they say it takes 21 days.

21 days that is, to break a habit.

Like eating too much sugar,

and not enough fruits and veggies.

Or spending too much money,

and not saving enough.

Or watching too much tv,

and not exercising enough.

Or sleeping in too much,

and not getting up early.

Or focusing too much on yourself,

and not enough on others.

Or wasting too much time on pointless things,

and not studying your scriptures long enough.

Or texting too much,

and not reading enough.

Whatever that "too much" thing is for you,

break that habit in 21 days.  :)

I need buddies to keep me motivated!

{I'm working on the sugar thing...

and because I'm pathetic, it's gonna kick my butt.}

things i'm dreaming of {april}:

This blow dryer that I've heard amazing things about.
An Ikat print tee.
An awesome homemade soft serve maker.
This Jennifer Aniston haircut.
This pillow that has a little bit of sparkle.
Outfit perfection. (Loving this bright color right now, too!)
The perfect pink fingernail polish.
These lovely blooms.
This throw in the color "sea."
Coconut Cloud Cake that looks heavenly.  (Get it?  Cloud...heavenly...ha.)
This pink swimsuit that comes with a great price tag.
Great summer placemats for the months to come.

what we've been up to.

I didn't get around to finish my posts about our wedding day, reception, and open house--mostly because I just ran out of steam and I didn't have the time with how crazy work was last week.  But.  One day I will. Even if it is next year on our 2nd anniversary.  :)

On another note, a quick update on what we've been up to.

coral carnations.

homemade cinnamon rolls for General Conference.

baby shower gifts.

babysitting.

fro-yo.

anniversary dinner date.

lemon cupcakes with lemon cream frosting.

"Administrative Professionals' Day."

more flowers!

Please notice how three of these pictures are of treats.  #priorities.

the wedding video.

One year ago today! :)

If this video doesn't work, find it over here.

the wedding details: part 3.

To anyone out there who is currently engaged or going to be engaged one day, this is my biggest piece of advice to you... if you can, try to DO A WEDDING PRE-SHOOT!  Seriously, one of the best decisions we made.  We met our photographer at the Mt. Timpanogos temple a few weeks before the wedding to take some pictures, and then headed over to the gardens at Thanksgiving Point to take some more.  I cannot stress how relaxing this made our wedding day!  Instead of taking pictures for 2 hours after the sealing on our wedding day, we were able to focus on family and friends and have an early luncheon.  (Okay, my second big piece of advice is to HIRE A VIDEOGRAPHER.  I am in love with our wedding video and I don't care who knows it!  But we'll get to that later.)  I apologize in advance for all of the pictures that are about to follow.

Bridesmaid dresses.  That is a curse word in our family, haha.  Light pink or champagne bridesmaid dresses are nearly impossible to find in February and March since stores don't start putting out spring clothing until April.  We actually ended up buying three different sets of dresses before settling on one (sorry about that, mom!).  We ordered the pink dresses off of a website that we stumbled upon, and bought the cream ruffle slips from a boutique in Draper, the heels at Payless (of all places!), the belts from Bags That Fit in American Fork, and the earrings from Francesca's in University Mall.  I loved how their outfits turned out!

the wedding details: part 2

I knew that I wanted our invitations to be a tad bit on the formal side, and was telling our photographer during our engagement shoot that I hadn't seen anything out there that I loved.  She mentioned that she designs wedding invitations too, so we ended up having her do them for us, which was awesome!  They were printed on ivory paper that had a little bit of a shimmer to it with a light champagne/gold design around the edges, and a bellyband that held the picture, invitation, and temple/luncheon cards together.  I thought they turned out great, but...I'm biased.  :)

(Awful lighting, but you get the idea.)

From the beginning, we had planned on Ben buying a suit to wear instead of renting a tux.  We hit up the President's Day sale at Men's Warehouse and after spending hours (and hours and hours) there, we ended up with Ben's wedding attire, groomsmen attire, and suits for our dads.  The poor salesmen at Men's Warehouse had to deal with my mom and me running in every couple days to see if the suits would match other clothes and whatnot while the suits were being altered.  Let's just say I'm just grateful I don't have to go back anytime soon. :)

Even though it's been done over and over again, thanks to Pinterest, we decided to do a candy table as our wedding "thank you."  We had our photographer print stickers with the center design thing that was on our invitation, and we stuck them on clear bags.  My mom ran all over Utah County and Salt Lake County collecting candy in our colors.  You'd be surprised how hard it is to find different shades of pink and light yellow candy.  :)  We borrowed the frame from our photographer (you'll see it again in another post) and painted a piece of thin wood with chalkboard spray paint so we could write on it.  The ribbons came from Hobby Lobby and the Dear Lizzie boutique in Highland.

