~Random Thoughts, very random~
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Baby Hungry
So I can't get babies off my mind, I am baby hungry! I am so excited to start our family that I can hardly stand it. Brian and I have a plan though, and we said we would wait 2 years before starting a family, here is why:

1.) We need to be financially ready as I will be staying at home
2.) We want to pay off all of our debt (except for student loans and house payment)
3.) To spend time together and travel
4.) Utilize my degree and gain experience since I just graduated

These are all very logical and sensible reasons, in fact I should probably hang that list up in the house to remind me! I know after we start a family I will be reminiscing about all the free time we use to have and why I didn't enjoy it more, so I am trying to do just that, enjoy it.
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Digital Scrapbooking
I have wanted to start scrapbooking for sometime but I put it off during college as it would have been another distraction from doing my homework. Now that I have graduated I should start, but I am hesitant. I always envisioned paper scrapbooking, going to the store and picking out all sorts of stickers and stencils, but now this new digital scrapbooking is becoming huge!! And I want to do that, only I am not sure how to even begin. So instead of doing one type of scrapbooking I am doing none. I really need to just jump right in, my sister recently started digital scrapbooking so I am thinking about recruiting her as my teacher so I can at least get an idea of what the heck to do.
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Thankful
I never made a list of all the things I am thankful for so I want to do that now:
1.) My best friend in the whole world who I could not live without, Brian
2.) God
3.) My amazing family and friends who are so supportive
4.) The best dog in the whole world, MJ, who I hope lives forever
5.) My health, Brian's health, and our family and friends health
6.) Brian's job
7.) My job
8.) Brian's ambition

Have a great Thursday! I am going to leave you with some pictures:

Brian and I after we won Civil War, GO BEAVS!!

We got our tree!!
(Out of order) Us watching the Beaver game.
Right after we finished decorating the tree

~Wonderful Thanksgiving~
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What a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday it was! The weekend was very relaxing and we spent time with family and friends.
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Wednesday night we had our friends Travis and Sarah come over and we played the Newlywed game, I have never played the actual game and man does it have some tough questions! We ended up not keeping score, just asking questions and having fun with the answers :-)
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Thursday we slept in nice and late which felt so good! Since we had only one destination that day, my mom's house, we were able to take it easy and enjoy the day. We ate delicious food at my mom's and Brian made his dad's corn casserole that was a hit. Dessert was to die for! There were 2 kinds:
1. Brownie and chocolate pudding topped with whip cream and raspberries, yum!
2. My mom's famous crisp. She has mixes berries with a delcious crisp that has oatmeal in it, it is definitely my favorite and I am going to have to learn how to make it!
After dinner we played a card game and my brother helped me put a bunch of songs on my iPod (thanks Lance!). We had such a good time!
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Friday was the infamous Civil War: OSU vs. Oregon. Well I am sorry to any Oregon Ducks out there but GO BEAVS! Now, it was not a blow out game by any means, we won by 2 points, but it is still a victory and I could not be happier! The last minute was intense, we were ahead by 2 points with 1 minute to go and Oregon had the ball, they went for a field goal kick, just a 40 yard one. If that were us and our kicker, Alexis Serna, it would be no problem, but Oregon's kicker had already missed 3 field goals! I almost couldn't watch as the kicker went forward, but I saw through my squinted eyes the ball hit the goal post and bounce out, whew! BEAVERS WIN!!!!! Man, did we scream, we watched the game at a local sports park and the whole place was screaming. Very exhilarating!
After the game we met Brian's mom and older sister at Cirello's for some pizza. We had a good time catching up and talking about our amazing win.
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Saturday we went back to my mom's house to spend time with my sister Jenny and her boyfriend Kyle (they spent Thanksgiving with Kyle's parents so this was our family Thanksgiving), and Lance and Ali (Lance's girlfriend). We had left over's and played cards. My mom also let me take some Christmas decorations since all of our's got stolen last year in our campus apartment storage unit. We want to wait to buy decorations until after Christmas, but I still want some since we are hosting the annual Christmas gift exchange (more on that later).
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After my mom's house we went and got our very first Christmas tree as a married couple! Sounds corny but man were we excited! We got a 7 foot Noble Fir and it is gorgeous :) We took it home and began decorating. We bought some pretty red and gold ornaments from Target that we put on it along with some gold bows. The rest of the tree was filled with ornaments from my childhood. My grandparents on my dad's side give all the grandchildren an ornament for Christmas until they are 18, so I have 18 ornaments and they all have such a good memory. We reminisced about our family traditions and what we envision for our kids. After we were all done we took a step back and enjoyed our beautiful tree. It really is goregous and we are very proud. I will post pictures a little later. After a review of the weekend we both decided that was our favorite part, we love smelling the tree and I can't help but feel grown up for having my very own nicely decorated tree.
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Christmas Gift Exchange Party:
This is a tradition that Brian's friends started many years ago and I have enjoyed going to the past 2 years. This is also known as the Chinese Gift Exchange: Everyone brings a wrapped present and puts it in the middle of the room. We all draw a number and open presents in the order you draw, the catch is that you can steal someone else's present instead of opening a present. But a present can only be stolen 3 times and then it is locked. We always have a good time and people bring some good stuff! So Brian and I are hosting it this year and I am so thrilled, a little nervous because I want everyone to have a good time, but excited nonetheless.
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Well, I better go before this post gets any longer! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving and Pictures

