Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Daffodil Festival 2010

The Camden Daffodil Festival was here and gone before we knew it! We had such a fun time. Here's the recap: Mama was on the festival committee and one of her jobs was to decorate the church family life center for the steak cook-off dinner. I did help her and we enjoyed it a lot. I love decorating. I tied canisters, like this one, with raffia. Gives it a little something extra, right? Raffia is my new favorite thing! I have been using it a lot here lately! HA!
As you can see, each table was decorated with daffodils.

Pretty
Mama and I were finished decorating by this time so we were ready for a fun filled day.


The first thing we did was head out to Grace Hill close to Camden and "Dine with the Daffodils," as they called it. We had SUCH a nice time. Mama had YUMMY brocolli cheese soup and chicken salad sandwich and Russell and I had brisket, potato salad and baked beans with lemonade.
Here we are at lunch!

We were also greeted to Grace Hill by the sound of a harp playing. OOooh how I LOOOVE the sound of a harp! Playing the harp is my sweet friend, Kellye. She played her harp in our wedding 2 years ago. We have known each other since high school. We actually went to music recitals together (she played piano and harp, I would sing). That is how I got to know her. She recently got married in January and lives in North Arkansas. I wish her and her husband lived down here though! :)

We were stuffed!

This is the back of the house. SOO pretty!

Daffodils were all in the front yard. They were almost endless.

Beautimous Daffodils with my beautimous Mama!


Every year, we see these shaped like a cross at a local church here in town. So neat!


We went downtown and shopped a little, saw an art show, heard music there, and then waited til the steak cook-off dinner was served!
They also had a civil war reenactment going on and shot cannons in the distance!

Our steak was great. There were actually 35 teams that competed in the cook-off. Whoa that is a lot! Mama made 2 sweet friends during the festival planning.
And here they are! Kay is the leader of their committee and sooo vivacious and sweet. Brenda is such a sweet hearted lady and sooo thoughtful and kind. Mama just loves them!

We were all anxious to hear who won the cook-off. But while these little kids waited, they just danced with the band! HA! It was too cute!

Caleigh, Sarah Cate, and Caroline loved dancing too. These 3 girls are the sweetest! I babysat Caleigh and Sarah Cate before Russell and I got married, Caroline came along a few months after! ;) They are all sweethearts! I just love children so much!

Whew! What a day we all had! By the time we got home, we were absolutely tuckered out. But like I said before, we had a great time at the festival this year and plan to go back next year!

Then God said, Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:11




Thursday, March 11, 2010

Daffodil Days

Well, it's time for the 17th Annual Daffodil Festival! I am sooo excited about it. I adore daffodils. They are one of my very favorite flowers! Today I decided to take a "mini-tour" of a neighbor's yard down the street. They have such pretty flowers in their front yard so I thought I would take a couple pics and then go back home. However I happened to run into him outside and he said I could take all the pictures I wanted and he showed me more beautiful flowers in their backyard. Let me tell you--BREATHTAKING! Aren't these just gorgeous! My little yellow friends! HA!
These are daffodils in our yard today. So sweet and pretty!

More of our neighbors yard

I love this picture because they look kinda like they are talking to you! Okay, maybe not really talking, but.....they just look so happy and friendly! HA!


Our neigbors picked all these for me (pretty much one of each kind of daffodil). I was SOOO excited that I just took a pic of myself w/ the bouquet of daffy's!
Well, back to talking about the festival. We will be so busy this weekend at the festival. If the rain holds off (hopefully it will), we plan to go to "Dining with the Daffodils" on Saturday. I'll tell you more about that later. :) We also want to tour historic homes, tour gardens, go downtown and see all the vendors and shop some too! Yay for Daffodils!
Aren't these sooo pretty?
I hope that ya'll are enjoying Spring just as much as I am!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1