Wedding cake was never something that I had dreamed about, so when it came time to choose what we wanted, I had no clue.  I knew that I like round cakes better than square, and I wanted it to be fairly simple.  My mom heard from one of our neighbors about a lady in Pleasant Grove who makes cakes, so we set up an appointment to go meet with her and discuss everything.  Not going to lie, it was pretty overwhelming.  Too many flavors, colors, frosting types, etc. to choose from.  We ended up going with an ivory/cream color, simple designs, a ribbon around the middle cake, and real flowers in the middle.  Simple and not overly exciting, but perfect for us.  When we met with the lady at the reception center to plan everything out, we chose the dessert buffet option for the reception.  Guests could choose from 12 different kinds of cakes as well as wedding cake.  The best part is that we didn't have to spend the few days leading up to the wedding in the kitchen baking all of those desserts.  :)

the wedding details: part 1.

Continuing on with wedding posts this week...

The first thing I did was buy my wedding dress, naturally.  ;)  My mom, sister, and I went dress shopping while Ben was in St. Louis for his interview and spent an hour at Bridal Expressions in Sandy, UT before I found my dress.  And it was on sale.  Score.  (Please note that this freaked Ben out.  He couldn't believe that I had already found a dress 3 days later, haha.)

When Ben got back, we sat down to try and find a wedding date, and just could not find a time that we both wanted.  One of us wanted spring.  One of us wanted late summer (cough, me, cough.  I thought I'd need longer to plan the wedding). After figuring out things like our housing contracts and family members' schedules, we decided to go with April 20--the day after Winter semester ended at BYU.

The next item on our list was booking a sealing room at the LDS Mt. Timpanogos temple for the actual wedding ceremony, and then finding a place to have our reception.  We went with White Willow Reception Center in Provo, UT, which was just amazing.  My mom and I met with the owner for an hour to give her all of our requests, and she did everything for us!  Flowers, luncheon, dessert, etc.  Everything.  It was the best decision we could have made.  The venue was just lovely and we loved the old antique house look!

My friend's mom recommended the photographer they had recently used for their family pictures.  We checked out Maria's site, and loved her photography!  Since we only had 10 weeks to plan our wedding, we scheduled our engagement pictures for the next week.  It was such a fun shoot!  Maria made us laugh and laugh, and acted more like a friend/older sibling than a photographer.

the proposal story.

This upcoming Saturday marks our one year anniversary, so I thought it'd be kind of fun to have a some posts this week that tie into all of that.  :)

The Proposal

Ben and I had been kicking around the idea of one day getting engaged starting in mid-January, but I was certain that a proposal wouldn't be coming for a couple of months.  And I was quite sure that the proposal wasn't going to be a surprise.

Boy, was I wrong.

Ben had been applying to different graduate schools when we started dating and knew that he would be moving out of Utah within the next few months.  Shortly after applying to Washington University in St. Louis, he was asked to fly out and interview on February 9.  On February 8, I pulled into our apartment complex after work got over and headed to Ben's apartment for dinner.  After scarfing (not really) down some spaghetti, we headed to Institute.  On our way there, Ben mentioned a couple of times that he was really nervous about his upcoming interview and wanted me to quiz him about his research later that night.  

After Institute was over, Ben suggested a drive up Provo Canyon while I interviewed him.  As we turned onto a small road, we came to a park that was covered with candles in paper bags in the snow.  Ben started to slow down a little, and I started to freak out.  Freaking out because there was a little red car parked in front of the path of candles and I thought that we were ruining someone's engagement or special moment!  Ben started laughing as he drove a little further to find a parking spot.  At this point I was mortified that we had obviously just intruded on someone's moment and refused to get out of the car when Ben asked.  As he jumped out of the truck and came around to my side, I locked the door since I realized that I was wearing fabric shoes and wasn't about to jump down into 2 feet of snow.  He patiently unlocked the door with his key, grabbed my hand, and asked me to follow him.  We started walking towards the candles as I grumbled about my feet getting soaked (I can be a brat :)), and that's when it hit me.  

This is for me?  Whose red car is that?  Oh, this really is for me.  Ben knows I hate Valentine's Day so he wanted to do something nice for me before February 14th.  How nice!

