happiest news

i'm at home by myself, cooking dinner, waiting for devin to come home any minute.

it's about 6:00 and someone knocks on the door, and then i hear them run away.

no way am i answering my door at night when i'm home alone! nobody even knows there's an apartment down here?!?!

i wait a few minutes, and open the door to find a cupcake. it's chocolate. and there's a big question mark on it. also? a note from val.

her way of telling me if she's having a boy or girl.

she said to have devin video tape me eating it, but since i waited for him to get home to find out (what a long 20 minutes!!!), we forgot.

and what did I find???

See you in April, BAYLI GREY JONES!!!

5 Things

1. using vintage cameras as bookends for my collection

2. she spent the majority of the afternoon answering to nothing but "santa"

3. breakfast

4. fuel

5. cocoa covered truffles 

a thought

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found there way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of the life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

-Elizabeth Kubler Ros

lucky

2011 was a year of Devin. A full year of him. The first of many. The best year of my life to date. I feel like he deserves all the credit I give him and much, much more. Thanking him every day is simply not enough. I feel grateful for him every single moment of the day. I can't imagine where my life would be if it wasn't for him. 

He loves me when I'm selfish. And when I'm flustered. And when I'm borderline psychotic. He loves me when I'm in pain. When he's in pain. When I'm depressed. When I'm too excited, or too stressed. When I don't know what to do or say. When weird things bug me that shouldn't. He loves me when I mess up. He loves me after long days and short nights. When I ask stupid questions, or too many of them. He loves me when I roll my eyes at his TV choices. For 365 days of 2011, he loved me. That's 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes. That's a lot. (and it's not including 2010) And he loves me when I probably (definitely) don't deserve it. It's that constant, unconditional love that makes him what he is to me.


This week has been a rough one. I wish Devin would get better sooner. I hate seeing him like this. I'm doing my best to help how I can and stay out of the way at the same time, but it's not exactly one of my strong points. I have found in times like these, it helps to read old posts from Devin's blog to "up my spirits". He's the greatest.

Post-Christmas

I've had most of this week after Christmas off (except for Today). Thank goodness, too. Because I definitely need the recuperating. 

On Monday, Devin was back and work, and I hardly moved from the couch, watching movies and TV all day. I did manage to clean the kitchen, though. When Devin got home, we ran some errands, including some Christmas shopping for ourselves. After, we went to Olive Garden for dinner (favorite).

Tuesday, Devin went into work, only to be turned around by his boss and sent right back home not even an hour later. He is still sick. The majority of it started last week, and since then, every time he gets over a symptom, it seems like a new, similar, worse symptom takes its place. 

I made him some breakfast and we headed out to run errands. He isn't bed-ridden sick, just all the other kinds. We dropped off tons of stuff at the storage unit, made a D.I. run, and then headed to Sunflower Market to pretty much completely change his diet. Got some vitamins and supplements, and I surprised myself when I actually succeeded in talking him into trying Almond Milk. We loaded up on organic fresh fruits and vegetables, and I'm determined to fix whatever is wrong with him! 

After a stop at Target for the rest of our groceries, we went home and made some lunch and watched a movie, took a nap, and bummed around, made dinner, and googled our questions for the rest of the night. 

It frustrates me when Devin gets sick because there is so little I can do. I feel helpless when I just have to stand by and watch him be miserable. I so hope that the changes we made will help him feel better. He needs it! 

He's at work again today, but still just not feeling good. He's not himself when he's sick, so here's hoping we can cure him by Monday! 

No idea what I'll do with the rest of my time off. Probably watch all the movies I've been recording (the bonus of having HBO channels? new movies. on my tv. that's what's up.) and put a big dent in all the candy that is occupying the majority of our cupboard space since christmas. Oh, and maybe some cleaning and cooking. Maybe... (muddie buddies anyone?)

a recommendation

I feel like I've finally reached a point where I have found the product I love for everything I need; from lotions to shampoos to skin care, and now... make up. It feels like a pretty great accomplishment to finally be satisfied with my daily regime and I thought why not share the wealth?

So that's what I'm doing. A little "product spotlight" if you will... Even though I'm sure there are better things out there that I have yet to discover, or just can't afford, or don't bother to use... I know that I have always loved a little advice and help in this category.

My new found favorite? Bare Minerals make up. I realize that I'm years late jumping on this bandwagon (why didn't anyone do an intervention on me?! haha just kidding) Before bare minerals (oh wait. that was less than a week ago) I had been using Maybelline's Dream Matte Mousse, which I actually loved. (so if you don't want to fork out the $$ for bare minerals, this is a good one too, and cost much less!) I had a few problems though:

1. "Drug Store Brands" never seem to have a very true match to my skin tone. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the fact that my skin tends to have a yellow-ish tint to it, but I could never find a color that matched my true skin tone close enough, and always ended up too light, or worse, too dark.

