Surprise! {not}

Hey Friends!

Last Saturday we threw a "surprise" party for my sweet friend, Kara. I put surprise in quotes because she knew about it the whole time. She's a smart one, that Kara. Her hubby had no chance when she interrogated him. We had a blast nonetheless and I wanted to share some pics from the event that were taken by another wonderful friend, Lindsay (who is expecting a baby girl any day now)! Enjoy!

Brooke, Me, Lucas, and Nikki before Kara arrived.

Since Kara knew about the surprise, we had to think of a way to throw her off. We invited them over to play Settlers of Catan and had it set up on the table. We had all of our friends hide in our bedroom so it looked like no one was there.  

Some of the men waiting for instructions. ;)

Brooke, Lindsay, Mallory, and Lauren in our bedroom waiting for Kara.



The boys were ready to come out and yell, "Surprise!"

 When it was time to come out, Ryan would text Camden to have them all run down the hall.



Camden waiting for the go ahead from Ryan.



Surprise!!! Tessa did not enjoy that part.





cake fail

Me, Brooke, Lauren, Kara holding Tessa, Lindsay (with baby girl), Bethany (with baby boy) and Mallory

We had such a fun time! Kara knew it was coming but she loved it anyway! I made a funfetti cake with cream cheese frosting and used this technique to decorate it. It was my first time to decorate a cake in any way other than just slathering on a layer of frosting! It was a pain because  my apartment was so hot. I ended up having to put the cake in freezer after every 3 rows of ruffles to keep them from melting off! At the end of the night the cake just did not want to stand up any longer and took a little nap on the table. Ryan was just glad nothing happend to the Settlers board.

Thanks to our wonderful friends for making such a sweet memory!


Loves,
Amy





Happy New Year!

I still split up my year into semesters and breaks. Thanks school for messing up my calendar. Even though it is August, it feels like a new year because everyone is going back to school now. I really enjoy this time of year. Mostly because school supplies are super cheap and I can stock up on my crafting materials! I took some time yesterday to think about the last year and how much has changed. August 9th marked our 1 year anniversary of moving to Louisville. We've lived outside of Arkansas for a WHOLE YEAR. Crazy. I remember last August and how stressed we were from the move and applying for jobs. I remember how lonely we were because we didn't have many friends here yet. I remember the fun long drives we would take exploring Louisville (we still do this on occasion). Today, we have a wonderful new apartment and great jobs. We have AMAZING friends that are practically family. And I think I know Louisville better than I know Little Rock! Thank you Lord for so many blessings!

Ryan will start his second year of seminary tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited! He is doing so well in his classes. All A's so far. I am such a proud wife! I took a break from taking SWI classes last sememster so that I could take a women's systematic theology class through Sojourn with some very lovely ladies. This semester I will be resuming SWI and taking a parenting class with some of the same girls. I'm very excited about this upcoming class. I'm so thankful for Southern Seminary!

This is a pic of the library on campus last fall. SBTS has an amazingly beautiful campus.

I did some fun craft projects this past weekend as well. I plan on posting one super easy project that I did in my next post. I hope to do many more projects that I find on Pinterest. I'm kind of addicted to that site. I've gotten so many ideas for decorating our apartment and I can't wait to put them in motion! We've had family in town since we moved into our new place (for the last 3 weeks) so I haven't been able to do too much as far as decorating goes. I'm actually still trying to unpack all the boxes! I'm very close to getting all of our junk belongings put away so hopefully I can start "prettifying" everything soon!

I'll leave you all with some pictures of our recent excursion to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN. We took Ryan's little sister, Amber, there as her birthday present from us. We had such a great time!

For the record, Amber is not grumpy, that's just her default silly face. Ha!

Hope everyone has an amazing week!
-Amy