2014 in Review

January

+ Got to meet Steve Madden at the Fashion Place Mall in Murray. He signed my purse and even gave me a high five coming into the building. SWOON!

+ Celebrated my last first day of school...and last semester in college!

February

+ Visited the Midway Ice Castles, saw Elsa & Olaf, then Ryan tried to be rebellious and punched a few icicles. 

+ Hosted a Superbowl party, Seahawks vs. Broncos, and ate freaking awesome food.

+ Helped host a party at Called to Surf in the Riverwoods, love my blog friends! 

+ Wrote a post on bloggers that I'd love to meet IRL. 

+ Went to a Galentines party with all my bloggy friends, hosted by the beautiful Sasha and Jenny!

March

+ A post on some of the best cheap eats in Provo! Update will be coming soon ;)

+ Elder Evs hits his one year mark on his LDS mission in Mexico.

+ I wrote about where I thought I'd be in 1, 3, and 5 years after high school graduation; and where I actually ended up.

April

+ We FINALLY got pictures from the photographer of our photoshoot in Montana at our wedding reception that happened almost 3 years ago. 

+ Rachel took some awesome pics of me & Ryan :)

+ I'm officially a BYU grad! Graduated with a Family Studies degree and minors in Communications and Music. Still don't really enjoy the "What do you do with all of that" question haha!

+ Graduation battle...similarities & differences between HS and college graduations.

May

+ Showing off my glitzy graduation dress.

+ Hosted a Memorial Day backyard BBQ & smores with friends.

+ Elder Evs burning in the heat of Tabasco, Mexico. 

June

+ What I've learned in our 3 years of marriage. 

+ Hitting Newport Beach with my mom!

+ What you need to know living in Provo and attending BYU, a letter to my brother Jesse. 

+ Disneyland day with my mom was a complete blast!

+ Roadtripping to Nor-Cal for a friend's wedding, and made a belated anniversary trip to San Francisco.

July 

+ Enjoying the 4th of July with our new friends Rosa & Ian, and our favorite roommate Jaz. We ate cheese and bacon stuffed burgers, drank lots of mexican coke, and floated the Provo River. 

+ I've got some major trust issues with people!

+ Blogger party at Amara Glam Spa Night! 

August 

+ Had a crazy bachelorette party in SLC for Lo. Car broke down and the girls live tweeted the whole event!

+ Went on our first family trip in ages to tour Montana! One of the highlights was definitely hiking in Glacier National Park, and here's a family trip video I made to remember our trip by. 

September

+ I finally put my degree to use and wrote a Pinterest Psychology 101 post. 

+ My favoritest potato soup recipe ever, and I'm sharing it with you! 

+ Turning 23 & the party :) 

October 

+ Kissing Ryan underneath the Kisstletoe <3 

+ Helped spread the gospel of The Mouse Trap Truck & hosted a low-key blogger event. 

+ Cute & easy Halloween leopard makeup tutorial. 

+ Started a new job as an Executive Assistant at DevMountain which is a coding campus. This job has been such a blessing! 

November

+ Quick and easy holiday hairstyles for all my upcoming parties :)

+ Lo's secret banana bread recipe, complete heaven in a loaf. 

+ Feelin' comfy in my fur-lined Sanuks & cozy sweater from Pink Blush 

+ I hosted Thanksgiving at my home got SO stuffed and didn't move the rest of the day. 

December 

+ Hosted our first ever Ugly Sweater Christmas Party! We love having an excuse to be with all our favorite family & friends. 

+ The easiest and most delicious fudge recipe of all time! 

+ My festive leopard Christmas look for church

2014 has been a great year, but I'm looking forward to all the fun stuff we have planned for this next year! Baby blessings, Evan coming home from his mission, family vacation, Disneyland trips, and growing with my job! 

Turkey Day 2014

I'm just barely getting around to reporting on Thanksgiving, and Christmas is only 2 weeks away! Wow, does the time fly. My parents flew up to Provo to spend the holiday with Ryan, Jesse, and I. It was nice to have them be able to stay longer than just 2 days (like they have their past couple of trips), so we could really enjoy their company. 

I love that when we spend time with my family, we enjoy our time together but also make sure to take naps when needed. Soooooo relaxing. No pressure of having to be on the ball during the entire trip, nap time FTW! The day of Thanksgiving the boys went top play some turkey bowl football after they got the real turkey in the oven. We made a jalapeño turkey, coconut brown sugar yams, cream corn, asparagus, fruit salad, stuffing, picked up Kneaders rolls, and Ryan ordered homemade tamales from our local tamale lady. We were in a straight up FOOD COMA.

During our family trip to Montana we shared this AMAZING huckleberry pie. So as a surprise I ordered the pie for my family so it would be delivered the day before. It was just as delicious as we had remembered it :) Overall it was a relaxing and food-coma-filled holiday. Can't wait to do it all over again (maybe not as much food haha) for Christmas!