2. It really is mousse. Seriously. The texture is so creamy and it goes on so smooth, but it's thick, and I can feel it on my face, and it sometimes made me look like a clown, I felt.

3. I tended to use a shade or two too light, in order to avoid the orange bad-spray-tan look, but I compensated with bronzer. Which is a problem for me, because I feel like I had a problem with portion control. I was always weary of the ever embarrassing jaw bone make up line, but I do feel like I often wore it too dark. (I just wanna be tan, okay?!) So it was defeating the purpose.

4. By the end of the day, it looked like I hadn't even put make up on in the first place.

My sister in law, Amanda and I had been talking about Bare Minerals for awhile. She uses it, and couldn't say enough good things about it. Then for Christmas, she drew my name, and got me a little starter kit that included 2 eye shadows, a blush, a colored eyeliner and lip gloss. The next day, I went in to get the foundation.

With Bare Minerals, I have already learned so much! I went into the new store they just opened in the University Mall here in Orem, and one of the associates took off my make up and replaced it with Bare Minerals make up, teaching me all about it while I watched her apply it.

Since this make up is a super fine powder (reminds me of powdered sugar, really.), it takes such a SMALL AMOUNT to cover your entire face. Also? There were about a billion color choices, and I got one that matched my skin great! You can hardly feel it on your face.

The technique they taught me, and recommend you use is buffing the powder into your face evenly. It almost instantly evened my skin tone, and it looked so natural. Next, after the foundation, Jen (the associate that helped me who was also awesome) applied the Mineral Veil using the same technique. It's a setting powder that helps the makeup stay in place and on your face. After that, she used Warmth, which is a bronzer. It scared me, because there is only one shade and it's DARK, but you just use a TINY little bit, and it works miracles. I loved it!

I got all set up with a Starter Kit (between $60 and $65!) which included:

• my personal foundation match
• mineral veil
• warmth
• foundation brush
• bronzer/blush brush
• concealer brush
• brush shampoo

it's about a $165 value, if  I remember right, and it's worth it to get the brushes! They are amazing and were designed specifically for this make up and the technique you use (they call it "twirl, tap, buff" i think). 

Also... I don't usually take the time to put eyeshadow and other fancier make up on each day, just usually since I'm in a hurry, but I do like to highlight and brighten areas like around my eyes, on my cheekbones, and near my brow bone, so I also picked up a sheeny, ivory shade of eye shadow to do just that for $13! 

christmas traditions

now that the holidays are over, i thought I'd share all the traditions we had this year, and will hopefully have every year! there are sort of a lot... who am I kidding. I don't think there's such thing as too many traditions.

1. We go to Grandpa Willis and Virginia Rae's on Christmas morning, with all the Hepworth side (Devin's mom's side) and eat some food and open some presents. And take a picture. Same every year!

2. We go to grandma and grandpa Houston's on Christmas morning shortly after. and eat and open gifts some more.

3. Christmas eve pajamas! this is a tradition i never had as a kid, but always wanted. so i decided Devin and i were going to start! we did it this year, and i think we both really liked it!

4. watching "a Christmas story" on Christmas eve. how could we not??

5. drawing names with Ashby's and Johnson's and Houston extended family for gifts. this year, Devin had Brandon, and I had Chloe (for Ashby's), Devin had Sean, and I had Mckayla (for Johnson's) and we had Scotty and Brynn for Houston's. I think it's such a good idea to draw names! I loved it! It helps me get to know my families better, I think. 

6. getting each other an ornament each year. i started this tradition this year on my own. i got Devin a little camera. since i started it without telling him... he didn't get me one. but we'll start for real next year. it's just one that I've always wanted to do.

7. watching the polar express. my favorite Christmas movie ever!

8. counting down with some type of advent, like this year, we did the 12 dates of Christmas! I'm sure we'll switch it around every once in awhile, or maybe do the dates each year, and also a 25 day countdown some other way. I've seen a lot of good ideas, and I want to try them all! good thing we have, like, 80 more Christmases!

9. Devin started his own tradition this year, too. well, technically it started last year. he decided he will get me a new edition of TKAM each Christmas. I love that! I told him I would get him a new vintage camera each year! (starting next Christmas.)

I love having traditions. I hope that when we have kids, we can add more traditions that are specific to them, like Christmas picture books, and making gingerbread houses, and other things Devin and I wouldn't enjoy doing, just the two of us.