I was home for Christmas. You could count on me.

Thanks to my parents for flying me home for Christmas. Fun was had by all. Get ready for a photo overload....

 Cutest nieces ever!!

 We went and looked at Christmas lights. There is a guy in Pleasanton that decks out his whole yard, front and back, I've never really seen anything like it. The girls loved it.

 Uncle Gabe is the funnest!

 Visiting extended family was fun too.

 Not sure why I look so crazy in this photo...but we used the timer on the camera so that's a possible explanation.

 My grandparents have been together 65 years.

Then Ani came to visit and we had adventures in SF and the bay area.

I got to meet Misty's cute baby Rylee and we did a little Christmas photo shoot.

Then we did the nativity on Christmas eve. Sophie want to be the donkey so Ani and I made her this costume that came in handy later. She was so cute.

 Ani was the angel

 These are the Wise People. ;)

 Sophie loved baby Jesus

 This holiday season I wanted to perfect my apple pie recipe so over the course of November and December I made the same recipe and tweaked it about 6 or 7 times. This was the final masterpiece, including a doubled crumb topping. It was delicious.

 Dad got me MTA subway stop socks!

 Mom loved Wizard of Oz UNO.

 Listening to the ocean in a shell that Sam got.

 Bella's reaction to the purse I got her. So cute!

 Sam got me a pair of onsie pajamas. I used Sophie's donkey ears from the nativity the night before to complete my outfit. 

 Ok, I love my nieces and I think they're the cutest. What can I say?

Impromptu photo shoot with the sibs.

Playing Bananagrams. I love Sophie's hat and the expression on her face.

What a great trip! I got to see lots of friends and family and loved every minute. Laura, Ani and I even did Bikram Yoga one morning. Can't wait to see my family again. We live too far away from each other.

Thanksgiving

I got to go home to California for Thanksgiving and it was the first time my whole family has been together since Christmas two years ago. It was so fun to be with everyone and my dad made an amazing dinner!!

CRAZY FACES!!!

Halloween

As always Halloween inspires me to blog. I guess I love dressing up. Even though this year Halloween was on a Monday so the festivities could have lasted all weekend, I stayed pretty low key. I went to a trunk or treat with Amy's ward on Saturday. Her kids all dressed like super heroes.

Monday night I went to a huge dance party at the ASU LDS institute building. It was on the roof of the parking garage and there were some awesome costumes. I opted to wear the classic princess costume. (should I try being a blonde?) Becca was a hipster and my roommate Jen went as a Spanish Dancer.

Oh yeah...

...remember when I blogged a lot... yeah, me neither. But I'm thinking of making a comeback. I've got some good stories to tell. In the mean time, watch this:

The great eye-liner experiment of February 2011

As most of you may know, the wearing of make-up on a regular basis has been a gradual process for me. I would have my friends give me "make-overs" starting in middle-school through high school and I would put on make-up for special occasions like prom and other school dances. When I went to college, I started to wear it almost every Sunday for church and at other random times. Then, I went on my mission and it was a rule that we had to wear make-up everyday. So I got in the habit of at least wearing mascara and sometimes more.

Later, when I lived with my cousin Daisy in Tennessee, she taught me more about make-up and I found brands and types that I really liked. After that, I lived in New York and my friend Jessie was a make-up artist so she taught me more and it really became a consistent practice to wear at least some make-up every day, usually powder, blush, eyeshadow, mascara and lip gloss.

Since I've moved to AZ, my friend Becca convinced me try wearing eye-liner so I started wearing it once in a while. This leads to my February experiment.  Honestly, I was really bad at putting on eye-liner, especially liquid eye-liner, so I decided that to improve that skill, I would wear eye-liner every day for the month of February. (btw Feb is a good month for goals like this because its only 28 days long)

I know this is second nature for a lot of women but it really was a challenge for me. At first it was tedious and took me a long time to apply it. It also added more time to my day when I had to wash it off at night. But over all it was a fun experience. Now I feel more confident about applying it quickly and effectively, but I still don't feel like I need to wear it everyday.

Thanks to Photo Booth on my Mac I was able to document some of the different styles I tried over the past month.

Cue photo blitz:

no eyeliner

 a little bit

 with my hat

 dramatic

typical

after working out

photo booth fun

What are everyone else's thoughts on eye-liner and make-up in general?