Game Night & Hosting In the Midst of Fibro

Despite the Fibro, you all know I love to live life to the fullest that I possibly can. 

When we first moved into our house years ago, I hosted a bunch of girly parties for scrapbooking, clothes, etc. I loved hosting Tim's family for holidays and my family for weekend trips. 

Then a couple years after moving here, I developed Fibro. 

How incredibly frustrating. I spent years just trying to slide by and survive. I was having a really hard time and rarely felt well enough to do much beyond just work and church and family. 

Then I found ways that worked for me to feel better and ways I could push through without pushing too hard. I found methods for coping and decided I wasn't going to let Fibro rule my life. Meaning that whenever I could, I would still do the things I love. 

That has meant scaling back from what I really want to do, but still being able to do those things at least to some extent. 

I slowly started having people over more often. Hosted Tim's family 4 years ago for Easter. Then again this year. Last year I hosted a Pampered Chef party and I loved every second of it. It was like the party hosting itch had sprung again, but then it faded quickly in the chaos of just regular living.

There were times in there where it wasn't just about the Fibro, it was about being embarrassed. Our house is filled in every nook and cranny, and not organized in ways I wish it could be if I really had the time and energy. But I had to finally get over the "my house isn't good enough" feeling, and decided that I really wanted my hospitality and hosting juices to flow fully again, no matter what my house might look like. I just wanted to open the doors and love on and serve people again. 

So I did. 

It reminded me how much people just love being together - they don't care particularly where they're at or what it looks like. They get to see you.

And it's been SO incredibly rewarding!!!! My favorite thing now though is to invite couple groups to our home {or get them together outside our home too which has been great - love growing in relationships & community!}. It's been most amazing to have groups of people over who are in the same life place. Nothing against anyone else, but there's just something there to connect with when you know you're in the same place, struggling with the same things, and connecting in ways you couldn't otherwise. 

It's been a huge blessing. I don't have any pictures from our first group night like this at our house, but last Friday night we had two couples over from work where I work with both the guys, and it's been a true joy getting to know their wives too! 

I feel like we've finally hit a good stride with hosting again and have a good group of people that we hit it off with and enjoy hanging out together. It's not a drain and has been an important part of our growth lately. Since we aren't part of a small group or something at our church, this is where we find our community. And we love it {me more so of course since I'm the extrovert, but thankfully Tim goes along with it and has been really enjoying it too}!!

So here we are with our fun, crazy, godly, hilarious group of people from last Friday: 

AJ {Bible typesetter} & Kevin {designer} being silly

Catherine & Bekah - love these girls

and that they pose so well for the camera!! :)

We grilled. Good stuff.

Used leftover fun stuff from Easter one week before :)

Ready to eat. Love the AJ & Kev's poses. Hilarity.

Laughing at some videos.

Attempting some crazy magnet game. So fun!

Warm cookies, ice cream, & chocolate syrup - yes puh-lease!!

20 minutes after AJ & Catherine explained to us all how to play the complicated card game Bang! we finally started. Got confused. Had to keep having it explained.
Yes, Bekah is flipping through my Hunger Games magazine....clearly focused on the game. Ahem.

It was overwhelming at first. Our heads nearly exploded.

Then it got funny.

Really, really, really, reallyyyy funny!!!

And still confusing....

Ooooohhhhhh I get it!

Fun stuff. Seriously. so. fun.

We haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It was refreshing, relaxing, and rejuvenating. We are so thankful for these friends and the hours and hours and hours of hanging out at our house. It was amazing.

We are also very thankful that my body has been allowing me to do these get togethers without any major repercussions!

Whew. Because I really want to keep doing this.

Living life. Hosting. Loving on people. Serving them. Laughing together. Breaking bread together. Relaxing together. Crying together. Praying together. Sharing in life together.

Love this phase of life and am content, blessed, and thankful.