt it as my anthem through this season of life,

after reading the words.

It touches the deepest parts of my soul,

stinging with the truth of God's love and grace.

God can bring beauty from ashes...

The powerful words flow like poetry.

Lyrics

Don’t know how it is You looked at me

And saw the person that I could be

Awakening my heart

Breaking through the dark

Suddenly Your grace

Like sunlight burning at midnight

Making my life something so

Beautiful, Beautiful

Mercy reaching to save me

All that I need

You are so

Beautiful, Beautiful

Now there’s a joy inside I can’t contain

But even perfect days can end in rain

And though it’s pouring down

I see You through the clouds

Shining on my face

Like sunlight burning at midnight

Making my life something so

Beautiful, Beautiful

Mercy reaching to save me

All that I need

You are so

Beautiful, Beautiful

I have come undone

But I have just begun

Changing by Your grace

Like sunlight burning at midnight

Making my life something so

Beautiful, Beautiful

Mercy reaching to save me

All that I need

You are so

Beautiful, Beautiful

God sees you and I as a beautiful mess...

and I believe if we surrender ourselves to Him,

even when we walk with pain,

He can still show us something great.

Let God into your heart,

He made it and only He can heal it.

This scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

Lord Jehovah Reigns!!!!

On Tuesday night, while on our way to Cade's Spring Musical, we were involved in a car accident. A car rear-ended us, pushing us into the car in front of us, which in turn pushed him into the car in the very front.

No one was injured {although I'm a little stiff now} and everyone's car was still driveable {except the car who rear-ended me}. Police were called, reports filed, stories told, information given. But Cade missed his concert. I thought giving him a chance to sing and make a little "movie" might capture some of those moments missed Tuesday night! He was excited for me to turn on the camera and continued to click replay once it was uploaded on the blog! He watched himself proudly

SIX times!!!

Lord Jehovah does reign!!

What a great song choice for the upcoming weekend,

good singing little man, Mommy is so proud.

A Tisket, A Tasket, Ideas About What to Put in a Basket

When it comes to treats for Cade and Gracyn's Easter Baskets each year,

I try to be creative!

I'm sure the kids would be satisfied with 4 lbs. of chocolate,

but truthfully they're not BIG chocolate eaters,

it's not ALL that good for their little bodies,

and I am left to deal with the 4 day post Easter chocolate high!

So instead of filling their baskets entirely with chocolate,

I came up with a few fun ideas to mix it up!

- a book

- a new Bible

- a little lotion

{Bath 'n Body Works sells their travel size for only a buck}

- shower gel

- bubble bath

- chap stick or chip chap as Gracyn says!

- sunglasses

- nail polish

- something handmade

{I got this done today}

- something for them to grow

{Lowe's sells little Sesame Street sets

which include seeds, a pot and soil for only $4}

- gardening gloves

- watering can

- flashlight

- bubbles

- a coin purse or wallet

- scented markers

- stickers

- coloring book

- spring cookie cutters and sprinkles,

for the little cook

- gum

- flip flops or crocs

I hope this gives you some new fresh ideas to choose from for

the Easter baskets you are going to fill this year!

I finished up my handmade gift for Gracyn's basket today!

A

SwEEt,

SpRiNgY

posie clippy

shhhhhh....it's a secret :)

I hope this motivates you to think outside the box this Easter!

Hoppy Handmade Sweet Friends!