A Girl's Best Friends

So now that I've had a few days to recover from my jam-packed day of lingerie, best friends, good food, and bachelorette fun, I'm ready to post a few pictures from said events!

First, let me introduce my maid of honor & matron of honor who threw me this AMAZING combination shower day. 

Meet: Lauren.

 

We've been friends for a hot minute! In fact, we actually started going to school together in 6th grade, but didn't actually become friends until our freshman year of high school. We ran in the same small crowd all 4 years, then ended up living together during my time at Lipscomb, working together during two summers, and now she's helping me plan my wedding! This picture is from July 2009, right before I made the switch back to Harding to go get my prince charming :-)

Meet: Jennifer

 

 My sister-in-law has definitely been a huge blessing! I always wanted a sister, and when my brother married Jennifer, it was fate. The stars aligned, and the universe was forced to learn how to deal with not just one, but two Pence gals! I feel like I've known Jennifer my whole life, and I couldn't have imagined Daniel marrying anyone else! She's hilarious, and fits perfectly into our family. This picture is from their wedding almost 3 years ago! I can't wait to take a picture like this on my own wedding day!

The lingerie shower was A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E. Here were some of the decorations:

 

 

 

It was a blast. We played several fun girlie games, that I will forever archive those embarrassing pictures from, opened presents, and ate cake! I LOVE MY FRIENDS. I can't even explain how blessed I was at this shower, more than I could have ever dreamed! I don't want to post any pictures of all my pretty presents hanging up behind me, because that would be no fun :-)

 

 

A few of my Lipscomb girlies were finally able to reunite at the shower!

 

Arkansas roomie came in from Jonesboro! Just this time last year we were wondering when he was going to propose!!

 

MRS Sawyer came too!! I can't believe we'll both be married!!!

So many of my best, best friends were sweet enough to spend most of Saturday celebrating with me. I wish I could post every picture we took!! It was so fun having my high school friends meet my Lipscomb friends and meet my Harding friends and meet my childhood friends. Whew. So many amazing friendships from so many different stages of life!

Later that night we all met back up at Urban Flats in downtown Nashville for an entertaining & delicious dinner, then enjoyed the rest of the night together. Here's the only two pictures I snapped!

 

 I think this picture has pretty much all the girls from the shower, plus or minus 2 or 3 :-)

How special to be surrounded by so much love. 

Not to mention surrounded by all the memories formed that day & night.

 I can't wait to start going to my friends' showers! Bring it on shower season!!

 But with all that said, lingerie showers & bachelorette parties seem so trivial when there are good people dealing with some of the worst things imaginable.

 Please, please continue for pray for my friend Jason & his precious wife, Ashley. A lot of us went to high school with him, and several of my best friends are still very close to him and his wife. He was critically wounded in Afghanistan 3 days ago and the family has gone to be with him at a military hospital in Germany. It's a very serious situation, and they need prayers for the outcome that God knows is best. He's a tough guy, and his wife is even tougher. Stay strong, Jason! So many people are praying for you!

http://www.wsmv.com/story/17543484/franklin-soldier-critically-injured-in-afghanistan

It's always a good thing to be humbled and brought back to the fact that we're not in control. Only God knows what each day holds.

God is good, All the time

Today is April 9, 2012.

Which can only mean one thing...

I know, I know. 

Maybe it's a bit excessive to be counting down as much as I am. 

But, I believe I would be worried if I wasn't this overly, and extremely, and annoyingly excited. 

So you only have to put up with this for approximately 61 more days! WOOHOO!!!!

In other news...

ADAM GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!

And in case you missed the fine print of my previous status update...

That's right...Arkansas can't get rid of me that easily!

I never would have thought, not in a million years, that A. I would attend college in Arkansas, and B. I would end up married, in Arkansas. 

God has a funny sense of humor. 

I couldn't be more happy with how things worked out, though. Little Rock is almost EXACTLY in the middle of both our families, 5 from mine and about 6 from Adam's, and Andrew & Anna will be about 45 minutes. It was a perfect compromise, and is just the right distance for a weekend trip home to either. We've both always loved Little Rock, and we've already started making a list of places we need to "re-date." A few of our really close friends from school won't be too far either, which we're super pumped about!

