A Berry Good Day for Berries and Pies

Today my friend Shannon's girls came over to play for the day. 

We decided that since it was such a pretty day, we might just pick some berries in the front yard.

Yep! We found some berries.

We looked high and low and picked every ripe berry we could find.

 We knew we needed at least 4 cups of berries for 2 pies...so we were desperate to find all the ripe ones. AND we kept a watchful eye for snakes that could be lurking, but did not see any, Praise. The. Lord!

It was such a beautiful morning to pick berries with friends.

 Yes! Jolie had to pick berries with her lipgloss!

Look at all those feet in the berry patch, even one in a cast, but that cast didn't slow her down.

We headed home with buckets and bags of berries.. 

We decided on our way back to the house that we really needed to make those pies...

With a little help from Pioneer Woman's cookbook  and her website we made a list for the ingredients we needed and headed to the store to get them.

Before heading to the store, we always tell dad bye, when he's working from home. Jolie told me that I couldn't kiss dad bye, because it was her turn. LOL...so I snapped this photo really quick...and got my bye sugar when she wasn't looking.

When we got home with the ingredients we started to work. We made the crust from scratch.

I found every rolling pin I own, and put the kids to work. Shek and "K" even recited the roll it, pat it and mark it with a B nursery rhyme. They were having a fun time laughing, giggling and rolling dough.

Jolie thought this was "play dough" play to the extreme...

Look! I really was there, supervising.

Chelsea was awesome at rolling out a thin top crust for the pies. She even got fancy with it and used some cookie cutters for a little extra cuteness for our pies.

Karlie was snapping photos and slicing butter for the pie.

ta-da! pie number 1 complete.

I told ya she got fancy with it, this one has mickey faces.

Pie Aftermath! Fun is usually messy.

Here's the cooling pies. I heard more than once, "When can we eat some?"  Finally,we scarfed down one whole pie,and it was finger lickin' good,to quote Col. Sanders, if we do say so ourselves.

My berry pickin' pie bakin' crew.

We had a Berry good time today.

I am Participating in Favorite Photo Friday at
The Long Road to China and back...

My favorite photo is the one with all the kids' feet with the berries. I did nothing fancy with my photos, it was just a special fun day with friends and family that was just too special not to share with others. I love making sweet memories with family and friends.

Pull up a chair and chat a while...

Last month I wrote this post about friendship and how we need to be intentional with our relationships. Right after writing that post, I ran into an old friend. We used to have all kinds of adventures when our oldest kids were teeny tinies. We would go shopping,  talk on the phone, we'd take the kids to the park, we'd even paint rooms and complete the occasional craft project, and when there was a prayer need we'd pray a lot too and we'd always, always eat at Chick fil a.

So when I ran into my old friend, we decided it was high time to get together and do something. So She and her oldest and me and my youngest met Friday morning  for breakfast at none other than Truett's Grill aka Chick-fil-A.

We talked and caught up a little. Her oldest girl, who I've known since she was a toddler, was in the high school CORE group that I had the honor of leading for two years. It's wonderful to see what a wonderful, beautiful spiritual girl she has become.

As I wrote in my friendship post, I said, I have a camera in my purse, so get ready to say cheese. It's funny that all that time we spent together when our kids were younger, we didn't have a single photo of any of those memories. I have learned my lesson, I always carry a camera in my purse. SO, we had one of the Chick fil a workers to snap a few photos. It was his pleasure!!

 Jolie, me, Kara, Christy posing in front of the old timey car in the lobby.

             The sunshine was bright so we turned around and stood in front of the trolley.

 Chick-fil-A ...I could eat there 7 times a day...isn't that what Tim Hawkins says?...well, at least I could eat there once or twice a day...maybe not 7. lol

Jolie poses in the Phone booth in the lobby.

Talking on the phone, where's the texting capabilities on this phone!? lol
Back when Christy's kids and my kids were little, we had our first cell phones, huge big things that could not fit in a pocket, and such bad reception. I even remember when we both had pagers; we thought we were something, with those pagers attached to one hip and a baby attached to the other hip.
So glad we were able to make a little time and catch up!

Getting together with friends is always a blessing!

kindred spirits...bosom friends...

Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them, and a friend will not say never cause the welcome will not end...I can still hear those words from that Michael W. Smith song. My classmates and I sang those words at our high school graduation years ago...as the song ended the tears flowed as we realized that we would not be seeing those same familiar faces as much anymore. Little did we know that facebook would reunite us all later down the road.

Yesterday, I read this really great post about friendship by Ann Voscamp. Much of her writings usually hit me in the core of my spirit, and this friendship post was one that hit hard. It listed 4 ways to be a better friend. Sometimes or should I say most of the time I fail horribly in the friend department. I have been the friend on the severed side before and I have been the friend that has done the severing before.

Everyone wants friends, close friends, the Jonathan and David, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry type of  friendships. But with that  kind of friendship there is commitment, so many times we just stop our friendship/relationship off at acquaintance and never really let anyone in, never let the walls down.  AND this day and age...we must be intentional with our friendships and relationships. AND many times, I am not. I let busy family life, or fear of rejection get in the way of making people a priority.

Anne Shirley~Diana Barry

Kindred Spirits~Bosom Friends

from one of my favorite books

Anne of Green Gables

In Voscamp's post she talked about a friendship that was severed. She wrote It doesn’t matter what you get done if you’ve undone a heart  – and there are no real accomplishments apart from relationship.

God has blessed me with lots of friends over the years, and several that have become very close dear friends over the years and God has recently blessed me with a sweet bloggy friend that I have so enjoyed getting to know. God is good...He is all about relationships!

Her post was a good one, one that hit  me between the eyes, a post that makes me want to strive to be a better friend. A posts that makes me want to drag out all the friend photos that I can find and post them, but I realize that I don't have photos of all my friends...but maybe I can drag up a few...

 Here's an 'oldie' photo with a lot of friends represented, including the hubs, he's a pretty good best friend let me tell ya! Also pictured here are Becky, a sweet college friend/band friend, dorm buddy BSU Bible study leader; Daf, we met in 5th grade, I moved away, then we reconnected in jr. college where we both were majoring in Music, and later became college roomies; Tammye friend since, high school, met in band, now she lives about an hour away, how funny we moved away from our homestate and ended up in the same state far from home, then there was Amy friends since jr. high, lived down the road from me. All sweet friends that have blessed my life.

Here's photos of more sweet friends...

Me, Carrie Ann and Melissa

We three were all walking/exercise buddies and Carrie Ann and I even walked the Peachtree Road Race a couple of years ago.

Kim. Elizabeth and me...met at church...our boys grew up together and were playmates when they were little kids and teens.

My sweet homeschool friends, Joni, Lorene, and me. They love me even when I make quirky faces.

Our fam with the Lewis fam...sweet friends who share Jesus without Fear in a far away place..and who planted a seed with us about Chinese adoption.

Here's my good friend Shannon and her best friend, Missy, they stayed up really late making this awesome sweet 16 cake for Karlie's bday.

I am so thankful for sweet friends.

Romans 12:10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Out do one another in showing honor.

These are all the friend photos I have access to on this computer. So if you're my friend, and you don't see your photo here, watch out, because I have a camera in my purse and I know how to use it!

So get ready to say

CHEESE!