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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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June 26, 2011

Blogger Block Party Recap and Highlights!

We’re wrapping up the Blogger Block Party!

WHEW!!
Forgive us if we are a little out of breath.

We have been running up and down the block all week long stopping off at all of these amazing parties!

Can you believe how many links there were?
At last count we had 1138 and the party is still going on through Sunday so, if you want to have your SUMMER related post as part of the Summer Blogger Block Party there is still time!
Before we get to some of the highlights of the party (we thought it was tough to pick features from Inspiration Friday!) we just want to say a huge THANK YOU!

Blog Party Button (3)

To say that we are stunned and amazed at how many of you joined the Summer Blogger Block Party would be an understatement. I don’t think any of us could have predicted just how incredible and just how FUN this would end up being and we appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to link up. We like to think that maybe we even helped provide some extra motivation for folks to try a new activity with their kids, get creative with drop cloths, spruce up their decks or patios or porches, test a new recipe, try their hand at gardening, create a fun summer tablescape,  wear something fun for summer, add some vintage summer charm, venture out for some summer “sale”-ing, or carve out a special summer space for rest and relaxation.
Would you all have done that anyway? Probably! I mean, you are Bloggers, right?!
But this sure did give us a nudge in the right direction and we can’t imagine a better way to kick off our Summer then to get to see all of these incredible ideas and inspiration all in one place!
So now, if you don’t mind indulging us a bit more, we would like to share with you some of our favorite picks from the parties we hosted here at the Fence!

We have recently “met” this lovely new friend here in blogland and we just had to share this fantastic idea she linked up to Vanessa’s Summer Activities for Kids Party.

Paula’s blog Ivy and Elephants is full of beautiful ideas and inspirations and she just happens to be warm and friendly too…a winning combination! She and her son Sebastian spent an afternoon carefully selecting, cleaning and polishing some silver items (trays, creamers, teapots, etc.) found at thrift stores.
 
She then had him fill them with gravel, soil and succulents. We hear he ended up giving this one to his grandmother. And seriously, could this kid possibly be any more adorable??!! We don’t think so!

Next up is another lovely new friend Misty of Misty’s Mornings who shared with us this fantastic idea for fighting off those mysterious cases of “I’m Bored” Disease that tend to creep up in the summertime.

She sets up Quiet Stations for everything from building Legos in the playroom to writing letters to family members at the kitchen table. When the timer goes off, the kids head on over to the next station.
So Misty…do you think it would work to set up about 20 of these around the house?
We are thinking that could buy us some serious time to get things done!
Maybe there could even be a “Mommy takes a nap and no one interrupts her” station.

This next idea is not only a creative Summer Activity for your own kids, it is an incredible way to teach them how to extend grace and love (and their toys!) to other kids.

Becky from Organizing Made Fun hosts “Backyard Thursday” every week, every summer and provides a place for kids in the Los Angeles area who may not have the luxury of a backyard to play in, to come and experience the thrill of running through a lawn, digging in a sandbox, or even hang out in the “Girls Only” playhouse!

She has hit up garage sales and received many donated toys, helmets, skates and other play equipment which she then cleans up, organizes and stores neatly in easy to identify bins. As much of an impact as it has on the children who get to come and play at “Backyard Thursday“, it has also made a huge impact on Becky’s own children. They have learned how to show God’s love to others by doing something as simple as sharing their backyard. And just reading this post impacted us too! Thanks so much Becky!

Up next we have a few links from Heather’s Fresh from the Garden post that stood out!

Kelly from Till Death Do Us Part shared her beautiful raised beds she had built all on her own!

If you saw my garden post you know I’m a fan of raised beds!

Diann from the Thrifty Groove shared with us the incredible herbs her husband and she grow for their very own herb business!

Farmers market 2011 020

Yes, I’ll take all of these please! 🙂

We also has some fabulous Fresh from the Garden Recipes shared with us

Our friend Angela from Unexpected Elegance (we will be telling you all about her fabulous Etsy shop on Monday) did a great post on Canning 101!

Melissa from Shabby Love was kind enough to give us her recipe for…wait for it…Mojito Cupcakes!

