Christmas 2022: Part 1

 I cannot believe Christmas has come and gone. It does not feel like Christmas happened at all. Christmas was so different this year. Mainly because we no longer have our own house, but even with a house I think it would have felt different. 

I was able to get Friday December 23 off, so we decided to make Santa cookies on that day.

Maddy and my mom decorated all the cookies. We usually never decorate them all because it gets tiring, but we did this year.

By the time the cookies were all decorated, it was time to get ready for church. The Christmas Eve service is my favorite service. It is usually a candlelight service with a lot of music. This year was slightly different, but it was still a candlelight service.

After church we headed downtown to see the windows all decorated. Ironically, we had an extreme cold front move in, and the power company decided to have rolling blackouts lasting up to fifteen minutes. In order to preserve energy, they turned off the lights in the windows. 

Once we got home Maddy opened her traditional Christmas Eve present.

I mostly have video and unfortunately the clips are too long to upload. This is the best picture I have of her shirt. This set came with buffalo plaid fuzzy socks and shorts.

After she opened her present, it was time for everyone to get into their Christmas jammies to watch Home Alone 2. Since Maddy has graduated into a Santa's helper, this has become our new tradition.

These were the cookies she wanted to leave out for Santa and the elves.

I was so excited this year for Christmas because for once I knew exactly what I wanted to get Maddy. Approximately two years ago we had the money saved for a PS5, but life happened, and I ended up having to use that money as our Christmas fund. I promised her we would rebuild the sinking fund and try again. She was such a good sport about it. She had a plan to save her money for a PS5 this year. Once our house sold, she realized the reality of her getting a puppy is sooner than expected, so she decided to use her PS5 savings as her dog savings. I knew I had to find a way to get her a PS5 for Christmas. After a little digging I found I could request an invitation from Amazon. I gave it a try and two days later received an invite. I could not believe it happened so fast. As you can tell in the video, she was quite surprised. 

The PS5 was supposed to be her main present. We've been trying to figure out what homeschool curriculum we would use next year. We finally came to a decision. Unfortunately for me that decision required her to have a laptop because it will solely be online. I debated with the do I or don't I decision of getting her a laptop for Christmas. I figured it made financial sense to go ahead and purchase the laptop and make it part of her Christmas. She has wanted a laptop for a while, so she was really excited to get one.

Since she ended up getting two main presents, the rest of her Christmas were accessories mostly. She got a PS5 controller charging station and an extra controller. Mom wants to play too ya know! She also got three games: Avengers, Uncharted; Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

The last thing she got outside of stocking stuffers is a JBL Flip 6 speaker. This was something else I knew early on I wanted to get for her. When I tell you it is an awesome speaker, I mean it. The sound is incredible!

Marley had a great Christmas as well. He got a few new toys and a big bag of treats.

My parents got him his very own "human grade" blanket. He is very spoiled and loves his blankets. Maddy took this pic of him. 

I think I will stop here and put the rest of our Christmas in part two.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2021 - Part 2

 Merry Christmas! Maddy was beyond excited about Christmas morning. She asked me the earliest she could wake me up. I decided 6:00 A.M. would be alright, but she was not allowed to set an alarm. She did not set alarm and found herself awake at 5:00. The minute the clock hit 6:00 she was waking me up. She scared me half to death. 

Once I finally got out of bed, I got the camera ready to take any last-minute pictures. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I mostly took videos this year. After presents I made pigs in a blanket.

We had lunch with family at my mom's house. 

That was the gist of our Christmas. 

I thought I would share what Maddy got for Christmas from me. 

She wanted an Instax or something similar. I am the type of person that does a lot of research on things to find the best. The main reason she wanted the Instax is because it prints out a photo. After a lot of research, I came to the conclusion the Canon Ivy was the best option. I told her if she still wanted the camera I would get it for her, but she has loved her printer.

I thought she needed a holder for her printer so she could safely take it wherever she wanted. She also got extra paper to go with it. 

She has fallen in love with the "oldies." Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, she's a fan of them all.

