Awesome Christmas Gift Ideas + My first GIVEAWAY!!

If you are on top of your game, you are probably already thinking about Christmas gifts. If you are on the bottom of your game, you probably wish that you thought about Christmas gifts before December 24th. One day in the  faraway future, I will maybe have Christmas gifts bought and wrapped and stored away in a snug little closet somewhere. I actually bought the first Christmas gift of the season last week (George and June, you are the lucky winners. Good thing you can't read this).

In case you didn't know, my beautiful mom has her own Mary Kay business that she started after she retired from teaching. Mary Kay is a great company that sells cosmetics and skin care products. I've used their cosmetics since I was allowed to wear makeup and used the skin care products before that. Actually, when I was really little, Mom sold Mary Kay and I used to steal the samples for my own personal makeovers. So basically I've been using it forever!

I did my own makeup for my wedding using Mary Kay products. (Ok, I had a little help from the bff.) But it turned out beautiful!

My mom has been using Mary Kay since she was in her twenties and has amazing skin.

My Grandma Frank has been using Mary Kay products for 35 years.

Beautiful.

We've been exchanging Mary Kay products as gifts for Christmas for years now. It's perfect because the products are luxurious and useful at the same time. There is something for every price range- you might be surprised at everything you can get!

A few great gift ideas:

1. Mascara (starting at $10)
2. A Lash Love mascara, Oil Free Eye Remover, and eye lash curler set ($30)
3. An eye shadow ($6.50) or eye shadow with applicator ($9)
4. A lip color (either a lipstick, liquid lip color, or lip gloss) ($13)
5. Lip color + lip liner pencil ($23)
6. Hand cream ($10) or Satin Hands Luxury Set ($34)
7. Satin Lips Set ($18)
8. Mint Bliss Energizing Foot Lotion for feet and legs ($10)
9. A fragrance (starting at $25)
10. Professional makeup brush collection ($45)

There are even great products for teens and tweens!

My mom, Kaye Voth is a true consultant and excited to help you pick the perfect gift for your loved one...or yourself! She offers free shipping and gift wrapping. She has many customers all over the United States!

So here is the GIVEAWAY! We are giving away one NouriShine Lip Gloss in the winner's color choice!

So here's what you do:

1. Become a follower of this blog

2. Go over to the site: www.marykay.com/kayevoth and browse around

3. Come back and comment with your favorite product!

4. For an extra entry, advertise this giveaway on Facebook or your blog! (Make a separate comment for each entry)

Check it out! You can also give my mom, Kaye Voth a call at 573.433.9598

Winner will be announced next week! Happy Shopping!

Celebrating Two Years in Charleston, SC (Part 1)

*Warning: serious picture overload! I can't help it...*

This morning I woke up, turned on the Today Show, made a pot of coffee, threw a load of laundry in the wash, and then sat down to put music on my iPhone and make a blog post. My house looks like a tornado went through it. But obviously blogging is more important.

We spent a fabulous four nights in Charleston, SC for our anniversary. Then we got back and I spent two days to renew my certification for ACLS (Advance Cardiac Life Support-I can save your life!) and then working for three days. But back to Charleston...

Can I just say that I loved Charleston? First of all, the weather was perfect. In the 80's, sunny, no humidity. I had amazing hair days every single day. We woke up on Saturday morning at like 6am, because we are old now and that is when we naturally wake up because that is actually sleeping in for us. We drank some coffee and got ready and drove into Charleston. (We stayed in Isle of Palms, which is about 20 minutes outside Charleston.) We were obviously the first people up because nothing was open yet. Around 9am, all the runners finally came out. And Charleston has many, many runners. Way more than Kingsport, ha.

Good morning, Charleston Harbor! I pose like this every morning when greeting the day. Oh wait....I don't.

We hit up the market, which is this amazing open air market in the middle of Charleston. Its four blocks long and has tons of handmade items and cool unique stuff. The coolest thing was these handmade sweet grass baskets. They were everywhere. And cost a lot of $$$. I didn't buy one because I was like "$50 for a tiny basket? $150 for a normal basket? No way!" But now I kinda wish I had...

Good looking backsides, ladies. Must be all that running...

We got some breakfast at the Sweetwater Cafe...the low country omelet was yummy...

I wasn't running anywhere after this breakfast.

For some reason, we had decided that we both needed new pairs of sunglasses very badly. So we found a Sunglasses Hut, stat, on King Street. King Street is like the mecca of good shopping. It was a beautiful, magical place. So we got some sunglasses. I almost got pink ones. Almost.

We also enjoyed some delicious moon pies from the Moon Pie General Store. 

We took a carriage ride of the city and learned all about the history as a a horse pulled us around. I was super impressed with the cleanliness of the city since there are horses everywhere. They actually put little bags on the horses to catch their poo. And whenever the horse urinates (sorry, just being blunt) they pull over and call someone to come clean it up.

For dinner Saturday night, we ate at Poogan's Porch, which was an old house made into a gorgeous restaurant. Caleb had pan seared jumbo scallops with applewood smoked bacon grits, wilted spinach and crawfish beurre blanc. I had pan seared snapper with sauteed arugula , and  summer tomato and bacon risotto with a lemon avocado compound butter. (And yes, maybe I did just go to the website to get the exact description of what we ate.) We had some pimento cheese fritters for an app and pecan pie for dessert.