Yeah we know…we want one too!

There were SO MANY other fabulous posts…it’s truly impossible to narrow them down to to a few so we thought it would be fun to also share three of the top summer related “clicked through” links (excluding the fabulous posts from our co-hostesses) from the Blogger Block Party.   It’s always fun to see what catches YOUR eye. These are in no particular order. 

The Shabby Chick My Summer Porch
On Sutton Place My New Front Door

No Place Like Home The Place Where I’m Most Happy
We hope you have enjoyed our highlights! If you are like us you could spend all summer visiting these fabulous links! Therefore, starting Monday we will be providing a permanent link to the Blogger Block Party in our sidebar so you can drop by and visit all of these great bloggers anytime you like! During the summer we will also be occasionally featuring a post from the Summer Block Party, so make sure you’re a friend of At The Picket Fence cause you never know when you might see YOUR post featured on here!
Monday we will be announcing the giveaway winners of the fabulous gifts provided by these fabulous sponsors
Be sure to come back Monday to see if you won one of these great prizes!  And remember there’s still time to join in on the fun through Sunday!  You can visit Fresh from the Garden and link up your projects still!
Thank you for partying with us all week At The Picket Fence!
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18 Comments Filed Under: Blogger Block Party

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Comments

  1. Lakeshore Cottage Living says

    June 25, 2011 at 6:08 PM

    LOVE the quiet stations idea…gonna steal that idea and put it to gooooooood use!

    Reply
  2. ℳartina @ Northern Nesting says

    June 25, 2011 at 6:09 PM

    This was such a FUN party girls, thanks so much for putting it together and hosting it!! Martina

    Reply
  3. Tracy@GeneralSplendour says

    June 25, 2011 at 6:20 PM

    Congratulations! Your block party was certainly a rousing success. I can imagine your head is spinning! I think I clicked on a few more then fifty and I was overwhelmed as you get deeper into each blog it is a few hours later! 🙂 Thank you for this opportunity – it was a lot of fun. When is the NEXT one? Hee hee!

    Reply
  4. Debbie says

    June 25, 2011 at 6:56 PM

    I don’t know how in the world you were able to pick a few to highlight. I’ve never seen such a response to a blog idea.

    Reply
  5. Pam - diy Design Fanatic says

    June 25, 2011 at 7:01 PM

    This past week was a lot of fun! There are so many it will take me a long tome to get through them all!

    Reply
  6. Sherry says

    June 25, 2011 at 7:28 PM

    Lots of inspiration here at this party. Thanks for putting it together. Great themes and very talented people!
    Sherry

    Reply
  7. Diann @ The Thrifty Groove says

    June 25, 2011 at 7:32 PM

    Thank you so much for the feature! I joined 4 out of the 6 parties and it was a blast! I will be going back to this party and checking out eveyones posts throughout the next couple months. So many amazing links! And you ladies did a fabulous job putting it all together!

    Reply
  8. Pattie says

    June 25, 2011 at 7:35 PM

    All of you where great thank you so much for putting all of this together for all of us to have fun and get to know each other… And thank you for highlighting my back yard… Talk about feeling like a Million Bucks… have a great rest of the weekend.

    ~~Pattie~~
    The Shabby Chick

    Reply
  9. Misty says

    June 25, 2011 at 7:55 PM

    Thank you so much for hosting this great party and for featuring my entry on Quiet Stations. I just did a happy dance! 🙂

    Reply
  10. Grammy Goodwill says

    June 25, 2011 at 8:22 PM

    This was a great idea and just the impetus I needed to finally get my blog going. Thanks.

    Reply
  11. Honey at 2805 says

    June 25, 2011 at 9:49 PM

    Your Block Blog Party is a huge success! Congrats! I have found so much inspiration & am sure to be referring back to it in weeks to come. Thanks girls!

    Reply
  12. ⚜ ↁℯℬℬᴵℰ⚜ says

    June 25, 2011 at 10:37 PM

    It was great fun to be a part of this partay!~ Thanks for the opportunity.

