The Fourth Annual Americana Porch Party

It seems as soon as one year's party ends my mind goes to the next year's party.

I'm already thinking about centerpieces and outfits for next year.

How do we make it better?

I may say it every year but I think this year was the best year yet.

The porch looked great as always.

We had our biggest group yet this year.

38!

Andrew says we are shooting for 50 next year.

In order for you to truly appreciate the growth, let's take a look back...

First Annual...2014

Second Annual...2015...in the rain

Third Annual...2016



And the Fourth Annual...2017


I love having these group pictures every year.  It's fun to watch new family members and friends join us.  


The group photo starts the party...


It was time to eat.

A huge shout out to Carl for providing all the meat...he smoked turkey, pastrami, and pork tenderloin.  I sampled it all and it was all AMAZING...and I don't even like pastrami. :)


As people were waiting to eat or finish up their lunch we snapped a few more fun pictures.

I shared the camera with Uncle Kevin.  It made me smile when I started going through pictures.  I think he captured his heart...

The Annual Porch Party brings with it the celebration of two very special people.  We love getting to celebrate Jayna & Jessica's birthdays.

Photographed and well fed, it was time for yard games.

Andrew outdid himself this year with yard games.

Whatever your favorite yard game may be, I'm sure we had it set up.

This is  easily one of my favorites from the day.  This is my niece Kandace.  I was just looking at her thinking about how tall, how pretty, and how sweet she is!

 Deep concentration before she throws...

Yes...Andrew and I changed outfits this year...we were too fancy for yard games.  Picking out our outfits is one of my favorite things about this party.  We have fun with it.

2014

2015

2016


2017



Andrew and I love this party.  But I will say we do not do this by ourselves.  My kitchen is full of women (and a few men) the entire time helping prepare the meal and clean up after the meal.  There are men moving about everywhere setting up tables and chairs, yard games, and any other last minute things.  We are so thankful for all the help.



And we don't have any pictures but my favorite part of this party is preparing care packages for soldiers who are out there fighting for our freedom and are away from their families.  The biggest sacrifice!  Everyone brings items and we fill as many boxes as we can.  I'm glad Andrew started this tradition the first year.

Ten Things That Have Me Pumped About Moving

1. Andrew's commute will go from a little over an hour to less than ten minutes.  This means more time together.  It means we can eat dinner together.  

2. Wal-Mart Pick Up....I cannot say how I'm excited I am about this.  Grocery Shopping will never be the same.

3. All the gym options.  I'm excited to find a gym and join some classes.  I miss Zumba.  And who knows...maybe I'll try something new.

4. We will have more than a handful of options when we want to go out to eat.

5.  Proximity to golf courses.  My husband is going to play golf regardless.  Being closer to the course makes those golf days a little shorter.

6. Shopping.  Oh the Shopping.  I'm going to be right down the road from Hobby Lobby and a mall and Ulta and....my husband may need to take my debit card away.

7.  Church...We never really found a church that was a good fit for us when we moved to Heber Springs.  There are so many more options where we are moving.  One of my biggest prayers, expectations, and excitements is finding a church home.

8.  Friends...With a new church a new gym, I'm praying for new friends.  I miss having a group of women that I can connect with it - people I can encourage and who can encourage me.

9. Infertility means lots of doctors appointments.  It will be nice to be 15 minutes from our clinic instead of an hour and 15 minutes.

10. New Job.  I'm happy in my current position at my current school.  But I'm sort of hoping God leads me to a new position out of my comfort zone.  I want something to push me and stretch me as a teacher.  Scary but exciting.

Why Are We Moving?

So about this move...

We love our little town.  We love our old house.  We love being close to the lake and spending time on our boat.

What we don't love is Andrew spending 2.5 hours in the car every day.

We don't love never eating dinner together.

We don't love those nights where he's getting home from work as I'm going to bed.

As you can imagine those things get old after awhile.

We've been talking about moving back to central Arkansas for a while now, but that talk became serious a few months ago.

We found a lot we loved and Andrew designed a house we loved.

We looked at buying a house instead of building. 

We talked about selling our current house...something that neither one of us really wanted to do.

I'm not good at talking through big decisions like this.  It takes me awhile to adjust to the idea of change and then once I adjust I'm set on that plan.  I struggle to discuss various ideas all at once.  I just want to scream at Andrew to pick something, pick a plan and I'll get on board. This of course is frustrating to him as he is the complete opposite.  He wants to thoroughly discuss every option and doesn't settle on one thing until he makes his decision.  

It's can be a very stressful scenario...at least for me.

So I was much relieved when a decision had been made, when a plan had finally come together.

We will keep our current house.  This allows us to continue hosting porch parties - something we absolutely love - and it gives us a place to stay when we want a weekend on the lake.

We will be renting the adorable little house I shared in my last post.

It is less than 10 minutes from Andrew's office.  That little fact in and of itself makes it the perfect house.

I am applying and praying for a job closer to the new house.  If nothing comes up, I will take my turn at having the commute.  

I think we are both pretty excited about shortening his commute and having that time together.

Because we are keeping our current home and not moving everything we own this has been the easiest move ever so far.

It feels a little bit like we are getting to have our cake and eat it too.

