Happiest Thanksgiving!

Joe and I just got home from a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration at my sister's house. We are so tired from a day full of laughs, family and delicious food. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving as well, we all have so much to be thankful for!

xoxo!

Mocking Jay, Tucson and Tattoos

It took about a year and a half, but this past weekend, Joe and I finally made the trip down to Tucson to visit my best friend Katie. She's in the Air Force and has been stationed there for over a year, and we just went down to visit for the first time! We usually see her when she comes here because her family lives close to us, but we decided it would be fun to finally see her place. It's about a four hour drive from our house to hers, but it was well worth it. We had so much fun! We first met up at a movie theater to see Mocking Jay, so good! Then the next day she showed us her favorite cafe and took us to two of her favorite restaurants, and shopped around at her favorite little stores. I even got a tattoo while I was there, the Matryoshka Doll I've been wanting forever! We had a really great weekend and I'm so glad we decided to finally visit, I loved seeing where she's been living and I'm sure we'll be going there a lot more now!

I didn't get a ton of pictures, I always get too distracted having fun, but here are a few I managed to snap. As always, I'll post a better tattoo photo once it's all healed. I hope your weekend was wonderful!

November 2014 BirchBox: Giving

Oh, Birchbox. I have such a love/hate relationship with you. Okay it's mostly love. I can't be too picky with a box that's only $10 a month and is always a fun surprise. I loved last month's box, didn't like the one before that, and this month was okay. I was a tad disappointed because I saw that a lot of people got The Balm highlighters and Laura Mercier BB creams, both of which I would've loved, but of course got neither. Same thing happened last month when I got no Beauty Blender. It's not a big deal, I still love getting the little box of surprises in the mail every month, I just feel like I've gotten so many eye pencils, perfume samples, and lotions. Something different would be cool. But I'll still go through each product like I always do.

The first thing I noticed in my box this month was an eye pencil. And that's because it was smeared everywhere, ha! The Eyeko Fat Eye Stick I got came without it's cap, and got product all over the place. I was annoyed at first, so I emailed Birchbox letting them know, and they responded within fifteen minutes, super apologetic and said they'd send me another one ASAP, so that was nice. The color of this eye stick is really pretty and long-lasting, so I'm excited to get the good one!

Next thing I got was a Perlier Revitalizing Body Butter. Another body lotion! Definitely not exciting after getting so many, but I guess they come in handy to toss in your purse, especially for the dry, winter days coming up. It does smell really nice too!

Next, I got a teeny-tiny sample of a Supergoop BB Cream. I'll probably be able to get one, maybe two uses out of this little sample, but might as well give it a try. It seems to match my skin tone pretty well, and has SPF 40. I'll probably hold on to this little guy to use in the spring or summer.

This next sample seemed like a much better size. It's a Fekkai Fortifying Hair Masque. I know this is a really good brand, and like I said, it's a good-sized sample, which I need for my long thick hair. So this will be a good one to try!

Another perfume sample. Lame! I don't even wear perfume, it always gives me massive headaches. But they don't know that, so I guess I can't be too mad. The packaging of it is pretty!

And finally, I got a big pouch full of Chocolate Almond Butter. Birchbox mentioned that they were going to start adding little extras like this to boxes, and I'm not complaining! It's fun to get little sweets like this along with beauty samples. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it'll be yummy, so I'm excited about that!

Like I said, not my favorite box ever, but not bad either. I liked how even though one sample came broken, they responded really well to my complaint, so I'm totally okay with it. Another thing about this month's box that's really cool is that it's associated with (RED), a company that helps fight aids. So for every photo of the box posted on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #shaRED, Birchbox will donate $1 to the foundation. So if you got this box, don't forget to do that!

What did you get in your subscription box(es) this month?

Get your own Birchbox subscription here.

See my past Birchboxes here.

My Cold Weather Essentials

Warm hats

One of the most important things to have when the cold weather hits is a warm hat or beanie. Keeping your head warm makes all the difference when you're cold. Plus they're a great excuse to not style your hair!

A good moisturizer

This one is super important for me. I already have naturally dry skin, and in the fall and wintertime, it gets so much worse. So I always make sure to have a moisturizing cream on hand. I'm currently using Benefit's Total Moisture and really love it. It makes your skin feel healthy and hydrated.

Dark lipsticks

My favorite makeup look for this time of year is a dark lip and minimal eye makeup. It's so much fun experimenting with different shades and finding what you like. I'm really loving deep reds, purples, and mauve.

Scented candles

My favorites are from Bath and Body Works. They have the most amazing scents ever! Nothing warms up a home for the holidays like a scented candle. Every time I go in that store I want to buy every single one!

Socks
Kind of like hats, socks are important to keep warm. I love so much wearing warm socks around the house, plus they're so cute! Pretty sock are a favorite thing of mine in general, you'll never hear me complain about getting these for Christmas!

With these trusty side kicks, I'm ready for the coldest weather (which isn't that cold, I live in Arizona.) What are your cold weather essentials?

Support Movember

My husband's company Grafity is doing Movember this year! I would so appreciate if you would check out the links below, all donations go toward mens mental health, prostate cancer and testicular cancer research. Make the mustache he is growing worth it ;)

Click here to donate.

Click here to purchase Grafity Movember products.

100% of proceeds will be donated.

xoxo!

Day at the Pumpkin Patch

First off, sorry for the super late post, it's officially November and pumpkin patches are sort of an October thing (that's when we went) so hopefully you don't mind one last pumpkin patch post! 

Days like these are definitely one of my favorite things about Fall. It really puts you into "Fall Mode." Unfortunately, it was still pretty warm here in Arizona, so that slightly took away from the Fall feels, but it was still a really great day. One of my favorite things about doing things like this is watching my little nieces and nephew having so much fun and running around being crazy. It makes me so excited to be able to do things like this with my own kids! We had a really lovely time just strolling around our local pumpkin patch that we visit every year. It was such a wonderful way to welcome Fall :)