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!'"

sweet friends

although friday started off disappointing, it was quickly remedied by getting to spend time with one of my best friends and her hubby, brooke and craig pachlhofer.

let me just tell you about these guys...

brooke and i became fast friends our junior year of high school during our spanish 2 class...brookie cookie and kacee cassandra! people used to ask us if we were sisters!! we are very much alike in some ways, and very different in others, our birthdays are exactly a week apart, and she will always be one of my dearest friends...

kacee and brooke at the mr./mrs. ghs pageant - April 2004

craig and jamie were friends all through high school as well...then craig went off and joined the air force and became a pilot. jamie didn't get to see him too often, but they always remained friends.craig and jamie (center) at a high school banquet - 1999 or 2000

in 2005 while jamie and i were dating/planning our wedding, we introduced craig to brooke. the first meeting wasn't great because it involved our cat dying that night..long story for another day. but when they met again at our wedding {devious jamie and i had arranged for them to be paired up in the wedding ceremony} it was a different story....

craig and brooke rehearsing for our wedding (see me watching from the doorway?)

brooke at our wedding - july 23, 2005

craig called jamie on our honeymoon to ask for brooke's phone number...and 5 years later the rest is history! they got married in october 2006 - jamie and i were both in their wedding.

brooke and her bridesmaids-october 18, 2006 (i am on the far left)

craig and his groomsmen

we have remained close friends, even though craig's job forces them to travel to far off military bases, they are the kind of friends that we can see once or twice a year and pick up exactly where we left off...we dream of living side by side with a white picket fence between our yards and our kids growing up together...

the guys and the gals at the Lodes' wedding - May 2007

July 2007 - visiting the pachlhofer home in mississippi

December 2009 - girls night out!

April 2010 - shower hosted by brooke for baby jonah!

so anyways we went out to Cheddar's for dinner {i had something so yummy - baked spaghetti! "spasagna" YUMMO!!} and then to the movies for The Last Airbender (we had no idea that it was a children's movie! haha! of course jamie loved it! craig, brooke, and i nearly fell asleep several times!)

craig and brooke will be back in town next weekend visiting family and i'm so excited because they will get to meet jonah!!! when i had noah back in 2008, brooke came home to visit, and got to spend some time with noah...she even came over early one morning to cook me breakfast and clean my house! you don't find friends like her everyday! makes me tear up just thinking about it...

craig will be deploying overseas later this month and will be gone for 6 months! we are gonna miss him so much!! hopefully brooke will get to come home a lot and spend lots of time with me and the boys! :) please remember these dear friends in your prayers!

Our Big Weekend!

17 1/2 weeks prego! already feeling huge!!

jamie and i like to affectionately think of ourselves as old people...by this i mean, we like to stay at home and watch movies and go to sleep early. we are blessed to have so many family members who love to keep noah for us, but it seems like since he was born we rarely go out on dates. even when we have a babysitter for noah, we always wind up coming home early to crash. we're just not night owls.

well this weekend was different!!

Friday we had our last Fireproof class, which was an outing to Fuji - a new japanese sushi and hibachi grill in Fort Smith!! all the couples from the class came and boy did we have fun!! our waiter's name was Bubba!! i think this was a joke, but i called him that all night!! at one point he threw a wad of rice at me!! i didn't realize i was supposed to catch it in my mouth and it hit my shoulder and stuck to my shirt! we all had a great time with our friends and even after dinner was long over we stood outside the party room just chatting!! it's so nice to spend time with good friends!

Spider Roll sushi!! my favorite (don't worry, it's cooked!!)

Bubba!

after dinner, jamie treated me to Marble Slab! yummo!! it usually makes my tummy hurt because it is so rich, but since i've been pregnant this time, by tummy doesn't get upset as often! what a blessing!! i had yummy coffee ice cream with heath bar bits mixed in and jamie had apple pie a la mode!

Saturday, we had a girls night out, with a bunch of girls from church. we had about 11 gals in our party! so much fun!! we started out trying to eat at Olive Garden, one of my favorite spots! we arrived at about 4:50 - yes i know that's very early, but here's why: there was an HOUR AND A HALF wait!!!!! OMG!! well our movie was supposed to start at 7:10, so we couldn't wait that long..we wound up at Logan's Roadhouse where i devoured at least 3 rolls and half a bucket of peanuts! it still took us until 7:00 to leave the restaurant so we were a little bit late for the movie. we had to sit in the very front row and lean our heads back to see the screen! haha!! but we didn't care!!

we watched Dear John, the new Nicholas Sparks movie...i haven't read the novel yet, but i think i should! of course i'm hormonal, but this movie was just plain sad! i started crying about 3 minutes into it and didn't stop til after it was over!! LOL!! my eyes were so red when we left the theater!! most of the other girls didn't even think it was that good, but i just love a good crier!

Sunday continued the fun weekend...church in the morning (i had Wee Worship, which is the 2 and 3 year old class...my only little girl yesterday told me that she used to live on the moon :)...) after church we attended jamie's cousin Whitney's 24th birthday party in Greenwood. i grew up with Whitney and her family and it is so cool to be "related" to them now through jamie's family! noah had a great time eating pizza and getting lots of attention!! he even got to play on the arcade games with jamie! wish i would have gotten out my camera!!!

all dressed up and ready for church

noah walking into church on his own! :)

after we all took a long nap, we packed back up to go to the George's house for the Superbowl...jamie and i are not football fans, but we enjoy the food and fellowship..and all the kids love being together! noah's friend kate was there, she is about 4 months older than him and she is a ham!! she loves to dance and walk around pulling her shirt up to show off her belly! so of course, noah has to copy!! he showed off some pretty great dance moves this morning that he learned from kate last night!! :) they play together really well and it's so cute to watch them! alyssa, another slightly older friend (she is almost 3), was also there! she is the one who gave noah his nickname "nonah" :) and she always says, "Nonah's dripping!!" (meaning that he is drooling!) she is such a cutie pie!

today we are all stuck at home as another snow storm hit last night! we are not used to getting so much snow here in arkansas! we have NO groceries at the house right now, so we are gonna have to venture out because tomorrow is supposed to get worse! noah, jamie, my mom, and i have all had a cold all weekend so we're just kinda pitiful today!! just laying around doing a whole lot of nothing!! haha!! school was closed for almost everyone and even jamie can't work right now! this also means that there will be no progress on the house in the immediate future :( if you want to see the progress so far, you can visit my facebook and look at all the pictures i've loaded!! so far we have concrete blocks and filler in..just waiting on the plumbing so they can pour the slab!! can't do that when there's snow!!