Merry Christmas, happy (belated) Chanukah, and happy New Year

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Here are a few photos from our home this season:

We tried our best to incorporate Chanukah into our home

Our friend the dinosaur who lives in the kitchen

The next best thing to a real fireplace

Someone took a ride on the Santa Express last night!

Planning and Henry

It's holiday season, so this weekend we welcomed our newest member of the family. Meet Henry:

He's a great tree and adds so much to our home. We try to return the favor by keeping him hydrated and well-lit (with LED lights, of course!). :)

In the midst of the holidays (how is it two weeks away???) we're also welcoming some guests from Peoria this weekend: Mike's friends Jeff, Monica, Jim, Michelle, Tim, and Stephanie. We have a hot date under the guise of an engagement celebration, although it's really just an excuse to eat at The Publican again (omg).

We've started taking baby steps towards planning the wedding. Our first task was to create a budget - and then throw it away. How can something that seems so simple and non-extravagant COST SO MUCH??? We haven't completely discarded our budget, and we padded it quite a bit as a best-case-scenario wouldn't-it-be-great-if budget to start from, but we will obviously need to pare it down quite a bit.

Much of where we hope to save is on trying to DIY as much as possible. We're still not sure what that means, but we've got time to research. I'm starting to check some books out of the library for help (which also helps keep our costs down) and, so far, this one is chock full of information:

I'm still on the lookout for more environmentally-conscious resources, as I feel we should minimize our impact from this event as much as possible. Stay tuned!