And we aren't complaining about that!

Five on Friday

I can't seem to put together a proper introduction today so let's just dive right in...

ONE...

We're moving!!  We started having conversations a few months ago and now we are just a couple of weeks away from moving into the cutest little rent house.  There are so many things that I'm looking forward to with this move.  I'm working on another blog post to cover that and the why behind this move.

TWO...

New house means new decor.  I'm having a blast shopping and designing everything....well letting my super talent sister-in-law design everything.  I would be so lost without her.  These are some of the color palettes I'm loving.

THREE...

I've been obsessed with face mask lately.  I love how they leave my face feeling moisturized and refreshed.  This avocado mask from Sephora is probably my favotie.

FOUR...

A little Valentine's Day leak led to us getting a new roof.  Such a big difference.  The house looks amazing!!

FIVE...

Tonight my championship team takes on Andrew's championship team.  Pretty sure it will be a first since we started our family bracket challenge.  Hopefully he won't be in too bad of a mood when his team loses. :)  (Go Bruins!!)

Hope Ball 2017

What girl doesn't love the chance to get all glammed up to dance the night away with her Prince Charming?

The hubs and I received an invitation last month to attend the Hope Ball.  We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to go.  Neither one of us would really say yes or no.  We finally said yes though neither of us were super excited about it.

Well...I was excited about the buying a fancy dress part.

And I definitely had fun trying on dress.

 (This one made me feel like Diane Keaton)

(If we go again...I will be wearing something bright like this)

But the rest?  

Didn't really seem like our thing.  In fact when my mom told me that her and my dad would be playing Bingo at a church event the night of the ball...that sounded like more fun to me.

But oh how I was wrong.

I started the day off getting a mani/pedi with my beautiful sister-in-law Krystal.  I just love her!

After the nails were done I ran a few errands before meeting back up with Krystal.  A sweet friend of hers, Chanda, did our hair and makeup for the event.  We didn't take a before picture, but let me just tell you she did an amazing job.  True artist!

I was obsessed!  I could have sat and stared in the mirror at those lashes all night.

We ran back home where our men waited on us and then it was off to the ball.

It was so much fun checking out every one's dresses as we stood in line to have our picture taken red carpet style.

Cedar Creek had ten seats.  I just love everyone we spent the evening with.  It's nice when your husband works with family and friends.

(One couple was already at the table when we snapped this pic)

It was such a fun night.

We ate good food, had fabulous conversation filled with laughter, and danced to some fun music.

It was a special night.

And not just for our own memories...

The ball was a fundraiser for The 20th Century Club's Lodge.

The lodge is a place where cancer patients along with their caregiver can stay during treatments at  no cost to them what so ever.

Through the Hope Ball they raised over $112,000.

Amazing!

If Cedar Creek sponsors a table next year, I look forward to getting all glammed up and going again.

Until then...my favorite picture from the night...

Our First IUI

I'm not sure when I will actually post this, but I want to get down the events of the weekend and how I'm feeling.

So...we did our first IUI yesterday (January 29).

I'm still in shock that I'm writing that sentence.

It seems like we have been waiting forever to make it this far and all of a sudden we were there.

I got a positive surge on my ovulation test Saturday morning and called the doctor to let them know.

We were in the middle of dress shopping when the nurse called me back.

Shot at 9:00 that night.

IUI at 9:00 the following morning.

Umm..what?

Cue all the emotions.

Excitement.  Fear.  Hope.  Nervous.

All the emotions.

We were already planning to spend the night with Andrew's mom and dad that evening.  Having given one shot, my mother-in-law had the most shot giving experience.  I am so glad she didn't mind to give me my trigger shot.

I wasn't expecting it to hurt, but I wasn't sure I could inject myself.

I didn't even feel it.  Now I think I could do it myself next time.

The IUI went very smooth.

No pain.

Easy as pie.

It felt like any other appointment we've had.

I kept having to tell myself that was it.

We did it.

The rest of the day was spent resting and attending the symphony.

The distractions were nice.


Fast forward to a week later...February 3.

I went in for blood work so they could check my progesterone.

Late that night I got the results.

My progesterone was 2.9 ng/ml.

That's very low.

I spoke with the nurse Monday afternoon and she confirmed my suspicions.

Progesterone being that low meant that I didn't ovulate when we thought.

I'm not sure why I got the positive surge if I didn't ovulate at that time.

Chances of this being a successful IUI were next to nothing.

I spent the next few days feeling sad and heartbroken.

I also felt dumb for believing this was going to work on the first try.

I wanted to call it quits and walk away.  Yet at the same time I felt impatient and ready to start my next cycle and try again

Infertility brings a huge range of emotions.

And now we're at today....test day.

I went ahead and took a test this morning even though my progesterone levels meant I wasn't pregnant.  I guess I was in denial.

The test confirmed that our first IUI was not successful.

I told myself from the beginning that I would be thankful just to complete an IUI.

And I am.  I am so thankful that we had the chance to do that.  I'm thankful that we know a little more about my cycle than we did before, allowing us to have a better game plan for next time.

We have an appointment next week to discuss a new treatment plan.

I'm not sure when next time will be.

Andrew will be traveling for work soon and we have some other things going on that need to take precedent right now.