Black Buggy Day

This post is dedicated to my sweet friend and fellow Amish lover, Michelle from Simple Pleasures.  I live 20 minutes from a small Amish and Mennonite community in Chouteau, Oklahoma.  Once a year in September the town hosts "Black Buggy Day" that is open to everyone.  I love going just to watch the "English" and the Amish come together and have some good old-fashioned FUN!

How about some fresh apple butter?  Can't get any fresher than this!

Wonderful gospel music by the Harbinger Quartet.

We rented turtles for $1 each for Amariah and her friend Britlan so they could join in the turtle race.

Amariah's turtle  (#3) crossed the finish line in 3rd place, haha!  They had such a good time with this, I was actually quite surprised.

Such a cutie with his blonde hair but I was afraid he was going to fall.  I was shocked at the number of young ones that were allowed to freely roam.

Hanging out at the Horsin' Around Arena.

I adored these sweet little girls in their matching outfits...

My lunch for the day was of course homemade Amish noodles.  They were so delicious, I had to have two helpings, yum!

This frustrated little man was having such a hard time with his horse.  I couldn't help but laugh and feel sorry for him all at the same time.

Yay, he got it!

A row of distinguished gentlemen...

I can't remember what they called this race but it was actually fun to watch.  Each rider had an end to a PVC pipe that held a hedge apple in the middle.  They had to carry it down and drop it in the barrel then race back to the start with the pipe.  Quickest time without dropping the hedge apple was the winner.  I was looking around for some of them hedge apples to take home with me but they must have had them hid, lol!

The girls and I had a great time.  Who knew that teenagers would enjoy hanging out with the Amish?!  Haha!  Yes, actually a picture of me standing by one of the buggies.

I'm grateful that there are still communities around "where cultures come together".  "Chouteau consists of two different cultures coming together with one purpose, to make a better community for our families to live and grow.  Black Buggy Day is a day where we come together to celebrate the ways we are different but more importantly, the ways that we are the same."

Simplify...

Simplify...

I know lots of you do this and can do it quite well.  But for some reason it's really, really hard for me!  Shoot, I don't even know how to relax.  I try but it doesn't last long and I just gotta be doing something.

My father-in-law went into the hospital unexpectedly and passed away a couple of days later on Dec. 17.  My husband was immediately thrown into making the funeral arrangements and taking care of the estate because he is the oldest of the two sons.  Don't you know that it has changed our outlook on many things about life.

You don't realize how much of life you are letting slip you by until you stop and take a good look around.  So we, mainly I, have decided it's past time to simplify.  No, no, no... not my home lol!  I have tried and tried to "simplify" by getting rid of things but I just can not seem to part with a single thing.  Instead, I find myself buying more things that I don't need, hehe.  Like the beginning of my gray granite collection (I only have one piece but it will become a collection one day!).  Also couldn't pass up the Edwards Mill sack because it comes from a real working mill at College of the Ozarks in Branson, MO, a college I didn't attend but had many friends who did and spent a lot of time there.

Had to throw a picture in there because this post needs one, ha.  Back to the subject... along the lines of simplifying, I had two blogs.  This prim blog and a family blog called "Ramblings from a grateful heart".  It became difficult to keep them both up so they both suffered.  I have decided to combine the two blogs into one and use this space to talk about two of my loves: my family and my home.  So if some of my posts seem odd or like they don't belong or my wording is weird... it's because of the consolidating.  One thing I did with my Ramblings blog is to always end a post with something that I am grateful for.  I want to carry that over into this blog because it's important to me.

And because I am bringing my family over to this blog, I gotta show off my handsome son Ryan, a junior (and yes it says Chuck, that's his nickname from the coaches because of our last name being Berry) with his new letterman jacket we bought him.  He's quite proud but so are we!  =]

Then we have pretty little Amariah, who is an 8th grader, and the little guy named Robbie that is in the 1st grade.

I promise you that I will try not to bore you with my family but I am proud of all of them and love them dearly.

Losing the first of our parents has opened our eyes to many things this past month.  I am truly grateful for relationships that I am determined to nourish... my husband, my kids, my extended family, my friends, and of course all of you my prim blog community friends!!

Thank you for being a part of my life, I love you all!  =]

A few fall pictures...

Hi friends!  Thanks for sticking with me while I've been away.  I noticed I even gained a few new friends, wow thanks!  I love my quaint, quiet, little blog.  I sure have missed it and have missed all of you while I've been living a crazy busy life running three kids here, there, and everywhere.  My oldest son started on the JV football team so that's kept us very busy, but much much fun and so exciting!  They only lost one game all season.  Proud mom moment... sorry gotta post a picture.  He finally got to play defense and here is his very first tackle...

