I’m Beautiful Because: Black and White

Black and white has transformative power for me—it says things color can’t even touch. And really, I just can’t stop thinking about how I love these women.
              
Want real pictures of yourself to remind yourself of your beauty? Let’s talk.

Billions of Celebrations

I've had about a billion things to celebrate in the past bit:

1. Jared's graduation! He's officially a college grad with a degree in Public Health from BYU. What a stud. His parents came into town and we had a blast eating delicious food at Los Hermanos, trying to devour a way-too-big cake, playing Marco Polo in our pool, and getting out of a speeding ticket driving around in Springville. This is a skill I really wish I had. If anyone offers police....er, management services, sign me up! Jared's dad said five words and POOF. Not even a chance of a ticket. How do those people do that?? Maybe I just have a guilty face.

2. Thing number two we celebrated was our anniversary! AGHH I love this man I married.

3. Thing number three was my mom's birthday--the picture is her face when she saw her new patio furniture! Which, can I just say, there are few things more wonderful than eating a gourmet breakfast outside on a perfect summer morning with the people you love? That's the life. Get yourself some of that.

4. Thing number four is being done with school for a few weeks/our anniversary again: we journeyed to California to be with Jared's family and got to see our nieces, Daylynn and Addison, for a little while yesterday. They are two of the most gorgeous children ever created, so of course I had to take some photos. SO we've been here for a bit, eating and relaxing and beaching and playing.
My life is too wonderful for me to handle sometimes. HOW did I get this lucky?

Stay tuned for more from our loverly California trip, LA and love included.

Giveaway!

I'm doing an anniversary session giveaway over at Young People In Love (which is hilarious, insightful, inspiring and all other things wonderful), and you should enter because it's going to be, um, awesome.
Go HERE for the deets.

That Day I Fed You Cake

This is the cake we fed to each other that day.
I loved you a lot while I fed you that cake. After we ate that cake, we danced our first dance together as marrieds,
and I thought about all the times we'd danced before that, in the living rooms of various apartments by low light when our roommates had gone to sleep.

I thought about all the times we'd dance after that, in our newly shared bedroom, in our freshly painted kitchen--anytime the beauty of our relationship needed to just be SAID in a different way.

I thought I loved you a lot when we danced and kissed and whispered into each others ears on August 14th, 2010.

And on August 14th, 2011 I was wrong.

They always like to tell you about how you'll grow together. But it's hard to have that make sense to your mind and soul that are already busting with love you already never thought possible. It's hard to imagine more feelings, more depth, and more joy coming into your heart without it exploding. And someone might have to explain the physics to me, because it happened. I love this man a billion times more 368 days later. Literally a billion, I tell you.
.............................................
I would sit up late writing about this, thinking of possible ways to show this incredible man how much I adore him. I wanted to say it with my words and my thoughts and my fingernails and big toes and all I had were puny words? I love you? Anyone can say that. Anyone at all.

But I'm slowly realizing that the beauty of love is precisely this: you can't describe it very well. You can't depict the height and depth and width of all the feelings and experiences with words or flowers or cake. You can't describe what is shared and mutually known or bottle it up to save and put under your pillow every night--it's just floating in the air all around the two of you, encased in the drawers with your canned goods, intertwined into your placemats and folded in with your laundry. That's the real wonder: it is bigger than all of these things, bigger than words themselves--and at the same time, it is as simple as rolling over and smelling the smell of sleep on his skin, smiling because he is just so darn hot, and that feeling of contentment knowing that he loves you so completely, so wholly and so perfectly, despite that time you broke up with him because you weren't sure.

I'm amazed at my luck in getting to spend eternity with this incredible man.
I love you, baby. Happy anniversary.

*photo above by the talented Ashlee Raubach