Six Months Later

This Father's Day was beyond a special one for our family.  Six months ago we had very little hope that Bruce would survive and yesterday on Father's Day I was able to take this picture of Bruce with our kids.  He's been home a week and is working on making a full recovery,

I am so blessed to have our family together and to have witnessed a miracle during the long winter of 2014.  Thank you for your prayers and emails during the past few months regarding Bruce's health.

The Farm

One of my very favorite places to visit any season of the year is my niece and nephew's horse farm.  I didn't take pictures of their home which faces out onto the pastures and barns as a courtesy of their privacy but I thought I'd share a couple of pictures I took of some of the outbuildings. Oh...and of course a few of the thirty eight horses they own/board on the property.

When you look out from across the front of the house where the living room, dining room and porch are this is the view of the indoor riding arena, the offices and an apartment for the caretaker.  

These buildings are attached to the riding area and house the horses.  This is just part of the structure and to the right, left and back of these buildings are pastures.

Well Tango wasn't cooperating with me when I took this picture...all I got was the backside and an attitude.  This particular horse is my favorite, such a beauty.

Three more of the many horses that were out grazing with Tango in the pasture that day.

I would love to have including pictures of my great niece and nephew on their horses but couldn't get in touch with the family to get their permission.  They're probably all out in the fields this beautiful spring day.

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever. 

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and all the moms out there in blogland

After the Party

It was a very busy day on Saturday in preparation for my mom's birthday party.  My niece was good enough to snap some pictures for me.  Thank goodness she and my friend Sharon were there to help set up or I'd probably still be working.  It was a beautiful snowy day and my mom really enjoyed herself.

I sure hope I can look this good and be as sharp as my mom is when I'm ninety!

I had planned to do cupcakes for the party but my mom wanted a sheet cake instead.  We had the cake made at Sam's Club.  I have all the equipment myself to make cakes of any size and shape but I really think Sam's has a good tasting cake and butter cream so all I had to do was to pull out my cake Cricut cutter and cut out some snowflakes from fondant to go with our winter snow theme.  It was my first time at using the machine and with a little practice I think I can get the hang of it.

I sprinkled some edible glitter on top of the cake and it did sparkle with the sun coming in the windows.

While I was at Sam's Club I found this beverage server, I have some nice glass ones that I use for home parties but for a large crowd this did the trick and it was only $20!  Its made of plastic so its not as pretty as a glass one but the bottom lifts off and you can put any sort of decorations in it that you like.  I used some fake snow and styrofoam balls that pretty much looked like snowballs for this party.  There is a cylinder in the middle that holds the ice so your beverage doesn't get watered down as the ice melts.  All in all I thought it was a pretty good vessel for this type of senior citizen party.

Speaking of senior citizens, there were lots of them at the party on Saturday.  I think they all had a great time and enjoyed the luncheon.

Each table was set with a container of twigs that I painted white and then rolled in epson salts to make it look like they were covered with snow.  I added one peacock blue bird to each of the arrangements and that was the only color on the table.  The room has lots of windows and the snow was beautiful but unfortunately the view was of the parking lot.

You can catch a glimpse of the small silver frames that I had on each table from this shot.  I went through our old family pictures and pulled out a bunch of my mom when she was younger along with some taken in the last twenty years or so and printed them in black and white.  I think everyone loved looking at the pictures of her from when she was a young woman.

At the end of the day everyone left with a special wish for mom and a great memory of our small family all together to celebrate her special day.

Show and Tell Friday 

Grandma's Purse

I can picture my mother-in-law carrying this purse in my mind just as clear as the day is long. When she passed a few years ago on Easter Sunday my sister-in-law gave me the purse as a memory of her mother.  I was grateful for her generosity in giving me something that I know my mother-in-law loved and had spent many hours creating but I was unsure what I was going to do with it.  I wasn't about to carry it for fear that I would damage the piece so up in the closet it went until a light finally went off in my head last week.  Doesn't happen as often anymore....old age I guess.  Anyway, I went to HL an purchased a shadow box to display the purse in.  I didn't want it to become a memorial with pictures or other pieces so I simple pinned the purse in the box and I love it. In these pictures it looks like its resting on the bottom of the shadow box but it is suspended and centered in the box when you see it for real.

She loved to do needlepoint, this particular piece was her favorite. When I was preparing the piece to place it in this shadow box I found a piece of cardboard inside from our local department store with the kit number on the card. The next challenge was where to put it, the box is rather large and I didn't have a piece of furniture where I could sit the box, placing it on the floor under a table or desk didn't work, hanging it on the wall was a possibility but I couldn't find just the right place to hang it and then I walked into the living room where the bookcases are and there on the first shelf of one of the bookcases was the perfect place.  The colors of the cherries and the background color of the purse go very well in that room, so Miss Mabel's purse has a new home and I can enjoy seeing it everyday. 

I also have a chair with a needlepoint seat that she did so many years ago

I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphism Monday