    Reply
  13. Angela says

    June 25, 2011 at 11:16 PM

    Thanks for the party! It was fun to participate and thanks for featuring my canning post!
    ~Angela

    Reply
  14. Andrea@ourbluefrontdoor says

    June 26, 2011 at 1:54 AM

    Thank you for hosting this awesome week long party! I had the best time looking at so much talent and wonderful posts! Such inspiration out there and the perfect way to share it.

    Have a great weekend!

    Reply
  15. Seaside Style says

    June 26, 2011 at 6:19 PM

    This was such a wonderful idea. Thank you to all you ladies for doing this. It was fun !

    Reply
  16. beachcomber says

    June 26, 2011 at 11:30 PM

    those cupcakes look amazing!!!
    cheryl x

    Reply
  17. simpledaisy says

    June 27, 2011 at 2:52 AM

    So much wonderful inspiration!!!!

    Reply
  18. Melissa says

    June 27, 2011 at 1:21 PM

    Thank you so much for putting together the blog party! It was so much fun and inspired me to get projects done that have been on my to-do list for awhile! 🙂 Thank you also for highlighting my Mojito cupcakes! I’m so excited!!!!

    Melissa

    Reply

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I've been watching our cherry trees bloom for 12 y I've been watching our cherry trees bloom for 12 years now and every year I ohhhh and ahhhh over the blossoms like it's the first time I've ever seen them. I gush and I take photos (that look exactly like the ones I took the year before and the year before that) and I make my family come outside and look at them with me which you know they just LOVE to do. 😉 I think that is one of the main reasons why I love spring so much. On the one hand, it's predictable and yet, on the other hand, it still feels like such a surprise after the long months of barren branches.

And yesterday, as I was staring at the gorgeous blossoms for the umpteenth time, I couldn't help but think that I hope this is how I feel when our lives return to some semblance of normalcy.

I hope that the predictable feels special and that the typical feels anything but. I hope that I ohhh and ahhh over the simple things I've realized I've taken for granted. And, most of all, I hope that feeling doesn't go away for a very, very long time! 💗
Are you living with great expectation friends? Bec Are you living with great expectation friends? Because He is risen!

Happy Easter from my home to yours!
Lemon bars all ready for tomorrow! It’s going to Lemon bars all ready for tomorrow! It’s going to be a different kind of Easter for sure but some things don’t change. Have you been baking and getting ready for tomorrow? What’s one thing on your menu that you have to have every year?
If this is Good Friday, why doesn’t it feel so “good”? It all seems backward doesn’t it?

What could be good about the unspeakable pain he suffered? What could be good about the shame and betrayal?

Easter Sunday is so joyful, bright and cheery. Shouldn’t that be the day we call “good”? It just feels so much better!

But, I don’t know how to rejoice over His resurrection, unless I have felt the pain of His death. I have realized that in life the sweetest victories are the ones which were realized after a pain-filled journey.

And, so it is with Good Friday. I know there will be victory over death, but I can’t skip ahead in the story.

Jesus knew what was coming. He knew what he would experience. And he knew why he would go through it. He did it for me. He did it for you.

Do you know that? Have you felt it down in the very core of your soul? 
Sometimes it makes me squirm a bit. Why would anyone do that for me?

Well, because, I can’t do it for myself!

There is nothing I can do to earn that kind of love and mercy.

That is why it is called GRACE.

His grace is freely given. We don’t have to pay for it. He paid the price for us already.

Do you remember that movie from years ago called “Ransom”? A couple’s young son was kidnapped and the parents went to hell and back trying to find him and pay the “ransom” demanded by the kidnappers.

Well, Jesus is our “ransom”. (1 Timothy 2:6) His life was the payment.

Why is it called “Good Friday”? Because that wasn’t the end of the story….
.
…It was just the beginning!
Raise your hand if there’s a table in your house Raise your hand if there’s a table in your house that’s become the landing zone for ALL THE THINGS! 🙋🏻‍♀️🤪 I’ve never been more thankful for our rarely used dining room table as it’s become command central for school books and laptops and games.

Where are things collecting in your house right now?
“Sighing, tears, frustration, anger.” Every si “Sighing, tears, frustration, anger.” Every single one of these emotions has made their way through our home in recent days and, my guess is, they have in your home too.

