The Fab Miss B

This months featured shop brings back memories from child hood, memories of my Grandmother to be exact.



Take a look at this sweet doll furniture... I have a set just like it. My grandmother brought it back from Germany as a gift.




This carousel is adorable. I can just see it on a table at a little girls birthday party. Too Sweet!

Thanksgiving Celebration

What does Thanksgiving mean to you?

To me Thanksgiving is more than a day for turkey and dressing - although you can be sure that I will have more than my share of both. Thanksgiving day is a day for tradition and love, for family togetherness. It is a day for coffee punch and sentimental reflections. For my husband it is a day for football and much needed relaxation. For my two younger children, it is a day to build targets and shoot BB guns then go out into the woods and look for natures treasures. For my oldest, well, they are teenagers and whatever suits their fancy for the day, that is what that day means to them.

But there is a magical moment on Thanksgiving Day, a moment when every belly is full and eyes are heavy and ready for sleep, not because the day is done but because the feast, now in our bodies, bids us to rest. Yes, there is that moment when someone, we are never sure who, says, "Where are the boxes Mammaw?" Tired eyes around the room open with anticipation and a small line forms, with Mammaw as the leader. We become her little drones following, waiting, wondering which box we will get to take to the family room. The boxes are set carefully down on the floor and everyone steps back. What about the dishes? Who will clear the plates and put away the food? No time for that! There is work to be done! From the largest box I pull the sacred tree parts; and, from another Mom gathers strings of white lights. "Lighting the tree" is my job. So, for a while, everyone returns to their places.

When the tree is up and fully lit an angel is placed on top. She has watched our family Christmas' for years. She saw me the Christmas morning that I was put into the hospital. I was six years old and very sick. I saw her then and was comforted. I see her now and am emotional. Those are years gone by, good years and full.

Other boxes are opened and inside we find treasures from our past. White tissue paper is carefully pulled back and there lay glittery white, starched, hand crocheted snowflakes made by my grandmother. Along side those are ones made by me. I needed to carry on her traditions. I need to teach my children to crochet. She entrusted that gift to me.

In small velvet covered boxes are brass charms with engravings "To my wonderful teacher" a token of the love of countless children who were taught by my mom, a token also of the admiration of parents who entrusted the care of their children to my mom. She never let them down.

Further down in those boxes are paper gingerbread men. They are roughly cut and slathered in white school glue and sprinkled with cinnamon, which has long lost it's scent. An excited voice calls out, "Where's mine?" Then another, "I don't know. Look on the back." The children come in to help. Sure enough, there are four nearly identical gingerbread men, each with its own little mishaps each bearing one of my children's names on it, each lovingly made for Mammaw, each kept as if it were a priceless gift. They are.

And so it goes. Paper is carefully pulled away from tiny bundles and "Oh, I remember..." stories are shared. One by one each person has come to join in, even if only during commercial breaks, until sometime late in the evening a tree full of memories has been set up in Mammaw's and Pappaw's living room, a tree that will call us together again on many days over the next month, until that special day when we squeeze onto Mammaw's and Pappaw's couches and read the Christmas story from our large family Bible, the same one we read from when I was a little girl. We sing carols and make memories, memories that will be stored in our hearts like boxes in the closet, waiting for us to tenderly unwrap them and share them with others, memories that bring us closer together, memories that cause us to give thanks.

VeryVerdant

VeryVerdant

Front Page News

I told you a couple days ago that my pillow case dress made Etsy Front Page. That's big news and exciting.

As promised ...here is the screen shot.

Thank You to Fiber Fancy , the curator of this lovely treasury!

VeryVerdant

Family Fun at the County Fair

It is National Peanut Festival Time! There are Greasy Pig Contests, 4H competitions, Livestock Auctions and...
Funnel Cakes, Fried Pickles, Corn Dogs from "The Corn Dog Man", and Cotton Candy and...
...arm band night. For $10 a person you can purchase the coveted purple arm band and ride anything you wish all night long(well at least until closing).

VeryVerdant

Celebration

Gathering with family, eating taco soup, roasting marshmallows, wearing the smell of smoke given off by oak branches in the fire...

So the holidays have begun!

A Day In the Civil War

I took three of our children to see a reenactment of a small battle that took place in our area during the Civil War. You would think that as homeschoolers we had attended many such occasions but sadly this was our first.

I thought we would go out to this field and watch people "act out a battle" then go home and talk about the guns and the smoke. Boy were we surprised!

The people involved in these reenactments actually camp out at these events - not in campers or modern tents with modern comforts, but dressed in period costumes, sleeping on period nap sacks under period tents, rugged and authentic.

This tent slept 6 men for this whole weekend - Thursday night through Saturday night.

Yes, there was an entire Union and a Confederate camp set up and before the battle we were allowed to visit the camps. The reenacters were very knowledgeable and very willing to share information with us. My son was so excited to get to hold a variety of Civil War era rifles and to learn new things about them but the highlight of the day was when our oldest daughters friend Abigail (whose whole family is involved in these reenactments)convinced a family friend to take my kids and let them do a run through of prepping and firing a cannon.
They were given specific tasks and positions and ran through the procedure three times while a small crowd gathered and watched the demonstration.



After a hot lunch and a small wait,
the battle began.

All in all, it was a wonderful Saturday complete with history lessons that we will not soon forget.


VeryVerdant

Over The Meadow and Through the Woods...

to Grandmother's house I took them.

And she fed them...spiders and miniature pumpkins?

My kids are very fortunate to have such wonderful grandparents.

Thanks, Mom and Dad!