Saturday, March 6, 2010

Refine...Refresh...Refill

This weekend has been wonderful, so far. Last night, Mama and I headed to Beech Springs, a great camp site and center for retreats and other events for a women's retreat. The theme for this weekend was "Refine, Refresh, Refill" and it was awesome. Above is a picture of beautiful daffodils and camellias. Gotta love flowers! They make everything look beautimous! :)
Here's a picture of most of the ladies that were there. I love this picture. Mary is to my left on the front row. She and her family are our wonderful family friends. She always tells us, "we're family." So sweet. To my right is Jennifer. We pretty much grew up together, went to school and church together. Glad we got to spend time together! Behind me is my sweet Mama! :) I could say SO many other sweet things about all the other ladies behind me. Most of them, I have known all my life and have made an impact on my life in some way or another. What a blessing it was to be at this retreat and a blessing it is to know these ladies!

Under His Wings, a wonderful trio, came and sang for us. We enjoyed having them and getting to know them too! What talent they have!


The speaker for the weekend was a sweet lady, Wendy. Oh what a heart for God she has! WOW! She shared her heart with us. We all loved it very much.

This is Wendy and Christy, our pastor's wife. Oh, and Christy is just precious too.
Wendy was not only our speaker, but the cool thing is that Wendy and Christy are best friends and have been for 30 years! So sweet!

Speaking of best friends....here are 2 best friends, Mama and Mary! A couple of my favorite ladies!

Me and my adorable Mama

After our first session, we played a couple of games that caused all of us to just crack UP laughing! I mean, all of us were about to burst we were having so much fun! It was great!

Stephanie, Kim, and Eloise

Lynda, Anita, Deanna, Janet, and Brenda before our morning session.

I love this picture of Under His Wings (Monica, Harriet, and Cecile). I told them this pic needed to be their album cover whenever they make one! Hopefully someday they will! :)
Jennifer and me...ooh what hilarious memories we have! :)
Here's Jennifer's Mama, Camille, and of course my Mama, Kathy! We love our Mamas! Jennifer and Camille roomed with Mama and I. We laughed. EVEN MORE after we got in our room! HA! We did have a wonderful time. We definitely made memories to say the least. You know what I love? I just love when God shows me something so clearly and I just love to be in the presence of God. It is the best thing ever. The Lord has blessed me in so many ways, even in times of trouble or hard times. We all need to learn how to THANK the LORD for everything He gives us. He is good and His love does endure forever and ever! I will leave you with one passage of scripture that really spoke to my heart last night and today. May it bless ya'll today.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:6-9


Thursday, March 4, 2010

Catchin' Up A Little Bit

Oh wow. I am VERY behind on my blogging. I did want to blog about this past weekend though. Friday Mama and I went to Little Rock and visited my sister and her family. I didn't get very many pictures. But we had a great time together as always! Friday evening, we went to shop at Kitchen Co. and then ate at Cheeburger Cheeburger. It was great! There is a challenge at the restaurant called the 1/2 pound challenge for kids. If any child eats a whole 1/2 pound burger, they get their picture made and it gets put on the famous wall! :) Logan decided to take that challenge. Here he is chowing down on his burger!
YAY! He did it! He got a picture made with the big burger and bell of course! They made an announcement about it at the restaurant. We laughed so hard!

Well, about a year ago, Lauren decided to participate in Locks of Love. She let her hair grow out for THAT long before .....
She got it cut! Here she is with her ponytail! I just love that haircut!
Saturday, Mama, Kelly, Lauren and I went shopping. We went to the neatest gift shop in a house called "Shoppes at Woodlawn". It is just one of my favorite little shops ever. We ran around LR a little more then stopped at ...

Justice. Look at my little niece sporting those sunglasses! :)


We always have the best time. See the little animal Lauren is holding? Well, it is a ZhuZhu pet! These things are hilarious! Lauren just got one and she was having the best time with it.
Our Disney trip is coming up REAL soon!
Well, I will have more to blog about tomorrow. So sorry I have not blogged in forever (it seems like). Hope yall have a great day!
Joyful are the people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord. Psalm 119:1