Once he got the taste of it, he was a tackling machine.  Our Varsity boys didn't fare as well so I'm looking forward to next year already. But first we move straight from football right into wrestling along with my middle school daughter who is playing basketball and little man is playing basketball too.  Thankful for sports because it gives the kids a real taste of "team" and how to work together.  It also has been proven to build self-esteem and I can honestly say that I've seen that in both of my older kids.  But... sure miss my crafting, creating, "me time"!!  

I know some of you have already moved on to Christmas but I am still in fall till the end of November.  Wanted to share a few pictures with you. 

I found this old black typewriter back in the summer at an auction.  My dad worked for Royal typewriter back in the 50's for a long time so my sister and I have been on the hunt for one to give him.  I was so excited when I found this one, it still works and has a ribbon!  I finally shared it with him and he said I could keep it (he saw how excited I was about it and didn't have the heart to take it from me, haha).  Whew, thought I was gonna have to give it to him, lol!  For Christmas, I'm going to put a letter to Santa in it... how fun.

The keeper of the holiday tree for fall is a cute little scarecrow that my niece was going to throw away so I saved him.

Even the candy jars got a little taste of Autumn (notice how the chocolate jar is empty... we like our chocolate!).  If you read my last post, you know about my lid dilemma.  I decided to keep the lids off.  It looks more like an old time candy store display, it's cute I love it!

Just a little something for the antique chair.

One of my favorite finds this summer at a garage sale was this Tea Leaf ironstone pitcher.  The top loop of the lid was broke off so I got it for only $3!  It matches the platter that I've had for years that belonged to my great-grandma.  It has a few chips in it but it's been in my family for many years so it is very special to me.

If I don't get to your blog by Thanksgiving, I want to wish you a very blessed and happy time celebrating thanks with those you hold dear to your heart~

A day at the park

Goodness it's been awhile... almost a year.  Time is fleeting my friends.  I'm happy to say that I have been enjoying my family to the fullest!  ...and it's been quite full, lol!  I've been thinking about how to come back here and post again.  Do I skip over the past year and start fresh?  Nah, I just can't do that.  If you are still here with me then I want to say thank you!!

I believe I will start back up where I left off.  Sure these pictures are from almost a year ago... but some great memories were made and that's something you just can't pass up.

We discovered an awesome park last August!  Heritage Park in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

For this trip, my oldest teenage son wasn't with us but when he went back another time with us, he loved it too.  It's great for kids of all ages, I had a blast also!  =]

Here is one section of the park...

Amariah didn't know that I was standing here with camera ready for her to poke her head out, lol...

Teamwork... one of the things I truly admire about my kids, they are awesome!

Goodness this girl has some long arms and legs.  I wish I could say she gets that from me but nope.

Fun times... 

These next 2 pictures crack me up!  I was standing up on a loft to get a picture of the whole park.  I take the picture and look at it in my camera and see this blur right in the middle. Where did that come from?!  So I take another one, and there is another blur running the other way, lol!  I just thought it was funny they were running in opposite directions within seconds of each other and didn't even realize it. 

They had a great time running all over that park.  The best part of all is we almost had the whole park to ourselves!  It was like a hidden treasure and we were so very excited that we discovered it, haha!

You just can't end a fun summer day at the park without a trip to the ice cream shop.  We all crashed when we got home, well the little man crashed before we got home, lol!

I'm grateful for these wonderfully beautiful days that I can spend with my kids.  God has truly blessed our family in that I can be a stay at home mom with only working a little bit here and there.  I'm so thankful that we made a decision years ago to make our family and our kids a priority.  I enjoy them to the fullest and I thank God for them each and every day~

My Blog Name...

Hi friends!  Nice to see you all once again.  I'm so excited to say that I was able to quit one of my part time jobs last week.  YAY!  Good-bye Hobby Lobby (till next summer).  We have so many wonderful fall and Christmas pieces coming in that it's a good thing I'm getting outta there, lol!  I will only be substitute teaching at the kids' schools.  So thanks for hanging in there with me over the past five months as I've been away.

Our very sweet friend Karen, from My Colonial Home blog, is having a fun giveaway that you must join but quickly... the deadline is September 28.  All that Karen asks is that we do a  blog post about HOW YOU CAME UP WITH THE NAME OF YOUR BLOG.  My story is short and sweet.  Berry Homespun Primitives came about in January 2010.  My name is Angie Berry and I have berries all over my home so it only seemed natural to have the word "berry" in there.  Homespun is my one major weakness that I buy anywhere and everywhere that I go.  It's my favorite medium to craft with.  It has such a cozy feeling to its name also, don't you agree?  Primitives has to be in the name because well... I just love primitives.  For years I tried to find what my style was and could never find a 'name' for it.  Country was the closest thing but I wasn't the cutesy country.  I have always loved antiques and started collecting while I was still in high school, living with my parents.  I was SO excited when I first came across primitives and couldn't believe I finally had a name for my style, lol!  Anyway, that's my story.  Thanks Karen for such a fun giveaway!

