Bakersville, home of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

I went back home to Bruner, MO and spent a few days with my parents to prepare for their 60th anniversary party.  I knew we were gonna have work ahead of us so one of my sisters, my mom, and my youngest spent a day traveling around the Seymour and Mansfield, MO area.

Seymour is a neat little town, I remember going to their Apple Festival every year back in the day.  I was on the lookout for Amish while my sister was on the lookout for geocaches, lol!  That's why we travel so well together... we both get to hunt for what we love.  

This was one of my favorite antique shops that is long gone, but the building is still there.  I always thought it was a lovely place.  It is now a neat shop called In the Root Cellar.  Denise is very sweet and made our visit enjoyable.  She had some wonderful mason jar accessories that I had to have... one of them being a reproduction zinc lid that had a cork bottom with a vintage label printed on the cork.  It is a coaster, how clever!

From there, we headed on down the road to Mansfield, MO making a stop at Bakersville, home of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  Some of you may even order their seeds.  If you do, this is where they come from!  From their website: "In the rolling hills of the Missouri Ozarks stands a legacy to the passing of time. The homestead act in the mid-1800s encouraged the Rippee family to move west and settle what is reputed to be the longest-lasting homestead in Missouri. The family raised many varieties of produce, birds and animals, and were quite skilled in the crafts of the region. They traded with the Osage Indians and cared for soldiers during the Civil War in their hand-hewn log-cabin."

Robbie posing with their beautiful blue Bel Air parked by the store.

Their grounds were just as beautiful as the rest of the place if not more so.  They definitely take great pride in what they have.

But what was truly amazing was inside!  This is only the very back section of the store...

A closer view of one of the back units.  This is just the tomato section!

This is just one side of the store!  The other wall was almost as long except for the register area was at the end.  It is incredible how many seeds this store had!  I'm telling you... overwhelmed was an understatement!

Cute little shopping baskets for your convenience...

Another excerpt from their website: "Bakersville is situated on the original Rippee farm. The Baker Creek Seed Store now stands where the family’s market garden once was. In 2007, we saw the beginning of our historic town. Besides the Baker Creek Seed Store, we also have a speaker barn, restaurant, an old-time mercantile, herbal apothecary, a natural bakery, garden museum and blacksmith shop, two music barns, a Western jail, a native rock oven, a windmill and many breeds of historic poultry and livestock."  With that description, I'll share some of the pictures that I took.

Robbie shutting his Aunt Jodi in the jail before she could escape, lol!

Having more fun at the jail than we probably should have. (btw... this little guy did all the props and poses on his own with no help from us at all, he was quite the ham!)

The Jamming Barn where part of the monthly Heritage Day Festival happens, would love to come back for that sometime.

My sister Jodi and Robbie posing

Oh how I loved this place and wouldn't mind moving in.

Inside the herbal apothecary...

Inside Harriet's Mercantile (you can see my mom wasn't as amused as the rest of us, lol)...

The back side of this lovely case.  You just pull out whatever merchandise you need.  Oh, so neat!

The goats were a little too friendly.  I was trying to get pictures of them and they kept sticking their faces up in my camera, it was so funny!

This is the center grounds in the middle of it all.  The Amish were building a fountain while we were there.

It was a little hot this day and we were sweating by the time we were done but it was a delightful time.  I highly recommend that you take a road trip on down to Mansfield, Mo and stop by Bakersville to support these fine people as they "work extensively to supply free seeds to many of the world’s poorest countries, as well as here at home in school gardens and other educational projects. It is their goal to educate everyone about a better, safer food supply and fight gene-altered, Frankenfood and the companies that support it. We work with a network of about 150 small farmers, gardeners and seed growers to bring you the best selection of seeds available! Many of our varieties we sell were collected by us on our travels abroad."

Oh, and what seeds did I purchase?  None!  Instead I brought home the free 211-page catalog because after looking at seeds for 45 minutes and being completely overwhelmed, I just couldn't decide, hehe!

I'm grateful for enjoyable times like this that make our summer fun and educational at the same time.  Lots of laughs with the little guy while spending precious time with my sister and mom.  Thanks for stopping by and joining us, wish you could have been there in person with us... you would have loved it~

60 Years

July 31, 1953... so long ago.  

This post is dedicated to my parents Roy & Connie Goins as today they celebrate 60 wonderful years of marriage!  I am so proud of them for sticking it out when times *weren't so wonderful* as we all experience sometime in our life.

