first annual [i hope] oktoberfest

happy monday friends.  i hope you had a wonderful weekend full of rest and friends and fun.  we most certainly did.  it may have done me some good to do a little more 'work' than what i did but oh well.  friday ben & i ended up on a date, dinner & a movie.  the usual.  time to talk, time for entertainment.  we saw paranormal activity 3.  it's halloween what can i say?

saturday was some of our favorite things all rolled into one day.  we i slept in, we ate breakfast together, lounged around and then finally got ready for the day when the margraves rolled into town.  from there we headed over to the poston's for what would be the first ever oktoberfest.  my hope is that the poston's loved it so much that we could have one every year. [yes yes?]  they did such a sweet job turning their backyard into the most perfect fall getaway.  giant long table [big enough for all our friends], twinkle lights, buntings, tree canopy, friends, babies, tons of yummy food, campfire....it was awesome.  i may have taken far too many pictures and then proceeded to upload them all to blogger.  i may have.

ben riding moose.  don't worry anne, no animals were harmed in the making of this picture.

you're welcome cory

poston's-

thank you so much for planning, inviting, hosting & decorating for oktoberfest and on top of that feeding all of our friends.  thank you for opening your home [and yard] and blessing us with your friendship and hospitality.  we love you all dearly & are so thankful that we get to celebrate life with you all.  the good, the bad...the oktoberfest -all of it.

j&b

more pics [here]

behind the times

so i wrote this post ohhh like a month or more ago i think and just never hit publish.  weird.  so for a trip down memory lane here's just a little update with some here and there's.  more current info in teal.  and fair warning this is all real random.

made these from a box but look how pretty:

i will pin anything with 'free printable' attached to it.  if you want me to come to your site and stick around, a "free printable" is just what i need.  if you see anything good send it on my way.  and if you're looking for some yourself you can steal mine {HERE}.

saturday was awesome [who knows what saturday this really was].  i slept in {woot woot} hung out with the hubs, and then some of our best friends came over to visit and to help us figure out what to do with our terrible blank walls.  i scrounged up all of my frames from around the house and laid them on the floor.  rach helped lay them out.  after tracing the frames on newspaper & arranging them on the wall i think we have something really good going.  right now the frames are drying out in the garage after some good ol' spray painting. [update: they are actually hanging on the wall now.  all my friends are amazed that something is hanging on my walls....however, they are still without pictures because i'm super indecisive.  whomp whomp.  i'll take & post a pic soon, maybe even if they're still empty.  that's real life for us i guess.]

laying them on the ground was a good idea, tracing them on newspaper to pre-place on the wall [with tape]was also a good idea.  however we didn't label our newpaper so we got worried that we wouldn't know what went where since some of the frames are similar.  so...i snapped this pic so we'd remember the order.  turns out...thats a good plan too because we were totally confused without it.

we made dinner twice in 1 week [ahhh this happened again this week, i told you we're improving.  i shall call that a miracle]

i figured out my second greatest fear {that doesn't have eternal consequence}.  being the couple in the restaurant who never speaks.  do you ever see them?  looks like they're out on a 'date' and neither one says anything the whole meal.  it makes me so sad.  benny, i hope our dates are always full & deep & fun & lively.  i never want to be that couple.

and back to reality...it's friday!  in real life.  right now.  i'm so excited about that.  this week has kind of flown by and i have no idea where it went. 
--thank you for your prayers for our meeting last night.  i'm excited about the truths that we were able to lay out with our mormon friends.
--tonight i'm hoping to do some haunted house hunting or at least a scary movie night [like hocus pocus wooooooooo...ghost sound] with hs friends
--tomorrow we get to have a blasty blast party with all our friends, homemade oktoberfest here we come.  i'm way hyped!
--we're currently puppy parents.  just for the week. the furballs are running the house.  literally running all over the place and also like running the show.  they do what they want.  and awesome sidenote: yesterday morning i took the pups outside before i left for work.  they saw a squirrel on the roof and our black furbaby ran over to the air conditioning unit and tried to jump on top of it in order to get to the roof.  1.  he couldn't even make it on top of an ac unit, he's tiny and it's less that 3' tall  2. our roof is way higher than 3' even if he could get up there.  hilarious.  our pups are wild. 
--i keep seeing ladies in really cute outfits on blogs etc. who say things like "belt: thrifted"  i've been looking through old belts for months and haven't ever found anything good.  c'mon goodwill - somebody give me your old, awesome belt! 
--and not to be a complete weirdo but i really enjoyed this sermon on who God is and the reality of Hell [vs. common misconceptions].  i really think you'd be encouraged by it.  listen here.  it's tim keller.