While you're here, I would like to share with you one of the very few projects I was able to work on and finish this summer.  I was hauling this beauty to the car from a garage sale and my husband asked why I bought something that was scratched up, falling apart, and not worth the $$.  You would think that after 17 years he would just get used to it and not question but sometimes it takes him awhile!!!

The price tag was $5 but as I was sitting it down on the table, one of the plastic inside pieces to a lid broke so she came down to $3. 

It is pretty scratched up but a good, sturdy piece of wood. 

Well thank goodness she came down on the price because as I was working on 2 of the lids, their plastic inside pieces broke as well.  Bummer!  So I had one good lid, lol.  But that's okay.  As often as people are in the jars, lids would just be in the way anyway.  Here it is finished:

After I sanded the piece down slightly, I painted it one coat of red.  Then 3 coats of black.  I finished it off with ebony Briwax with steel wool and it distressed the piece for me as I went along.  I wanted this piece to mainly be black with just a little bit of red which is why I only did one coat of red to 3 coats of black.  

This lid is actually not on it anymore.  I put it up in case I come across some more just like it sometime.  I think it makes for a nice candy holder.

Funny thing is... when the candy was in the pantry in a bowl the kids were always getting in to it as they hid behind the pantry doors.  Now that it's out in the open, it seems to last a lot longer, haha!  I guess it's more fun for them to be sneaky.

Thanks for stopping by my sweet friends!  Looking forward to seeing what you all have been up to this summer since I've been gone.  Have a delightful week~

I'm now a blue pottery collector~

Hi friends!  I sure have missed you all SO much!!  I hope you are having a fun summer.  We've had a busy one... which explains why I've been missing for almost two months!  Wow, can't believe I've been gone that long.  My oldest two are heading to Arizona in the morning for a week long mission trip so I hope to spend the next week blogging.  =]

I just had to get on here and share some wonderful pieces that I've been blessed with!  My new, very sweet blog friend from Belgium has a delightful blog called The Gingerbread Gem.  You really should go visit Goedele and meet her if you haven't already.  Actually her family is visiting the US and are in PA Amish country right now!  Goedele and I both started working for a temp service back in April during the same week!  She knew how apprehensive I was about going back to work after being a stay at home mom.  Out of the sweetness of her heart, she sent me this adorable lavender stake because she knows I love lavender.  =]

As you can see Goedele, it goes perfectly with my lavender bunch!  Thank you so much for your kind heart and sweet friendship!  It just amazes me that someone on the other side of the world has the same love of primitives and antiques that I do.  I hope you are enjoying your visit to our country!  =]

One of my friends at work was getting rid of some things and blessed me with 2 boxes of primitives and pottery because she knew how much I loved them.  I had no idea what all she had until I started unpacking it all.  Needless to say, I was blown away!  This first picture shows a beautiful blue jar filled with cinnamon sticks, topped off with a zinc lid, LOVE!  An old spool, old spool lamp (without the shade), adorable butt basket!  4 candle plates (one is so tiny and cute!).  Americana star with grungy candle and a wonderful iron hanging candle holder!  Lots of fun stuff~  Eek!  Just realized that the awesome curved butter paddle didn't make the picture.

Then I came across all this beautiful blue pottery... W O W!!

I wasn't a blue pottery collector until now!  Thanks Patty!!  I really don't know much about pottery at all so I had to look up what I have. The pie plate and bowl on the bottom rack of the pie holder are Roseville pottery!  The darker blue spongeware pie plate on the top rack, the spongeware pot with lid and pitcher in the back are all from Marshall Pottery.  So neat how each piece is signed by the "master potter".  The small bowl in front on the right is from Williamsburg Pottery Factory.  The other pieces and the soap dispenser are from Beaumont Brothers Pottery.  I have seriously been searching for a soap dispenser for my kitchen for quite some time and just haven't found one I like... until now, hehe.

So the pottery is all sitting on my kitchen counter, looking for the perfect spot to land and I don't have a clue where to put it.  =/  The only blue piece I have in my kitchen/dining room is a biscuit jar that my sister gave me.  My kitchen is red with mustard and brown.  How do you think I should display it?  Should I keep it all together?  I know that makes for a bigger impact but since it's the only blue I have, should I disperse it about the kitchen/dining room?  Thanks in advance for your advice!  I always value it tremendously!!  =]

I've been working part time at Hobby Lobby for the summer... getting all that Fall and Christmas out for you, lol.  I tell you what... I'm beyond ready to decorate for fall!  I'm so anxious that I can hardly stand it.  Less than a month, when the kids start back to school... those totes are coming outta the attic, hehe!