Get ready Arkansas, looks like you're going to have 2 sets of Ingles to deal with now!

We've also started looking at places to live, now that Adam has his job secured and we can sleep a little better at night :-)

Right now we're looking into an old historic home that's been renovated into 4 large apartments. It's about 2 miles from downtown LR, so super convenient for Adam's job. In fact, he could probably ride his bike if he wanted to. We're going to look at it in two weeks when I'm in Searcy, so we're excited to finally apartment shop together for our first place! 

These next few weeks are going to be jam-packed with craziness, and then hopefully May we can focus on finishing up wedding details and getting me packed up and ready to fly the coop. 

This weekend is my lingerie shower & bachelorette party. I'm SO excited. I've been needing some good girl-time for a while now and I can't wait to have so many of my closest friends together at once!

Then nexxxt weekend I'll be in Searcy for our last premarital counseling session and our apartment hunting excursion. 

Weekend after that is my half marathon with my sister-in-law, and Adam & his sister, sister-in-law, mom, and 2 nieces are coming to stay with us, and it's our wedding shower with my church!

Then weekend after that, is ADAM'S GRADUATION!!!!

So excited for him. I know he is more than ready to get out of there and I am so proud of how hard he's been working!

Then the next 5 weeks is smooth sailing until the wedding festivities begin! 

Whew, I'm worn out just thinking about it! My to-do list is growing daily! 

I just can't get over how incredibly blessed we've been with Adam's job. It's a great company, and I know Adam will do great things through it. He is so smart, (though nerdy at times :-) ) and I can't wait to call him my husband. We've been praying and praying for months and weeks and days and nights that something good would work out before the wedding and for this huge burden of stress to be lifted. I think I almost cried when he called and told me the good news. Bless his heart, I can only imagine how relieved he was. Growing up we're always taught that the husband is to be the provider, and it was so important to him for him to be able to fill that role. It's so hard to fake the "I'm not stressed, something will work out, don't worry about it mom & dad..." look, and a few weeks ago I think we both were just at the end of our ropes about it and knew that there was nothing more we could do than pray, and pray hard. I think I've only prayed for one other thing more than this in my life, and God delivered on both. I'm not usually overly outward about religious things, but when God proves me wrong and answers prayers and knows exactly what I need, and when I need it, it blows my mind away. So with that said, God is good, all the time.

-the Future Mrs.

Our First Headboard!!

So seeing how the weather has been absolutely GORGEOUS recently, I decided to finally take advantage of it and get to work on our headboard!

I actually bought this headboard at a garage sale back in October. My original plan was to make my own tufted headboard, but when I stumbled upon this at a garage sale I decided it would match our rustic decor much better! I think I paid $20? It's a queen size headboard, real wood. 

Here is the original:

It was a reddish brown color and had previously sustained water damage so it was peeling off in areas. The color just made it look cheap and I knew it would never match anything in our house. 

So first thing I did was sand off the original stain...which took forever and way more muscle power than I was anticipating. Me plus a power sander equals exhaustion. It took almost 2 hours to get it completely sanded off, here's a halfway picture.

After I got it completely sanded down to the original wood, for the most part, dad suggested I carve something into it before I stained it. So we dug out his Dremel and I carved our wedding date into the top of it! (obviously the backside didn't get sanded)

Next, I wanted it to still look destructed so dad and I took some tools out of the garage and gave it a few good whacks!

Next, it was time to apply the stain. I picked out a 'dark walnut' color, knowing that some of the original stain would probably still show through a little bit but hoping it would cover most of it pretty well. I love the look of dark wood furniture!

Once the color dried, it darkened and evened out a little more, and then I applied a layer of flat polyurethane. (I didn't want it super shiny)

Here's two pictures from my cell phone the next morning after it dried overnight.

I LOVE IT!!!! It looks a lot darker in person, but some of the original color that we couldn't quite get sanded off came through in a few areas and I love how the two combined to make it look even more rustic. There's a perfect amount of destruction on it and pictures just don't do it justice. It's my new favorite craft :-)

I can't wait to pair it with our new bedding!!!

67 days!

-The Future Mrs.