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...

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. 

One of the hurdles I faced when trying to stick to a budget is entertainment. My budget is pretty tight, and as I pay off debt, I snowball the minimum payment onto the next debt I am trying to pay off. With prices going up and my paycheck not going up, every dollar is going to necessities and debt. I had to get creative in how we could do fun things for little to no cost. One thing we have found is we enjoy hiking, or at least our version of hiking. I had no idea until I googled trails near me what all our town had to offer. We have been to several new places within our town, and still have more to check out. We tend to only hike in the wintertime because I am terrified of snakes. Below are some of pictures I took on our hikes:

There is nothing better than taking in the view :)

There are a few places we will hike in the summer. This is around Benton Falls.

Another place we love to go is Cades Cove in Pigeon Forge, TN. We have seen several bears there, and usually hike the Abrams Falls trail. 

We like to find trails that have interesting things along the way. 

I highly recommend Raccoon Mountain. It is so beautiful! 

We love to find new places to explore. We are definitely NOT experienced hikers. I often say we are like the Gilmore Girls when it comes to hiking. We might have some of the gear, but we are not real hikers lol. We have gone on enough hikes that we now have proper hiking boots. I purchased our boots through savings. I purchased ones like these

The other thing we like to do for fun is go to our local park. Our park is in a country setting, so it is quite peaceful. We tend to make it to the park more in the summer/fall.

Another low-cost thing we like to do is go for a drive and sing our heart out. Sometimes we will sing in a country accent while other times we will try to sing in a British accent. If you have watched Grey's Anatomy, instead of "dance it out," we sometimes "sing it out." We have dance parties as well, but when we need to get out of the house "sing it out" is much better. 

It is possible to find cheap or free things to do. During Christmas time we love going downtown to see all the Christmas lights. We have something to do for every season. Sometimes it may get a little boring doing the same thing over and over again, but it sure beats sitting at home being bored.