here's my first baby bump post! i've been really bad at remembering to take photos of the bump, but here's to the first one! i'm in that awkward stage where either i look pregnant or like i've eaten too many bagels lately... it's a mix of both i'd say haha 


How far along are you? 12 weeks! nearing the end of the 1st trimester

i seriously love this time of the year (minus the below zero weather we've been having). we only have a week left of this semester and then we're done for good! well, at least i am...  we're counting down the days until we will be driving to seattle to spend christmas with my family.

the day we got back from thanksgiving break, we busted out the christmas decor (which we really didn't have much...) so i ran to the local dollar tree and got a ton of decorations for only 9 bucks! bonus! the little nutcracker was part of that bunch :) we've been listening to christmas music non-stop and anytime we're home, the christmas tree lights go on. i wish this lasted for longer than a month ;)

for my senior project, i decided to start on creating a travel book series. it was very time consuming, but totally worth it in the end. i chose to use artifact uprising for printing (such a good choice!). i displayed my books at my Senior Showcase at school and had such wonderful feedback. i love having them sit on our coffee table so that anyone who comes to visit can look at our adventures of traveling.

i graduate from brigham young university-idaho in just a couple of weeks! i can't believe that my time in school is coming to an end. it's one chapter of my life i'll close and start into a new chapter of becoming a mother. it'll be very different, but i'm excited for all that awaits!

one thing i'm incredibly thankful for is my family. they are my best friends! since we were all together last weekend after thanksgiving, we decided to quickly take some family photos nearby. i can't wait to spend christmas with all of them soon! 

this year we decided to book our flights to Oklahoma to spend thanksgiving break with kevin's family. we enjoyed spending time together and eating a delicious thanksgiving meal. i can't believe how fast our time flew by while we were there! this was my first year having thanksgiving in oklahoma with the mehners. i just love how adorable all our nieces and nephews are -- they were so fun to be around! i can't wait until our little one will be able to play with all of them :) my sister-in-law is also pregnant and due 2 weeks after me.

we love and miss you guys!  

i just love this graphic so much that i couldn't resist creating a little announcement for our blog. the lovely Emily Kim is the illustrator of the graphic, isn't she so talented?! she's also a fellow photography friend so check out her photos here  and if you're interested in getting a personalized illustration of you and your family, contact her through her website. she also has an adorable personal blog where she shares all her cute doodles!

last thursday (i know, i'm late..) my images taken in copenhagen were featured on Le Magnifique Wedding & Travel blog! You can check out the post here.

kevin and i are incredibly thankful and excited to announce that we will be parents! we decided that we would start trying at the end of the summer and since we had no clue how long it would take, we knew that the Lord would bless us when the time was right. we found out in october and it was really hard not to tell everyone! of course we told our family and close friends right away who were all thrilled. i'm the first one to be pregnant on my side of the family so my parents are gearing up to soon be called grandma and grandpa :)

kevin and i have a feeling it'll be a boy, but who knows! we will find out most likely the beginning of january (!!!) so what do you think? boy or girl?! (you can cast your vote on the poll in the side bar).

remember that one time we started doing ABC dates when we were dating (?) and remember that one time we didn't get through the whole alphabet(?) well, we decided to start over.

yesterday, kevin surprised me with the first date, letter A. he gave me a little bag full of tokens as a hint! sure enough, we headed to the arcade and enjoyed winning as many tickets as we could. our favorite games were skeeball and deal or no deal. we haven't ever been to an arcade together, so it was a lot of fun! after spending all our tokens we redeemed our awesome (cheapo) prizes and walked next door to a cupcake shop for dessert. one reason why we decided to re start our ABC dates was so that we could get out more and enjoy dating each other by trying out new things. before, we honestly weren't super creative with our ideas and they mostly involved some kind of food to go with the letter because it was easy. so now we are trying to get more creative and try new things.   

yesterday was my 22nd birthday! it began with kevin making me a delicious breakfast. he also surprised me with roses and a card on the table. he's the best :) then we celebrated later that day with friends! i'm so thankful for my family and friends who showed their love for me on my birthday. i'm truly blessed! 

p.s. the winner of the chocolate giveaway is Nicole Hogge! Congrats! 

we had family come to visit! i don't know why we didn't get a group photo, but here's kevin and i before we all went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant in town, The Hickory. we did an early birthday celebration (since i'll be turning 22 on tuesday!!). it was a fun and relaxing weekend complete with watching a halloween movie (beetlejuice! ha) we also picked out pumpkins with intentions of carving them together... but we got distracted with the movie.

i can't wait for all the exciting things coming up this fall/winter. i love this time of year! thanksgiving will be here before you know it and then we'll be graduating shortly after. :)

if you don't know by now, one way to my heart is chocolate. i seriously love chocolate! i can down a slice of rich chocolate cheesecake from the cheesecake factory and not feel sick afterward. every year for my birthday (which is coming up next week!) i have to have my favorite chocolate silk pie to celebrate. So you must know how incredibly excited i was when Amanda from Pavonia Patisserie asked if we could collaborate and do a giveaway for her chocolate shop! of course i said yes and let me tell you, her hand-made chocolates are a-mazing. like melt in your mouth deliciousness.

some of my favorites that you should try too: milk chocolate truffle + peanut butter dark chocolate bon-bon
   
it couldn't be better timing because she just launched her new Pie Collection for this fall season. what could be better than a pumpkin pie all in one bite? she's being very generous and offering a 15% off discount to everyone by using the promo code "HIMandHER" along with this discount, you can win any item from her store by entering below!

trader joes has turned me in to a hummus snob! now that we aren't living near a trader joes, and we've bought a few different brands of hummus, it just doesn't taste the same. we've been wanting to make our own homemade hummus lately, so luckily i came across this copycat trader joes mediterranean hummus recipe (!!!) and it is delicious.

Read on for the recipe!