This was not on her Christmas list, but something I thought she could use. She is getting more and more into makeup. She is only allowed to wear eyeshadow, mascara, and lip stick. 

I was really excited over this hoodie. She is a huge Marvel fan. 

We went opening night to see Black Widow. It was a huge hit with us. Maddy fell in love with Yelena. I must admit after watching Hawkeye on Disney +, she has become one of my favorites as well. I ordered this from Etsy, but the shop is no longer open

Every Black Widow fan has to have the "You're a total poser" shirt. I just want to know why Marvel felt it necessary to kill Black Widow. I'm still waiting for her return.

Maddy got AirPods for her birthday. Somehow the left ear got messed up and was hard to hear. It was frustrating when she needed to only have one in because it is more comfortable to wear just the left over just the right. I decided to throw these in as part of her Christmas.

We were talking about Christmas one night and she stated she wished she had thought to put a karaoke machine on her Christmas list. She seemed a little bummed because no one would know she wanted one. As soon as she said that I knew this would be her final present. I had gotten most of her presents already, but I just didn't feel it was complete. After ordering this I finally felt done.

She got a new phone case and of course needed a new popsocket for her case. Out of the options these seemed to be the best. Captain America was her first favorite.

Spider-Man is what got her into Marvel. She wanted to know what the original Spider-Man movie was like. She watched it and fell in love. How this translated into Marvel is beyond me, but somehow it did. She wanted the Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland ones. 

It was time for a new Switch game. 

She bought herself some gel pens before Christmas. She used them to color, but they seemed to run out pretty quick. I didn't think anyone else would buy her some, so I got these. I found out afterwards someone else did in fact buy her some, but you can never have too many.

Bath and Body is a must have in this family. She requested this scent. I thought it would be too sweet smelling, but it really isn't. It is a light scent and smells oh so good!

What can I say, this girl loves Marvel!

Throughout 2021 Maddy received a small allowance for doing chores outside of what was expected of her to do. She decided after her birthday she was going to save her leftover money to purchase me some Christmas gifts. I tried to talk her out of it, but once she has her mind made up there is no changing it. She did a wonderful job picking out gifts I would love.

She got me this dachshund blanket that is so soft and warm! I am a dachshund lover.

Every year she gets me a calendar with the help of her Nana. She was so excited to be able to purchase this one by herself. Gilmore Girls is my favorite tv show of all time. 

This is my favorite gift she got me. It is also from Gilmore Girls. I was so surprised!

I think she has the kindest heart and couldn't be any prouder of her.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We are already counting down to next Christmas.

Christmas 2021 - Part 1

 Christmas is my favorite holiday. I wanted to share our Christmas season, even though it may have to be separated into two posts.

We did not get to all of our normal traditions this year. We usually walk around downtown, go to Rock City, see the zoo lights, and take our end of year trip. Time seemed to slip away this Christmas season and before we knew it, we were out of time.

We did make it downtown to our town's boat parade/lighting of the city. 

We usually get our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, this year was no different. We fell in love with our tree and deemed it our best tree yet. I didn't do the best job with lights, but it was still beautiful. My job is to get the lights on. Maddy does most of the decorating. There are a few ornaments that I put on such as the Manny angel ornament. 

Another tradition we have is baking day with Nana. We try to fit in all the Christmas baking we possibly can. Every year we have so many plans, but we always run out of time. Here are our goodies.

Every year we buy one special ornament to add to our collection. This year Maddy chose a Black Widow ornament, and I chose a Gilmore Girls ornament.

Next up is our gingerbread house night. 

We also choose a night to dress up in matching pajama's, Marley included, drink hot chocolate, and drive around looking at Christmas lights. I did take a picture, but I am not a fan of how it turned out. Poor Marley hated his pajamas this year, he felt like he couldn't move. 

Our town's power company puts up a Christmas display in the windows. We make a special trip just to take a look.

As we got closer to Christmas day, it was finally time to make our Santa cookies. 

