praising God for our amazing friends!

We seriously have such an awesome group of friends. Last night we had kind of one last get-together before we move up to Michigan. It was such a fun and (kind of) sad evening. Not too sad, because I know the next couple of years we will still have plenty of time together. But sad because we can't help but think ahead a few years...and it will be extremely hard to say goodbye to all these guys! So anyway, we had such a great evening...you will see why these are such great friends!

Nick and Jess were gracious hosts! Nick was willing to sweat over a hot grill and they had everything set up so great! Here we are eating supper:
Notice anything missing? Oh yes, our 17 kids! (or some crazy number like that). I don't know whose idea this was (Jessica's, maybe?) but it was a good one: They actually hired 4 babysitters to feed and entertain all the kids in the basement so that all of us parents could enjoy a peaceful meal upstairs. It was awesome...we barely heard a peep out of our kids! Great idea, guys!

Here is the "big boys" table:

And the girls table...it was all set up so cute!

Nick and Jess have this HUUUUUUGE beanbag that was quite a hit. Layla was enjoying being thrown onto it:

And the bigger kids loved jumping off of the windowsill onto it! What a great toy!

Best buds...Kaine, Carter and Hudson. Hopefully these boys will be able to stay close friends--we are already hoping it will work out someday for Carter and Hudson to visit Kaine in the jungle!

This is so cute. Halle and Kaitlee (did I spell that right?) are becoming good friends! Up until recently they have been pretty young and haven't really played together much. But now they are older and it is so cute to see them together! Halle loves being with Kaitlee:)

So here we are...our friends had us sit on the couch and Mason presented Kaine and Halle with a gift.

SUCH a creative idea! It was an empty ice cream container, filled with envelopes. One envelope for each month of this next year (each one decorated by one of the kids). It is our "ice cream of the month" money! See, since we won't have an income anymore we are going to be living very frugally...not buying junk food or many "extras". Which is good, because it will be really good for us! But this will be such a good treat--we love ice cream!

Then, each couple gave us a really nice card (which alllllmost made me cry. I controlled it, though:) ). Anyway, they each gave us gift cards! So thoughtful and generous. Do you see now why our friends are so amazingly great??

Here are all the kids. We are becoming quite a group!

Nick & Jessica, Klint & Sarah, Clint & Amy, Michael & Jane, Mark & Angie...Thank you guys so much! We love you all so much and we are eternally grateful for your friendship and support. We are so glad God brought all of us together! We appreciate how supportive you are of us--what a blessing. We love you!