I know the pics are yellowy but we are inside at night, helllo.

I was kind of obsessed with these boots for the whole trip.

Also on Saturday we got some iPhones. It was our anniversary gift to each other. I don't have any pics of them, but they are magical.

On Sunday (anniversary day!) we were tired from spending the whole day Saturday walking around, so we laid on the beach and read and drank mimosas. It was lovely. I am in love with beaches. I feel like I appreciate them more being from Kansas, where there are no beaches.

We went into Charleston for dinner and ate at A.W. Shucks, where the seafood is ah-mazing. Blue crab dip, oysters, seafood casserole, crab cakes, and stuffed jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon. We had a delicious peach bourbon bread pudding for dessert but we could barely eat any of it after the massive meal we just had.

Two years, baby!

Charleston, I love you. The second part will be coming later because I need to go get ready for the day. Can I end by mentioning that I hope my personal trainer doesn't see this blog? Because I'm pretty sure he would be making me do walking lunges for the rest of my life as a punishment.

Rocky Top Tennessee

Before I start the real post, I just want to say that a patient told me I was "too hardcore" yesterday. It was amazing. If making someone take their medicine that they would die without, then I am happy to be hardcore. I'm pretty sure I've never been accused of being too hardcore before, but I am excited about my new identity. Ha.

We headed out to Knoxville on Saturday to tailgate with all the Kiewit folks and watch Tennessee get beat by Georgia. (Coach Dooley, I don't know anything about football but I did note that your team cannot run the ball. At all. Maybe try something else?)  I hate to say this, but UT is just so much more hardcore about football than KU and their stadium is so massive, the games just have a different feel than KU. Also not sitting in the student section just isn't as fun. Ha. But we had a great time since we don't really care. And what's not to love about a great tailgate?

I do feel like a serious traitor wearing an orange shirt.

Just hanging out with some Housewives...

Caleb showing off his corn hole skills.

Neyland Stadium is huge. For reals.

But honestly, my favorite part was the halftime show. The band did this Wizard of Oz theme, complete with Dorothy and all the characters. (And the Wicked Witch of Georgia, hardee har har.) Since I get called Dorothy on a daily basis, I felt like it was just for me.

The weather was perfect, as compared to last year.  It did make us miss KU and college and being poor and not working 12 hour days and feeling like 9pm was the beginning of the night instead of bedtime. We feel old.

All the words to the Rocky Top song. Tshirt of the guy in front of us.

Last minute pic as we were leaving the stadium after the third quarter. I like it.

I just wanna say: Rock Chalk Jayhawks, Go KU!

I'm heading to my personal trainer session (fancy, I know). My last session was Thursday and on Friday I couldn't walk right. Don't kill me today, Chris!

Happy Monday!

Stephanie and Logan's Wedding (with lots of DIY goodness!)

Last Saturday Stephanie and Logan finally got hitched! The day was pretty chilly, but everything was gorgeous. I felt a little dumb because my camera ran out of battery at the beginning of the night. But I went up in the morning to help set up, so I got a few "before" pics.

They got married in this adorable mansion called the Chateau Selah. It sits up on a hill and is beautiful.

From the back

And the view. So beautiful. This might be my favorite thing about Tennessee.

I love all the milk glass vases she used for her center pieces. We whipped up those flower arrangements in like half an hour, thanks to Logan's mom!

Dried rose petals hung on every one's chairs to toss at the bride and groom as they walked down the aisle.

Napkins with the menus inside. Stephanie made those menus. Like a true crafter!

She also made these letters for the gift table.

She also hand stamped every one's names and tied them to mason jars for their drinks for the night. Originally, I think the plan was to put the table numbers on the back of the name tags but the wedding wasn't too big, so she just decided to let everyone pick their own seat.

Green straws for boys and pink straws for girls. Helllllo.

They even had a signature drink. Tennessee style.

The head table. Pretty sure she got that adorable banner from Etsy, as well as the vase to hold her bouquet and the unity candle. Perfect. They had everyone sign a framed pic of them as the guest book.

The centerpieces. Ivory linens, chocolate napkins, burlap squares with the milk glasses and votives on them. And yep, Stephanie made those votives as well. Moss + twine. Love the effect.

The cake was beautiful and matched the milk glass vases and the wooden, rustic theme.

They were planning to have the ceremony outside, but since it was so chilly moved it inside and had it in front of this fireplace. There were tons of candles and huge windows that let in lots of beautiful light. I have no pics of the ceremony since I was blanking out on picture taking at that time!

So the ceremony was on the main floor of the house. The cocktail hour was in the basement (adorable). The reception was in a huge heated tent outside. And the bride and groom got to stay in a gorgeous honeymoon suite upstairs. Such a cool place!

Steph bought her awesome wedding dress (and pink Badgley Mischka heels) on Rue La La for a steal. Then she did a costume change for the reception into a short dress with a bubble hem from David's Bridal and some sparkly white Toms.  She also wore white Vera Wang leggings that I snagged for $5 on the morning of the wedding since it was going to be cold!

I wish I had a thousand more pictures and am still kicking myself for the battery running out! I love this one though, of Stephanie and Logan coming into the reception. So cute!

It was a perfect wedding and a great party! Congratulations to Stephanie and Logan Cook! Holla to the newest housewife of East Tennessee!