What the Holidays Mean to Me

Who doesn't love the holidays?! If you don't then you're probably Grumpy Cat...or watching the Grumpy Cat Lifetime Christmas movie like I am right now ;) The holidays bring a light to everyones eye, and I love celebrating the holidays with my close friends and family. 

Being with my family and friends reminds me of the true reason for Christmas, celebrating our Lord and Savior. I'm so grateful for the life that Heavenly Father has blessed me with and if thinking of others this holiday season makes me a little more like our Savior, then I'll gladly take the opportunity :)

By the way, my friends at Coupons.com and The Good Stuff online magazine is hosting The Good Stuff 2014 Holiday Sweepstakes! It runs from 12/8 to 12/25, they are giving away $100 for a winner per week, and $500 to the grand prize winner. Think of all the presents you can purchase with these prizes!!

Halloween House Tour + Festivities

I am finally getting around to posting these Halloween decor pictures! Growing up my parent always went all out with Halloween and Christmas decorations, which definitely got passed down to me :) When my parents were in town, my mom helped finish the front of the house with this adorable wreath we made with stuff from Hobby Lobby. Late night crafts fueled by Sodalicious! 

I took these front room pictures right before my birthday party, and during the whole month of October I kept on adding more and more decorations. I love having people come into my home and instantly feel the Halloween spirit! 

On Halloween night Ryan was working until 9pm, so I dressed up as Minnie Mouse and passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. I only got about 5-6 groups of treaters the entire night and was a little bummed because a couple years ago we had non-stop kids at our front door! I think it's because all the local malls and shops were hosting trick-or-treaters all day long, so then parents didn't want to drag their kids out at night for candy. Lammeeeeeee.

A few weeks ago my friend Jess hosted an awesome Halloween party with a spook alley entrance and everything! Ryan and I snagged costumes last minute to be from the Top Gun movie, which is his favorite. Next year I'm definitely taking more time to find something as fun and creative as our Mario/Peach costume from last year. 

Finally here is our pumpkins from our group date night with our friends! We did the Jack Skellington pumpkin, Lo & Kev did the pirate kitty, and Ariel & Connor made the minion. Jess & Dallin ended up joining us later for bonfire, hot chocolate, smores, roasted pumpkin seeds, games, and 2am Dominos pizza. The night was a serious BLAST. I haven't laughed that hard in so long! I'm sad to see October go, but I'm excited to see my family for Thanksgiving then to start decorating for Christmas :)

Funfetti Cupcakes

I promise this will be my last post about my birthday! I don't feel too bad about the birthday overload though because it's one of my favorite times of the year. September brings a fresh start, and since my birthday is on the 28th then I get the chance to decorate for one of my favorite holidays! 

Growing up my mom would create and host these awesome themed birthday parties, then once I got into high school I started planning them on my own (with help of course) and would throw one of the biggest parties in my grade each year. It was practically the only party that my high school peers would go to with no alcohol, but was still a blast haha

My sophomore year of college I hosted a Barbie & Ken dance party for my birthday, then after that I've gone relatively low-key in the party realm. I'm now more about quality than quantity when it comes to birthday soirees. 

Everyone I know has such crazy schedules with being married or dating, school, work, and just life in general. But, I love that despite their busy lives my friends make the time to come and celebrate. That's become one of my favorite parts of my birthday, is seeing all my friends and fam come together to enjoy a fun night topped off with funfetti cupcakes :)

Anaphora Top from Anthropologie 

Cupcake tree from Home Goods 

Halloween tablecloth from Target

Happy Birthday!

Today I turn 23 years old! My dad texted me today that I'm "rich in things money doesn't buy," and I would have to wholeheartedly agree :) 

Photography by LC Photography

Dress: Anthropologie

Shoes: Lulu*s

Time For the Montana Video Montage

This is the culmination of our entire Montana family trip! Of course the boys were not very happy with my "constant" video and picture taking, but they got over it after I finished this video. While I'm not a videographer professional, I'm pretty proud of this project and excited to amp up my skillage! The goal is with every family trip that we embark on, I put together a video to commemorate our visit :) 

Floating Blackfoot River

After relaxing at the hot springs, the next day we made our way towards Missoula which is where Ryan's aunt & uncle live! They were so nice to not only host us in their home, but to take us rafting down Blackfoot River. 

Uncle Terry made enough sandwiches for the whole crew and Cousin Caroline made some pretty amazing chocolate chip zucchini bread, YUM. If you couldn't' tell already, we've eaten pretty dang well this entire trip ;)

Ryan pulled me into the river and it was COLD. Luckily it was still sunny out when he dunked me because part of the time it rained, so I dried off pretty quick! I helped paddle on the raft while Jesse tried out both the kayak and raft. It was about a 4 hour float, and it was SO much fun!! Later that night we went shooting (my first time!), ate some delish  pizza, then got a good nights sleep before our flight the next day. Thanks Terry & Delaine for hosting us! :)