Some Holm-made cookin'

 Take a little bit of this...

And a little bit of that...

 Mix it all together and you get....

I'm "Prego"! Ben and I are thrilled to have a baby on the way! We are due July 8th, making me almost 14 weeks along!

Happy Holidays!

I am terrible at keeping up with blogging....so "happy holidays" will even include Thanksgiving.
My parents flew out here for Thanksgiving (and to see my new niece, baby Claire), and we had a great time having visitors! We of course got in some Chicago deep dish pizza and a lot of games. Thanksgiving dinner was at our house this year, which would sound like a lot of pressure, but I really didn't have to make anything. Between my parents and Bryce and Camille, I just had to supply a clean house :)

Our delicious feast!

 We hit up some Black Friday shopping the next morning (which, by the way, is much warmer in WA than in freezing cold IL). Then on Saturday we got to have Ben's brother, Marcus, and his wife Lauren and their twin boys (who live in Texas) come visit. It was a great Thanksgiving week!

This was our first year getting a Christmas tree. Now I'm from WA, and grew up with giant real trees every year. Ben, is what I refer to as the Grinch. He is very anti spending money on decorations, especially a real tree. So...where else could you get a fake tree, that's over 7 feet, for $19??? Goodwill. Yes, I know that sounds kind of sad, but I only plan on using it while we live in this house, and it actually looked pretty decent. I have actually found some great decorations at Goodwill, and no husband can complain when you are getting decor for that cheap.

Yes, with the money I saved, I purchased a peppermint candy tree topper and skirt

We opened our presents over a week early, since we were heading out of town.

Then the next morning, we flew to Cabo! This was my parents gift to us, and it was so fun spending the week with them in the sun. Here's just a few of the pictures:

The first day of tanning....very white

Ben had his first deep-sea fishing trip with my dad

The marina downtown. My poor dad tore his meniscus 2 days before the trip

We're driving down a busy road, and a herd of cows start walking across. Oh mexico

Lover's Beach in the background

Ben and my dad won us free drinks dominating in water volleyball

Delicious fajitas and cute tablecloths

Another great dinner, and round 2 of fajitas for me :)

This is the same restaurant and table Ben and I ate at on our honeymoon a year ago!

A daily routine...

Ruth's Chris. Delicious!

Back at Pueblo Bonito

It was such a fun trip, full of lots of card games, great food, and perfect sunny weather to lay in! Thanks so much mom and dad, we love it when we get to be your travel buddies!

From Cabo we flew to Minnesota to see Ben's family. Imagine trying to pack for both of those places...very tricky. We got in Christmas Eve, just in time to get to be a part of the Christmas Eve program, all about Christ. Then we opened all the presents (the Holms do everything on Christmas Eve). It was fun for me to get to experience their traditions (being my first Christmas at Ben's house) and it's fun to be part of such a big group (Ben has 10 siblings, and all but 1 were there). The rest of the time in Minnesota was spent chatting, eating his mom's good home-cooking, and me avoiding going outside (it is sooo cold there!).

Couples dinner at Big Bowl. (Marcus, Lauren, me, Ben, Dillon, Amy, Joann, Ron)

We got a little addicted to Wii Mario while we were there

 

It was a great visit, and we were so thankful to get to see my parents and almost all of Ben's family over the holidays. I was also more grateful for the weather in Chicago after feeling how horribly colder it is in Minnesota, and I was grateful the airlines eventually found our suitcase....since it had all of our underwear! We were very blessed over the hollidays!