We finally made it to Christmas Eve. Maddy always gets to open one present, but I pick the present. Every time I seem to pick the present that has Christmas pajamas. This year she got Marvel Christmas pajamas. I took a video instead of pictures, and the video is really dark. Here is what they look like.

Christmas Eve night we go to our church's candlelight service. It is my favorite service. Maddy took this picture. 

Once we got home it was time to get everything ready for Santa.

I think I will end this post here and put Christmas day on another one. Until next time...

Going, Going, Gone

I wanted to do a small budget update. I did not expect to pay off anything in 2021 since my debt was so high, but I was wrong. In December I was able to pay off one of my higher balance credit cards. I was beyond ecstatic!! I have paid off almost 50% of my debt thanks to the Budget Mom!

If you are like me and think there is no way possible to save a dime, you are probably wrong. My initial savings started with loose change. In about a year's time I was able to save $100 in change. Once I saw how much was saved I decided to step up to dollars. One savings challenge idea from the Budget Mom is to save every $5 bill you get. I tried this for a month, but had to stop because it was taking too much of my already low food budget lol. I did participate in the savings challenge courses the Budget Mom creates every year for a small fee, and that was helpful in paying off debt. 

My Christmas fund struggled a bit. I normally save a certain amount of money each check. With the rising cost of food, gas, and rent, all my extra money was gone. We saved up enough money for a PS5 last year. We waited in several queues to try to purchase one with no luck. I thank God we never got to purchase one because that was able to go towards the Christmas fund. We were a little disappointed to not be able to continue on with our PS5 plans, but we know it is just a temporary set back and as soon as we can we will start saving again :)

Through this debt free journey I have included my daughter in the plan. I want her to see why credit cards are bad. I want her to learn up front you should always save for what you want, instead of throwing it on a card. I want her to learn to create a budget and stick with it so she can support herself when the time comes. Whenever I work on my budget, she will pull out her money and work on hers. She has goals she wants to achieve and thankfully she is learning to achieve them the right way, by saving her money. 

I am so thankful to have stumbled upon the Budget Mom. She has helped to keep me motivated to become debt free. She has helped me realize I am an emotional shopper. I have gotten so much better, but those old tendencies like to creep up every now and then. Some days I feel like I will never have financial freedom, but I know as long as I do what I can, I will get there. 

I am excited to see what progress is made in 2022!!!

Happy New Year!

Picture Overload

I am still trying to "catch up" this blog. This post is basically going to be a huge picture dump from September 2013 through December 2013. I don't really have a lot to say, as most of those details are long forgotten :(

September 2013

We used to go to Pigeon Forge in August or September to rent a cabin for the weekend. We were Dollywood season passholders, so that is where we spent our time. My parents were gracious to invite the kids and grandkids up for the weekend. This trip was me and Maddy, my sister and her two kids, and my dad's sister and mom drove up for a day to spend some time with us. We always looked forward to this trip each year. I am not allowed to post pictures of my sister's kids now. I completely understand the reasoning, but I hate not getting to include them. Once they are adults I will hopefully have their permission to post their pictures :)

October 2013

Another tradition we have each year is to visit our local pumpkin patch. We do all the fun slides and swings first, then go on a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins, then we do the corn maze last.

For Halloween Maddy was Dora. She looks real enthused here doesn't she? lol

November 2013

December 2013

I love our church at Christmas time! 

Santa brought Maddy a big girl bed for this Christmas. She was quickly outgrowing her toddler bed. I love that she said it grew! I know Santa had a lot of little elves to help pull this off because not only did he bring her a bigger mattress, but he hauled off her old one. 

We survived the enormous amount of pictures 😳 whew! I'm having a hard time finding 2014 pictures on my computer, but have a whole album on Facebook. My plan is to go through those to pick and choose the pictures I can remember the details for and write about them. I promise this blog won't be this boring the whole time. My OCD just can't handle jumping in with current events and then going back in and filling in the gaps lol. I for one love all the memories I have, but I know if you don't know me or my family, this might be boring for you...we will get more interesting over time :) I hope you all have a wonderful day <3 p="">