There are a couple of projects I've been working on this summer but this 100+ heat is keeping me from sanding and waxing.  So I will share a sneak peek at one of my projects...

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Such sweet and dear friends I have, so very blessed I am!

Oh, and how could I forget?!  Today is our 15th wedding anniversary!  We won't be celebrating tonight though... gotta get the kids ready for AZ in the morning.  But with the temp being 104 today with a heat index of 110, I prefer to stay in the house, lol.  Friday and Saturday don't look much better with it being 106 and 105.  We might have to wait till next month to celebrate, ha!  Who gets married in the heat of the summer anyway?!  I remember my florist sister-in-law from Missouri did my flowers.  I so wanted Magnolias.  She tried to tell me that it would be near impossible to travel across the state with Magnolias in July.  But I wanted them SO much.  The sweet thing that she is... made up the bouquets and boutonnieres, put them in a cooler and brought them to the chapel.  By the end of the wedding they were definitely turning brown but I got my Magnolias, lol.  Why, oh why did we get married in the heat of summer?  Happy Anniversary to my sweet baby, love him dearly!

My Raggedy Dolls

Hey friends, how's it going?  Thanks to those of you that checked in on me.  I'm on my 8th week of this bronchitis crap with a horrendous cough that won't go away.  Sometimes it still wipes me out.  I just don't have the time to rest like I need to.  School ended this week so that will help A LOT!  Which means my substitute teaching job ended for the school year.  Next week, I start back to Hobby Lobby part time.  I'm already dreading my first day.  After not working there for exactly two years, my boss has me working 8:00 am- till the truck merchandise is put out (basically a 12 hour day).  That is gonna wipe me out for sure, lol.  I kinda thought he would ease me in but I forgot how the store is more important than his people.  Oops!  Did I say that out loud?!  Well, it's only for two months till school starts up again.  So that's why I've been MIA and over 400 blog posts behind... much reading to catch up on, yikes!

Enough of that, time to share a few things I purchased a few months back... I am SO behind on posting.  Being a collector of Little Golden books since before my 16.5 year old was born, I HAD to buy this adorable raggedy annie from our sweet friend Julie of Polka Dot Pig Primitives.  Julie and friends just opened a store and I am so excited for her!  In their first week of being open, they sold so much stuff that they had to re-arrange the shop!!

I adore the Little Golden book fabric that raggedy annie's dress is made from.  Doesn't she look right at home with some of my collection?  Thank you Julie!!  I love her so much and you are very talented and creative to come up with something so different and cute!

Gosh, this sweet little raggedy annie I bought a few months back from our very talented friend Cyndy of Crafty Stitchers blog.  Another talented and creative gal!  What I didn't realize until this sweet doll made its way to my home is that she is completely stitched!  Her whole face and even the wording on her apron, so awesome Cyndy!!

I seriously thought this was drawn on, I can't believe it is hand stitched!  Look at how perfect it is!  Cyndy has some incredible talent in her hands!!  You need to get over to Cyndy's Etsy shop and see all the other adorable things that her amazing hands have made!  Thank you Cyndy, I love her!

Not a raggedy doll, but a sweet one.  I had to buy this little Amish beauty from back home in Missouri.  My great-aunt that passed away last year had a floral shop on main street with many, many trinkets.  A little cafe moved into the building this year and all her trinkets were still on the walls.  So as I was waiting for our food to arrive, I walked along the walls, thinking about Aunt Susie and all the things she loved and had for sale.  SO many things... from the floor to as high as you could reach... over all the walls, it was everywhere, lol!  I remember walking into her shop and she was so excited to show me all the new things.  Aunt Susie was a talker so anytime you went into her shop, it was like grab a cup of tea cause you're gonna be here for awhile.  But that's what made her so special.  It didn't matter who you were or what you looked like, Aunt Susie had time to sit down and visit with you or walk you around her shop to see all her goodies, haha!  I'm pretty sure that's where my rambling comes from... that side of the family, lol.  Anyway, I bought this little Amish doll for $1.40 (it was half off).  They just added it to our ticket... 2 Cheeseburgers, 2 fries, Amish doll, DP, and Pepsi.  I should have taken a picture of the ticket, it was quite funny.

She is small and sweet.

My raggedy Amish doll from the last post and my newest one have already found a family to love.  I think they look wonderful sitting on my dad's baby blanket on the antique children's school desk.

I was hoping for a lazy summer to craft and blog but looks like that will be in-between working and family time.  Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  I do enjoy your company so much!  I really plan to start getting caught back up on your blogs.  You are my friends and I hate when I miss that prayers were needed, birthdays and anniversaries were celebrated, special times were had.  It's so much more to me than "just getting caught up on blog reading".  It's checking in on my friends and seeing what is going on in your lives.  That's what I love about blogging!  =]