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~