Gotta brag on my niece... look at the detail on their gorgeous cake!  No formal training or classes whatsoever, completely self-taught.  Mandi is very talented for sure!

We are fortunate to have many talented women in our family.  Mandi's sister Toni, another niece put together the beautiful flower arrangements.

Then a couple of other nieces, Jessica and Kristin, did the majority of the decorating.

For being a last minute idea, they did a fantastic job of putting this together with leftover supply pieces and I think it turned out to be my favorite.  Love all these black & white photos of my parents put into the shape of a "60".

A wonderful time was had by all, family and friends alike.  I'm grateful for the big, loving family that God has blessed me with.  Being 3.5 hours away from them as they are all within 20 miles of each other sure is hard sometimes and I still get homesick but I'm very thankful for precious times like this as we celebrate major milestones and make sweet memories to keep with me forever~

Graters and Sieves

Hi friends!  I hope you are enjoying your summer so far.  We have actually slowed down quite a bit and I am LOVING sleeping in and going to bed whenever I want... which is why I'm writing this post at 4:30 in the morning, lol!

LOTS had been going on... as usual.  I started a part time job in April at the historic Skelly Lodge.  It is 6 miles from my home, extremely flexible schedule, fun perks, my bosses are super sweet and they are Christians.  This picture is from the day I started in April.  I need to take one now with the humongous hydrangeas blooming, they are absolutely beautiful!

I received a little surprise last week.  Rich ordered these for me from Amazon.  I was showing a picture to him and told him that I was going to buy some with my next paycheck.  What a sweet surprise it was!  Aren't they beautiful?!?  I can't decide what I want to do with them ...craft supplies? ...jar lights for the back yard? ...flower vases?  Maybe a little of each?  What would you do with them?

Rich and I went antiquing last week and I picked up the 3 in 1 Lightning Shredder grater that's front center... perfect time for some tweaking.  I took my graters out of the crock bowl they were in and put them in this wood tote.  I like it much better, I can actually see them now.  The orange peeling paint nutmeg grinder in front belonged to my father-in-law's mother.  I love owning pieces that belonged to family!

I put my sieves in a colander beside the graters.  I think my favorite is the one with the white nylon.  I don't know if it's a homemade piece or if these were actually sold back in the day.  Either way I like it because it's different and I've never seen one before.

I also like the one that's resting on it... do you see the patch at the bottom?  So reminiscent of the old days but I could see myself doing it now days, haha!  The awesome sieve on the other side is from our sweet friend Karen of My Colonial Home.

It's been a busy last couple of months of school.  So proud of my kids so I'll be back to brag on them in another post.  Thank you my friends for sticking with me even though I've not been here lately.  I'm grateful for your friendship because not only does it give me an outlet to share and discuss antiques and primitives but because you all are some of the sweetest and neatest people I've ever known.  I thank God for allowing our paths to cross and for blessing my life with your friendships~

Old-Fashioned Spring Break

The kids headed back to school today after being off for 10 days and truthfully, I did not a thing.  Lol, I needed a day of rest!  Rich stayed home and worked while I took the three kids to my parents home in Bruner, MO.  It's about a 30 minute drive to Branson so we were gonna spend our days there but the weather was cold and rainy.  Instead we spent one day inside the community center in the fun pool.  My boys are the ones in the water.  See the big blue bucket at the top of the picture?  You know where this is going, right? ...

You only see the arm of the little guy, he took off as the bucket turned, haha! 

Now he's back and loving it.  Kids are so funny. 

Crazy kid, he cracks me up...

After playing long and hard in the lazy river, the playhouse, and the slide, it was time to relax in the jacuzzi part of the pool.

Finally a day of no rain... still very cold but at least it wasn't raining so we hit downtown Branson.  No trip is ever complete without a stop at "Dicks 5 & 10".  Born and raised around there, I grew up on this store.  It's a dry goods store... you want it, they got it!  The place was packed!  The small, dim aisles are from the old dime store days and let me tell you, people were three wide down every single aisle.  I lost my kids, lost my mom, lost my sister, lol!

As soon as we gathered everyone, we headed down the street to an old-fashioned candy shop.  Fun!

 I spent so much time looking at all the vintage pieces on the walls, that I forgot to check out all the candy.

But I (and Amariah) did find this old tub filled with one of my favorite candies... Chick-O-Sticks!  =]

I guess you could say this was an old-fashioned trip.  Besides having lunch at Cracker Barrel, we also hit this cool place "The World's Largest Toy Museum" along with "The Shepherd of the Hills, Harold Bell Wright Museum".