Blogger is letting me add pictures this morning, so here are a few random ones. Have a wonderful and relaxing day!

Brian's 30th Surprise Party Us with Tiff and Eric
Our cute little family :)
Brian and Sara on their birthday.

~Thanksgiving Weekend is here!!~

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Well I could not be happier to have 4 straight days off of work, man I am excited! But I know Monday will come all to quickly.

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Things have been going well for us Holcombs, nothing too exciting to report.We spend our weekends enjoying time with our friends and family. Brian played poker last weekend and got 1st place! That was pretty exciting, $250 in our pocket, nice job babe :) We went up to Salem to watch the Beaver game again, this time was more fun because we won, GO BEAVS!

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After our victory we went out to dinner at Los Dos Amigos, yummy mexican food, mmmm. Then we headed to my old stomping grounds, Wests Albany High School (Go Bulldogs), to watch my brother and the other senior guys perform their powderpuff routine. Man was it hilarious, they choreographed it themselves and it was awesome. The girls were going nuts! Good times.

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Sunday we spent cleaning our little place and it looked good when we were done. Ah, the joys of married life, lol :)

This week went by fast since there was only 3 days to it. Monday night we went to "wing night" and had so much fun. When Brian and I lived in Corvallis we would walk down to a place called Fox n Firken every Monday night to enjoy their 15 cent wings, $1.50 beers, and our friends company. Well, we have not been in months so we decided to head over with Craig and invite my coworker and her husband (Sarah and Travis). I am really glad we went, I missed that place! After filling up on wings and beer we walked over to a delicious ice cream place, Gelato ice cream, it is to die for! I refrained and just a had a couple bites of Brian's ;)

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Tonight we are having Sara and Travis over for a game of Newlyweds! I can't wait, it should be fun, we always laugh a lot with Sara and Travis.

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Tomorrow we are headed to my moms for Thanksgiving dinner. We are bringing a corn casserole, since Brian really likes that dish, I found a recipe on Gina Miller's blog and am excited to try it. Friday we will spend time with Brian's mom and sister, Heather, Sunday will be a brunch at my dad's house. Although we have so many families to see, I wouldn't have it any other way, I feel blessed that we have so many loved ones to visit.

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Well, I think that is about it for now, I will leave you with some pictures. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, eat a lot of good food, and give thanks to your loved ones.

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(I thought I would leave you with pictures but blogger is being stupid and won't let me. I will post some tomorrow, if it lets me)

Finally, Pictures!!

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This last weekend was very nice. We went to The Prestige with Tiff and Eric on Friday night and really liked it, I would recommend it to everyone.