my friends have babies & i love 'em

so lib came to town & of course we took advantage.  some girlfriends [and their babes] all piled into the poston's for a long-due visit.  contrary to the story these pics tell...there were adult friends there and not just babies.  but gosh they're so dang cute.

rach i thought you'd like this one...baaaahahahaha

cheeeeeeeese [that's what he's saying]. 

figuring out how to be friends

sharing is hard.

you're welcome holly.

it was a really sweet night filled with laughter, life, food and of course...babies

more pics here

life as we know it

this past weekend i had a free night.  sadly it was because i wasn't able to take any girls on our campaigner overnight.  but happily, i got to fill my free night with a bestie.  i drove on up to nky, and after picking up my husband and a bunch of boys on the side of the road with 2 flat tires i made it to cory!  she has a bunch going on with a baby on the way & some other exciting ventures in the works so i was more than pleased to get up there to help out with any little thing.

we did a little 'work' and i got to play with james [her little guy] and visit dusty [her hubs].

we also went out to dinner, hated paypal, went to fabric shops and thrifting.  oh oh yes, & we found this:

where was this when i was 9?

working backwards, a few weeks ago i got to go out with most of the girls from my bstudy + kaitlin and cory for my birthday.  i love them and loved getting to sit and visit for an evening.  i wish there were more hours in the day or more days in the week so we could do more of that.  i love that i get to live life alongside such awesome, faithful, hilarious women.

and last but not least i've been cooking more, baking more and just eating at our house more often.  it's been a goal of ours for basically the last 3 years but we've never been able to make it work or be consistent.  we've had some kind of shift in our schedule and somehow have had more open evenings & we've been taking advantage.  i kind of don't know what i'm doing when it comes to the kitchen [or any part of the house really] and grocery shopping...don't get me started.  but i think i see a glimpse of little mrs. homemaker in progress.  and come to think of it, i don't think i've ever cooked a meal for someone other than ben.  i've made sweets and treats to share with people but i've never really made a whole meal unassisted before i don't think.  maybe i'm forgetting something because that sounds crazy.  i'm 26.  anyway, tomorrow we're having some fellas over to the house and i'm making dinner for them.  feeding 4 hungry men and not burning anything sounds like a challenge.  i'll let you know how that goes.  i will be utilizing my crock pot #lifesaver.

speaking of tomorrow i just wanted to ask for prayer please.  the guys that we're having over are mormon missionaries and as you likely know we're pretty passionate about sharing our faith with people & don't share the same gospel as our new friends - so please pray over our conversation & home please.  that it will be filled with the Holy Spirit and that God would be mightily at work shedding light in dark places.  we really love these guys and are excited to see what happens but we also know that spiritual warfare is at work and want to be prepared for battle.

going to the chapel: steph & andrew's engagement party

so as you might have noticed we love a good celebration around here.  and they kind of just keep coming.  i maybe feel like every week is aparty.  i'm not really sure what to do with that info but that's basically my life.  a few weekends ago we had the pleasure of helping with a engagement party for my cousin, steph and her fiance andrew.  they live in nashville and came up to lex; it was so awesome to have family from near and far and a bunch of andrew's fam was there too so it was a great meet & mingle too.  i hope they felt well loved & celebrated!  her sister [my other cousin] sarah put the whole thing together and did such an excellent job, working hard to take care of all the details.

the happy couple came a little early to check out the place, decorated just for them.  benny got steph's face...so excited!

steph has this crazy talented friend / roommate that we pretty much want to adopt into the family and she made a super sweet keepsake for s & a to take home with them.  it is a count down until the wedding and each week has a card.  family members & friends could write notes, advice, knock knock jokes, anything they wanted.  i'm sure they will have so much fun counting down the days til the day!

my momma made all the desserts for the party and just looking at the pictures make me hungry. she made lemon cupcakes with glaze, brownie delights, little apple pie tarts and brought cheesecake bites.

she even made candied lemon zests for the tops.  how sweet [literally] is that!?  i'd like to eat one of these a day.

we made poms to jazz up the buffet table.  i couldn't get a very good pic and once the food was out i was manning the salad station.

::friends and fam::

me & grandad.  isn't he totally the guy from up?

::us & the happy couple [don't worry, we're a happy couple too]::

::SISTER::

the hostess & her precious babe.

the wall behind them is how andrew proposed to steph.  it is like a timeline of pictures that were strung all through the house with a proposal at the end.  i'm so glad we got to see it!

we love you guys and are so excited for the life you'll be starting together.  i hope that God is glorified in your home and that you all point each other to Jesus daily.  so glad we got to be a part of such a fun day!