As we walked down the path of candles, I could see two shadows trying to hide and get back to the car.  I later found out that it was Ben's cousin and friend who had set everything up and we'd pulled up before they were finished.  Anyway, the path of candles led to a circle where Ben's guitar was laying there.  He played me a song, gave me a hug, and gave me a kiss.

And then got down on one knee. (!!!)

After a few sweet words, and a "popped" question, I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that this was actually happening.  I remember asking him a couple of times if he had even asked my dad's permission and if this was real.  After a couple seconds of shock, I must have said yes or nodded or something to acknowledge my desire to marry him, because he slipped a diamond on my finger.

(Note:  He proposed with his grandma's wedding ring.  We later went to a jeweler and worked together to design my ring.)

The moment was cut short when a paper bag suddenly caught on fire, followed by another, and another. :)  We ran around stomping out all of the candles and collecting the bags.  As soon as we made it back down to the main canyon road and had cell phone service, we called our family and friends.

And that, my friends, was the night I got the biggest surprise of my life.  

special occasion.

Happy Sunday to you!

you know what makes me feel really grateful?

• going outside to eat lunch (80 degree weather, holla!) and it being recess time for the deaf school right next to my building.  Every couple of seconds, the group of 6-year olds would stop chasing each other/running around and sign things, run around again, pause to sign something else, and run around again.  It was so sweet.
• passing a car accident on the way to work.
• reading a book about homeless youth in America.  
• people who take the time to talk and listen.
• General Conference this past weekend.
• having a healthy body that allows me to work off the 4(!!!) homemade cinnamon rolls consumed this past weekend.
• colorful sunsets.
• kneeling in prayer with Ben.
• getting a "just checking in to see how you're doing!" text.
• sippin' smoothies and talking about goals.

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city living.

We're city dwellers, for those of you who don't know.  We live a stone's throw away from the St. Louis Arch and love it!  Our apartment is on the 28th floor of our building (Elevators are on my list of top 10 favorite inventions since, you know, it's a 5 minute walk up those stairs from the lobby to our floor. And we all know I'm too lazy to do that each time ;)), and there's a rubbish chute on each floor.  (I feel so English each time I ask Ben to take the trash to the rubbish chute, ha.)  As you walk out of our building and walk down the street, you'll pass an Asian restaurant, dry cleaners, convenience stores, touristy shops, a bakery, Starbucks, a little bookstore, a store with things for left handed people (still confused about this one...), 5 star restaurants and steak houses, multiple hotels, and apartment buildings.  Oh, and we live right across from a high-security Federal Reserve building where they shred "retired" money.

We deal with crazy taxi drivers and large groups of tourists.  We deal with crowds for Cardinals games (baseball) and Rams games (football).  We deal with traffic for marathons, festivals, and your average everyone-meet-at-the-bar-and-go-crazy traffic.

But it's great.  For now, we love our tiny apartment with a view of the Mississippi River.

(Pictures from our fro-yo break and walk around the Arch grounds between LDS General Conference sessions.)

President Hinckley was one smart cookie.

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Keep trying.

Some days are definitely harder than others.  Some days I just can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.  Some days I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  Some days everything goes wrong.  Some days I make a fool of myself or forget important things.  Some days I don't quite reach the expectations I've set for myself.  Some days I honestly don't get a lot done once I come home from work, and I choose to be lazy.  Some days I work myself into the ground.  Some days are just a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (please say you've read this book!).  But it's okay, because tomorrow is always a new day with new possibilities.

Be believing.

To believe something is to have confidence and faith in a truth.  Believe in tomorrows and second chances.  Believe that you have the power to turn something negative into a positive.  Most importantly, believe in God's plan for you, His timing, and His love for you.

Be happy.

Oh, how I love this simple statement!  Choose to be happy.  Be a catalyst of happiness; help others to be happy.  In Gretchen Rubin's book The Book of Happiness, she writes about 8 splendid truths of happiness that she discovers about herself and people in general.  The second splendid truth is, "One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself."  Think about it.

Don't get discouraged.

Realize that it's okay to have hard days!  Realize that everyone else gets discouraged too.  But definitely don't forget to keep trying, be believing, and be happy.

Everything will work out.

A promise--everything will work out.  We all choose to be happy for different reasons, but I think I choose to be happy because I know that it will all work out.  God is good.  He is so, so good to me, as I'm sure He is to you.  And what a blessing it is to know that His love is a constant.