I SO needed this reminder today from the new book ‘Adore’ by @sarahagertywrites.

Adoration isn’t just sitting at His feet gazing longingly with stars in my eyes. It’s bringing my fears and my sorrows and gray roots in my hair that desperately needs to be colored and my messy house and all of the things that threaten to send me over the edge right now and laying them down before Him, soaking up His word and His presence so that when I stand back up, I am changed for having spent the time adoring the ONE who is... Healer, comforter, peace-giver, deliverer, redeemer.

What do you need to bring to Him today? I’ll share mine in the comments and I’d love to hear from you too!
I’ve always loved evenings, but since this whole I’ve always loved evenings, but since this whole lockdown thing began, I’ve come to appreciate this time of day even more.

It feels the most...normal. Daytime is strange and foreign right now. My husband has taken over our home office, I’m suddenly taking over the responsibility of managing my kids’ distance learning and let me just say that teaching 7th grade algebra to my daughter is hugely ironic since I struggled with math all the way through school. I’m trying to do my own work but it feels utterly futile with the constant interruptions which take precedence right now. In the daytime, I’m constantly reminded of how upside down life feels.

But, in the evening, I cook dinner like I’ve always done and we gather around the table like we’ve always done and we laugh and tell stories and then clean up and play games or go on a walk or watch a show. And that feels SO gloriously normal.

So now I love evenings even more than I ever did before and I’m so grateful for this little chunk of time where the rhythms we established years ago are helping to sustain us now when so much of life feels outside of our control.

What feels ‘normal’ to you right now? Whatever it is, keep doing it. 🌿
When I was in college I would frequently call home When I was in college I would frequently call home and pour my heart out to my mom, sharing with her all that was happening in my life in that completely unfiltered way that you can talk with the person who potty trained you. These phone calls usually took place at night and my mom would patiently listen as I vented frustrations about professors, roommates, boyfriends and the food in the cafeteria. And, inevitably, they would end with my mom saying, “Everything seems worse when you’re tired. Try not to overthink things or make any major decisions tonight, especially when you are feeling emotional.” Dear friends, may I pass along this advice to you today?

If you don’t absolutely HAVE to make a decision right now, I want to encourage you to wait until life gets back to normal. If you are finding yourself over-analyzing relationships and family dynamics, I want to encourage you to remember that everything seems more dramatic when looked at under a microscope. And, let’s face it, being homebound with our loved ones non-stop makes us all feel like lab rats in an experiment.

If you are tempted to quit a job, start a business, start homeschooling permanently, stop homeschooling permanently, move to a new city, buy a farm, quit pursuing your dream, join a commune or make any other major life decision just…wait. Because, if it is in fact the right decision, it will be made even clearer once our lives return to their ‘regularly scheduled programming’. Instead, in this strange season, let’s all just take a deep, collective breath and let it out slowly, releasing the anxiety that threatens to overtake us. Let’s help each other maintain some perspective and not slip into a posture of over-thinking every little thing in our lives. Let’s remember that the enemy of our souls would love nothing more than to use this time when things feel dark to manipulate us into thinking that aspects of our lives are worse than they actually are.

My prayer for you in these days is that you will have the clarity to know what is true and that you will be filled with peace even while we live in this season of so many unknowns.
Raise your hand if you’re doing more baking thes Raise your hand if you’re doing more baking these days! 🙋🏻‍♀️ I’m trying to avoid gaining the #corona15 but my daughter and I LOVE baking together and it does help to pass the time plus it counts as a science lesson right?

If you’re able to find flour in the stores (for the love people please stop overbuying!) and you’re doing more baking at your house too you need to add this apricot bread to your list of new recipes to try!

Normally I’d point you to my blog for the directions but I’m going to do you a solid and leave the full recipe in the comments.

What have you baked so far during this time of social distancing? I’d love some new ideas!
There are a LOT of people out walking in our neigh There are a LOT of people out walking in our neighborhood right now (but still social distancing!) and she decided that she wanted to bring them some joy and put a smile on their face when they pass by our house. Also, the square with ‘say no to coronavirus’ is priceless. 😂 I just love her so much!
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