a valentine's day themed "favorite things party."

*Note: I'm just going to apologize for the number of pictures beforehand.  Sorry!

I love parties.  You know that emoji with the two heart eyes?  That's how much I love planning parties, hosting parties, and going to parties!

My friend, Lauren, and I have been wanting to throw a "favorite things party" and invite a bunch of our friends, and with Valentine's Day coming up, we knew it'd be the perfect opportunity.

Here's how our "favorite things party" worked:  

1)  Everyone picked something that they love that cost between $1-$5 and they brought three of that item.    

2)  Upon arrival, everyone wrote their name on three slips of paper.

3)  When the time came, we went around in a circle and showed everyone our item, described why it's our favorite, and drew three slips of paper.

4)  The people whose names were read got to go home with that item.

Basically, you bring three of the same item and go home with three different items!

After deciding on a date, I began scouring the internet for some party inspiration and decided to base the feel of our party around this cute invite from Tiny Prints.  The mix of bright and light pink and the cute striped pattern on the back caught my attention, and wanted to incorporate them into the party somehow.  I customized the invite so that instead of adding photos to the card, I added different squares of pink that we used for a game.

Here's how our "favorite things" game worked:

1)  Since there were four empty pink squares, we asked four random questions.

(Favorite actor or actress, favorite movie, favorite vacation spot, and favorite jellybean flavor.)

2)  Everyone filled out their card without showing their neighbors.

3)  I collected the cards and read something off of a card.

4)  Everyone had to pick three people from the group who it could be.

("This person's favorite spot they've vacationed is...Paris.")

5)  I'd throw a small treat to everyone who guessed the right person.

It was so much fun to get to know other people's favorite things!

I'll admit... my favorite thing about parties (besides friends) has to be the food!  Nothing beats enjoying some treats and chatting with some of your favorite people. :)  I definitely begged my awesome friend to make her fabulous White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (you can find the recipe here!).

I also customized these address labels from Tiny Prints to make a "thank you" tag for little gift bags.  To be completely honest, I had a lot of fun looking through all of the different fonts and came up with quite a few variations that I loved.

I'm already itching for another "favorite things party" and it hasn't even been a full 3 days since this one!  I just love hearing about new products that people adore, and I love getting to know new things about friends. :)

invitations (used as a game):  Tiny Prints c/o

address labels (used as a "thank you"):  Tiny Prints c/o

black & white striped table runner:  Floratouch

pink chevron paper straws:  SweetCarnival

white & black polka dot paper straws:  PetuniaCrafts

white platter:  World Market

red cake stand:  World Market

pink cake stand:  Michaels - painted it pink myself

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.  

garland of hearts.

Raise your hand if you're really good at copying things you see on the internet, but especially things from Pinterest.  I've got both hands raised.  Never the brilliant and creative one, but always the copier (legally, of course :).  I've seen this little craft floating around from blog to blog, so I decided it was time to whip out my sewing machine that I got for Christmas from my in-laws (!!!) and spruce up our little apartment for the upcoming day of loooooove.  Put on your favorite show, grab yourself a little treat, and get to work on cutting out those hearts so you can make yourself one!