Robbie enjoyed this place so much that we had a hard time getting him to leave!  Here he is in the Batmobile with hundreds of super heroes on the shelves behind him.

It's a good thing it was a self-guided tour, as it took us awhile to get the little man through all the displays, lol!  My mom, my sister Jodi, and Robbie checking out thousands of die-cast metal cars of all sizes.

I thought this wall of old board games was pretty amazing!  Ryan and Amariah on the other hand were quite 'bored' with it, hehe.

Robbie having a hard time deciding which horse to get on.  A wall of metal firetrucks in the background along with a vintage Coke machine and a TV that played old game & toy commercials!

Now that we got through all the boy stuff, I'll show you some of my favorite displays...

Steiff!!

A few mammies...

Adorable toy sized general store...

Metal kitchen set with utensils (I want that tiny milk bottle holder, SO sweet!)...

My favorite... 

By this time, all the kids had left me so I made Jodi pose for me.  If you've ever been to Branson, then you have heard of The Shepherd of the Hills.  If you haven't heard of the story, you have seen the road named after it.  Harold Bell Wright was a pastor that wrote these stories.  Even though I grew up here and took school field trips to the play, I didn't realize he wrote so many books.  It was a neat little museum tucked inside the toy museum.

I'm really not sure who enjoyed this museum more.  Me?  Or Robbie?

Despite the weather, we enjoyed our spring break!  It's always a good time to visit family and hit those restaurants I grew up on that I miss so much.  My parents had a big pizza party for the whole clan so we decided it was a good time to start the planning stage of their 60th wedding anniversary coming up in July.  Very exciting!

I'm truly blessed and so grateful for the wonderful family that God has placed me in.  I'm 3.5 hours away from them so when I get a chance to go back home, it is always full of good times, tons of laughter, and old memories.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with our old-fashioned spring break.  I'm sure it's not what the kids would have planned, but we all had a great time!

As my 7 year old sweetie said when I told him on the first day of spring that winter was officially over and spring had started... "Well someone needs to tell that to winter because it's still cold"  Lol!  I hope you all stay warm and safe out there until it thaws and we see spring beauty soon.  Have a delightful week~

Spring Cleaning

Lots of spring cleaning going on around here.  It takes time but I sure love the outcome!  Finished the laundry room and main bathroom.  Here are a couple of pictures from my laundry room.  My parents gave me a few baskets they bought at an auction.  This one resembled a sewing basket and I have been looking around for something to put my colored bobbins in.  I picked up the green bobbins a couple of weeks ago at my favorite antique mall in the Amish community of Chouteau, OK.  See my darling little heart?  That was a free gift in an order that I placed with Shari over at Homespun and Primitives a couple of years ago.  She is so sweet!

I bought this sewing machine drawer last summer at the same antique mall for $5, along with the tallest bobbin for $3.  I found the box of thread at another antique mall for $2.  I was buying it for the old box alone... imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found it full of American Thread Co. embroidery cotton skeins!  The toddler dresses hanging behind were worn by my mom, who is now 78.  The lovely ditty bag was made and gifted to me by Linda over at Parker's Paradise.  Another sweetheart!

From here, I moved on to the family room.  The cleaning part is basically done, now the fun part of re-arranging and decorating!  In-between all this cleaning, I am putting out the spring.  A few little chicks on the chippy old sewing machine cabinet.  I was able to add my father-in-law's Bible to our stack of family Bibles.  It is inscribed with his entry into the Navy in 1955. 

For over a year now I've been looking for a replacement shade for Rich's grandpa's table/lamp stand.  After taking a few back to the store for not looking right, I have decided to cover the one we have.  I narrowed it down to two ideas from Pinterest.  Now, which one to choose:

the burlap covered shade... 

or the Mod Podged book page shade...

I have an old Bible that has literally fallen apart with many loose pages that I have been saving for a project like this so I thought that would be fun.  I will probably do this one.  I figure if I don't like it in the end then I can always cover it with burlap, lol!

Spring break starts today for us with all of next week off too.  The kids are pretty excited about 10 days off!  I'll be honest... looking forward to not having to get up at 6:30, hehe.  We will be spending most of that time with my parents with a few days in Branson, MO.  They live about 30 miles from there so it's always fun to go.

I honestly LOVE to organize and clean so spring cleaning is always fun for me, I actually enjoy it.  I'm truly grateful first of all for even owning a home and grateful for being able to stay home to make our house a cozy home for my family.

Always... THANK YOU for stopping by.  I appreciate your visit.

Have a delightful weekend~