We wish you a Merry Christmas!!

(Playing in the snow on Mt. Graham yesterday)

The Pickle family wishes you a very merry Christmas and the happiest of new years!! We pray that you will have the peace the comes from having a right relationship with Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace!

With much love,

The Pickle Family

Touches of Autumn around our home...

I wanted to show you a few of our Autumn decorations before it is time to put up our Christmas decorations. The above picture is what you see when you first walk into our home. This is in the Sitting Room. There is a post on our craft blog that shows the stitched pictures up close.

This is in our Family room. My wonderful husband recently redid our fireplace. He replaced some old, falling apart bricks with beautiful ceramic tile. I think it turned out beautifully.

The mantle.

Our big bookshelf in the family room. (If you click on this picture and look at the picture on the right hand side you can see a funny picture of me with some crazy 80's hair! ;o)

Family room still. ;o)

This is our dining room. Don't you think the folding chairs really set it off! We are going for early American hillbilly! ;o)

Our hutch all ready for Autumn.

Our new Turkey Transfer ware dishes. I love Transfer ware and I have been looking for Turkey Transfer ware for awhile. I was so excited to find them for a great deal.

My Autumn banner that hangs in the Dining room.


My other Autumn banner that hangs in the kitchen.

I hope y'all are having a blessed Autumn. We are preparing to head over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house in a few days. I hope y'all are remembering to find many things in your life to be thankful for!

Love, Heather

Roses in November

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.- Emma Goldman

One of the beauties of living in Arizona is roses in November. These pictures were taken this morning in my garden. Please ignore the weeds and trimming that needs to be done! ;o)

I wish that y'all could smell how lovely the roses smell!

Pink Peace

Roses by George Eliot

You love the roses - so do I.

I wish

The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

From off the shaken bush.

Why will it not?

Then all the valley would be pink and white

And soft to tread on.

They would fall as light

As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

Moonshine

Queen Elizabeth~ This is my favourite rose bush. I can see it while I am sitting in my Sitting Room sipping my tea.

Double Delight~ This is one of the most fragrant roses. It has won the ARS award for scent for several years.

My mystery rose. The tag said Chicago Peace, but it does not look like the pictures I have seen of a Chicago Peace.

Black Magic & Sunsprite



Surprise~ Like it's name implies the colors for each rose are a surprise.

Love, Heather

Sweet Gifts

The Lord has given me so many sweet blessings and one of them is the gift of friendship. Recently my sweet friend Paula sent me the most wonderful package! She has been redoing her home (check it out, it is sooo beautiful!!) and knowing my love for pink and that I was redoing my kitchen with more pink she graciously passed some of her pink lovelies on to me. Elissa and I felt like it was Christmas!! ;o) Here are quite a few pictures of the lovelies. In the next few days I will post how I have used them in my home. Thanks again sweet friend!!



Here is a group picture of everything.


The tags and cards. Paula has a gift for packaging!

A beautiful tatted hankie. I love hankies!! I think Tatting is so beautiful. I would love to learn some day.

A beautiful tatted hankie for Elissa!

I am hoping you all are having a lovely Autumn day!

Love, Heather

The Delights of Autumn

Momma & Seth at Apple Annie's pumpkin patch.

Autumn holds many delights for me and one of them is taking my children to the pumpkin patch and to the apple orchards. Today we headed an hour south to Wilcox. It is a big farming community. We went and picked up some things at the organic orchard and then headed to play at the other orchards. We all had so much fun! Seth did not like stepping in the mushy apples on the ground. It was a very gross feeling! ;o) The smell left a lot to be desired too! ;o)


They had a beautiful sunflower patch.


Elissa squatting down so I could get a picture of her.

I had to post this picture so everyone can see exactly how gray my hair is getting! ;o)

Seth helping momma pick apples.

Seth trying to reach the apples.

;o)

I hope you are enjoying the delights of Autumn!

Love, Heather

An Autumn Give-away

Good evening! I just wanted to let y'all know that Elissa is having a small giveaway at her blog. So head on over there and comment to enter. ;o)

Love, Heather

A farewell to Summer tea

Elissa and I had been planning a summer tea all summer, but with being sick and having no energy it kept being put off. Elissa thought she could handle most of the preparations so she began preparing. She did a marvelous job! She made the seashell candies in the centerpiece. The "sand" is a mixture of brown sugar and white sugar. She made the sugar cookies and decorated them all by herself. She tried a few new techniques she had been reading about in the book Cookie craft. I think they turned out fabulously! I made the cloth napkins and Steve tied the string around them. So it was a cooperative effort! ;o)

We decided since most people consider Labor Day weekend to be the last weekend of the summer, we would have a farewell to summer tea.
We had a small menu. We always (!) go overboard and have a ton of leftovers so we just made a few things and did small batches of each.

Our menu consisted of:
Chicken salad sandwiches on croissants
Mushroom turnovers
Cream scones
Sugar cookies
Earl Gray Tea

We are already planning our Autumn tea! ;o) We are taking reservations if anyone wants to come have tea! ;o) Here are few pictures from our tea. They are all clickable.
As a side note, I have also updated our craft blog with two posts.


Steve tied the knots on our napkins. I think he did a lovely job.

The sugar cookies that Elissa made.

Some of the seashells that Elissa made.

Enjoying our tea. Steve ate one of the candy seashells from the centerpiece. I told him "You might be a redneck if you eat part of the centerpiece!" ;o)

The lovely centerpiece.

Our lovely table.

~Heather