a good time

last night my friend, Brooke, and i hosted a dinner party at my house. she and her hubby, Craig, were in for a few days to attend her sister's bachelorette party in Dallas and we had the opportunity to get together with them a couple of different times. he is an air force pilot and they are about to be stationed in las vegas, so any time they are in town we like to try and plan a little get together!! brooke is one of my closest and dearest friends and i love that no matter how long it's been since we've seen each other we can always pick right back up where we left off. this is true also for the other couples we invited last night. all four of us girls graduated high school together and have been friends since 10th or 11th grade.Tedd and Emily and Grant and Rachel are so much fun to be around and we always have a great time together! we were all discussing, over dinner, how special it is that all four of the guys are almost the same age (between 28-30) and all of us girls graduated high school together! there were several connections between each couple and i love it when we can all hang out together!

mason jars with colored flowers for the girls

we bought 3 types of burger buns: potato, wheat, and thin, whole wheat...haha! we overdid it a little!

sweet brooke made cute labels for all of the food

the condiment table

we started off the night with a yummy dinner!! jamie got to use his new grill and we had veggie burgers, regular burgers, and Nathan's hotdogs! i made a yummy, cold pasta salad, corn on the cob, as well as some delicious carrots and grapes. Emily made a tangy, virgin Sangria {she told me that sangria means blood in spanish!} which we served in the mason jars! Rachel rounded out the dinner with some amazing chocolate chip cookies!! she used her mom's recipe and they were a hit!

the boys always enjoy company!!

noah was so cute at bedtime..he had to tell everyone "bye guys!"

we all ate outside since the weather was perfect! it had been hot during the day, but as the evening went on it was so nice. we all took turns holding baby Ian, who was just an absolute doll! noah played in the yard while we ate; and jonah even crawled around on the patio with noah! his knees and hands were filthy once we came in! we stayed outside and talked for quite a while, then we headed into the living room to watch some crazy videos we had made during our senior year of high school. we were all thoroughly embarrassed to be watching these videos with our hubbies, but it was so much fun to just laugh and reminisce about those easy days! i also had all of my old scrapbooks out for the girls to go through. it's so neat to look back at all the fun things we did together in school.

after nearly passing out from laughing so hard at the videos, we played a round of charades. boys vs. girls. the theme: movies. basically this is how it went down. we {the girls} tried to pick some hard movies, like: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Chronicles of Narnia, and It. these were no challenge for the boys who guessed every single movie in record speed. they {the boys} were ruthless and picked some off the wall movies like: Bridge on the River Quai, Delta Force, and a show-stopping, 10 word movie Don't Be a Menace While Drinking Juice in the Hood! poor rachel picked this one and she literally went word by word until we figured it out! it took forever and of course none of us had ever even heard of this movie!! i drew Last of the Mohicans and was totally stumped, until finally i put my hand over my mouth and {illegally} made a indian dance noise. it was a fun game, but the guys have to go a little easier on us next time!

our group: the Lowe's, the Lodes' + baby Ian, the Pachlhofer's, and the Brown's

i am so blessed to have such sweet, Godly, sincere friendships! we are going to make it a point to get together much more frequently. i especially think having girl time is so important, and i miss these girls {as well as my other girlfriends that couldn't be there} and the bond we shared through high school. i think it is such a God thing that we are all still able to keep in touch and that all of our hubbies get along so well! Thank you God for this amazing group of friends!!

1 Samuel 20:42 {Jonathan said,"Go in peace! The two of us have vowed friendship in God's name, saying,}

'God will be the bond between me and you,

and between my children and your children forever!'"