On Saturday we went shopping in Salem with Brian's friend Craig who was in town from his busy pilot job. Then we all headed over to Bauer and Amy's house to watch the sad Beaver game. But our loss to UCLA wasn't so bad when the Ducks followed our lead and lost to USC.

We came home after the game and went to American Dream in Corvallis to see my sister Jenny who was in town from Redmond. We enjoyed some pizza with the family and then headed home as we were exhausted!

Sunday was pretty relaxing, we of course did the weekly shopping trip to Winco then went to check out some chairs and couches at At Home Furniture. We were just looking to get some ideas, we will be paying off all our debt (except for student loans) soon so it doesn't hurt to get an idea :)

Well, I will leave you with some pictures that are long past due! Have a good Monday :)

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Jaime and Schuyler brought the kids over the day before Halloween so we could see their adorable costumes, and they were adorable............................

Here is Porter man in his Winnie the Pooh costume, too cute! Jaidyn as Dorothy and Kailey as a fairy, precious!

Here are some pictures from the Halloween party at Linus's, we had a really good time with everyone......

Bauer as a nerd and Brian is a jester, without his mask :)

I was an evil little red riding hood.

Me, Amy, and Mindy

Here are some pictures from when we had all the kids over to make Halloween masks.....

Kailey, Abby, Jaidyn, and Cassidy at our house.

Porter and my brother Lance.

Abby, me, Lance, and Cassidy.

Cassidy, Brian, and Abby.

Happy Birthday Holcomb Twins!

♥ ♥ ♥

So much has happened since my last post, I feel like I shouldn't post unless I can post pictures, hence the delay. Well, I can't post pictures right now, but I will shortly as there are an abundance of them!

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First, Happy Birthday to my amazing husband who turns 30 today! I love you babe. Happy birthday to Sara (his twin sister), you don't look a day over 21. Love you guys♥

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We had all the kids over (Jaidyn, Kailey--my nieces, Porter--nephew, Abby and Cassidy--my little half sisters) a few days before halloween to decorate these little halloween masks. My brother Lance came over and my sister Jaime stayed to help us, it was a packed house and we could not have had more fun! We also sent them on a little treasure hunt. I made them each a bag of candy and put them in a wooden chest I have. They were so excited when they found it and opened it right up, right into Porter's head who then fell over. It was pretty funny though because he was too interested to see what was in it to care that he hit his head! He's a tough little 1 ½ year old!

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The halloween party at Linus and Beth's was a lot of fun and I had a good time seeing everyone. We were so tired when we left as we had a good hour drive back to Bauer's house in Keizer. We ended up staying the night there as I didn't think I could stay awake on the drive home.

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Halloween night was exciting, Brian and I both rushed home to get into our costumes so we could hand out candy. This was our first halloween to have trick-or-treaters so we wanted to be the cool house on the block! In the upstairs bedroom we put a strobe light that flashed behind the scary ghosts, everyone commented how cool it was, yeah we're pretty cool ;) Anyway, we got a ton of kids and Brian so generously offered to go to the store and get more candy since we were running out! Crisis was averted though. My dad and stepmom, Anna, even stopped by with the girls who were adorable in their witch costumes! My sister Jaime and brother-in-law Schuyler, stopped by the night before with the kids who also looked adorable: Jaidyn was a sweet little Dorothy, Kaily was a pretty fairy, and Porter was the cutest Winnie the Pooh ever!

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This last Saturday was the big surprise party for Brian!! Soooo many of our friends came and it was so nice of everyone, I know Brian was so happy to see everyone there. We had good food, drinks, music, and company. We stayed up way too late (4 in the morning!!!) because now that he is 30 he won't be able to handle that :) I have some good pictures from that night and even better video of everyone wishing him a happy birthday. It was a success and I'm glad we did it. I couldn't have done it without Tiff and Eric who snuck into our house when Brian and I left to decorate and let everyone in, what would I do without them!

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Well, now that this post is a mile long I better get back to work. I hope everyone has a great Tuesday!