holiday festivities

december has hands-down been one of the busiest months of our lives, as we both work full time, are finishing up classes for the fall semester, and are feverishly working on our new house. however, thankfully, we were sure to make time for plenty of holiday festivities.

nikki was sweet enough to let me attend their ward's christmas party with them, as i am not one to turn down free food, christmas music, or time spent with this little girl.

we visited temple square with our good friends marcus and loni.

i had plenty of help wrapping presents from my cute little scrunchy-nosed side kick.

we attended kendrick's work christmas party. his work things are always the best because he works with my best friend's husband. #winwin

we visited christmas in color with our friends tawny, keegan, allyson, and sam.

we paid santa a visit at the mall with these two little cuties

we put up our christmas tree! it didn't go up until christmas eve, but, better late than never, right?

tree farm

in celebration of our new home, we decided it would be fun to pick out a real tree for the christmas season. lucky for us, our good friends tawny and keegan are always down for an adventure. 

 i never realized how incredibly expensive trees are, especially for the ones that are artificially colored or flocked. we ended up finding a gorgeous tree that was all tied up in the "discount area". i'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be there, because even the person checking us out seemed baffled, but gave us the deal anyway. score!

now, if only we had somewhere to put our new tree.... #homerenovationproblems

we bought a house!

super excited to share the news- we bought our first home!

while the home is beautiful inside and out, the colors don't exactly fit our style, so we are doing a complete make over on everything. the entire first floor (which is currently tile and brown carpet) will become hard wood floors, and all of the bathrooms are getting retiled and new vanitys. the kitchen will be getting new countertops and backsplash and the cabinents a pretty make over. the carpet upstairs will be torn out and fully replaced. all of the walls are going to be repainted, and we are building a fireplace in the living room. last but not least, we plan on painting the front door and shutters navy blue in the spring.

how's that for a list? because of this, we will be living in my brother's basement for most of december while we get the place ready to live in.

we couldn't be more excited!

chicago, day 4

our last and final day in the windy city started with getting some of the best donuts we've ever had at stan's donuts. while they were all to die for, the one that was stuffed with biscoff cookie butter won my heart, naturally.

from there, we hopped on a train to the museum of science and industry. this part of town was definitely a bit on the sketchy side, and our uber driver told us it was where obama grew up (not that this was a big deal to us, but, the more you know).

while the museum was fun and provided a lot of cool exhibits and interactive displays, we couldn't help but feel it was geared more towards children, so probably wouldn't recommend you put this on your "must-do" list, if you're planning a trip to chicago.

 we headed back into the city once it got dark, mainly because i wanted to snap some pictures of the bean at night. funny enough, there was a large anti-trump protest forming around the bean, and i carelessly waded through the people to get my pictures (go home, people!)

after a quick dinner, we made our way back to our place to start packijg our belongings for our early flight the next morning.

see you soon, chicago!

chicago, day three

our third day in the chicago was one of the greatest because harmony, jeff, and the boys met up with us for the day (they are currently living in indiana while jeff attends dental school, so it was only a two hour drive). we spent the morning at lincoln park zoo and seriously lucked out on weather, it was an absolutely gorgeous day and the fall colors were out in full force. 

 after the zoo, we headed into the city and hung out on navy pier for a few hours. kendrick and i left the others to take an architectural river tour, which was such a wonderful way to see the city (without having to walk everywhere- our feet were so sore at this point!) 

 once done with our tour, we headed back to navy pier, where we had a gorgeous view of the city for some pictures.

 we finished the night at portillo's for some dinner before saying goodbye to harmong and jeff. such a fun day spent with them and the boys!

we ended the night at the mall, where i visited one of my favorite places to be: