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...

Welcome to Homeschool!

Before I talk about what this post is about, I just have to address the fact that I pretty much quit this blog for way too long. I had every intention of catching and keeping it up, but I failed. I do want to go back and try to catch up as much as I can. I have fallen in love with the YouTube community and prefer to video our day, instead of capturing a picture. I hope to find a good balance between the two because I really want my blog to be up to date, but I also want the memories of our life on camera. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's talk homeschool!

I want to create several posts about homeschool, with one talking about the reasons I chose to homeschool. This post is jumping straight into how our first weeks have gone so far. Maddy started Kindergarten on August 3, 2015. Our first day did not go at all like I had hoped. I quickly realized that I did not have a good schedule and her day started just like any day would prior to school. She woke up, had breakfast, and started playing with her toys. During my lunch break I did a mini photo shoot with her outside to remember her first day.

The rest of her day while I worked included lunch, play, and nap. She has not had a nap time in two years. She really wanted to have nap time for school, so I of coarse said okay. Once I was done with work we played outside for about 30 minutes, and then came in and had dinner. I wish I could remember what was for dinner on her first day of school, but I forgot. After dinner her school time began. I don't have any pictures of her during school because I am busy teaching. We start off every day with the calandar, weather, days of the month, days of the week, and then 100 chart. It took me a week or two to realize we were forgetting to say the pledge of allegiance...oops! The first unit was about the days of creation. Each day we talked about what God created and then she illustrated it. Once we went through all seven days, we turned her illustrations into a book. I am so proud of our first class book. She did a wonderful job with her drawings. The creation unit was 10 days long. Our first real unit was on the sun and the letter s. Maddy already knows her alphabet and sounds, but the curriculum we are using goes over them for Kindergarten. She has not been bored reviewing what she already knows thank goodness. We talked about how the sun gives us light, the sun is used for measuring time and days, and the sun gives us heat. We made a sundial and I wish I had taken some pictures of it, but I didn't.

The number of the week was 1. Each unit we will add another number. We put the numbers in a box and she will reach in and pick one out. Once she picks a number she will have to count that number using manipulative's, and then write the number on a piece of paper.

Our second unit was on the moon and letter Mm. Once I got to this unit I had already figured out some good ideas. I purchased a Kindergarten workbook and while I work she works on her workbook. I check her sheets to make sure they are correct. She is beyond excited to sit at her desk and do worksheets. My lunch break we spend doing our morning meeting which consists of: the pledge of allegiance, prayer, days of the month, calandar, weather, 100's chart. On my break we start our first lesson whether it be introducing the letter of the next 6 days or theme of the week. We finish up once I am off work. I also purchased the pre-k Handwriting Without Tears program because I thought it might help her write a little better. Maybe I should have ordered the Kindergarten version because so far it's been a waste of money. I think if she had not been taught to write prior to being homeschooled the program would definitely have helped, but it's not helpful to us at this stage of her learning. We did a lot more activities with this unit. I purchased a Melissa and Doug floor puzzle that looks like this:

She thoroughly enjoyed putting this huge puzzle together. We are going to put it together one last time before we move on to our next theme. We talked about the different moon phases and why the moon changes shapes. We also talked about how the moon does not have light of it's own, but is actually the reflection of the sun's light. Our final activity was making a moon cake. There are times I wish I had a photographer follow us around to capture these special moments. I did snap a picture or two in the process of making it, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I also forgot to snap a picture of the "full moon" once it was done. We ended up having to go to the store twice for ingredients. The recipe called for vinegar...I have never seen a cake recipe that calls for vinegar. I was really doubting how it was going to taste and tried my best to prepare Maddy that she probably wouldn't like the cake. Much to my surprise it turned out pretty good. The whole cake was the full moon. We then cut the cake in half to make a half moon, and finally we made a crescent moon to the best of my ability. To make the evening even more fun we had a picnic under the moon. It was supposed to have been a full moon so we spread out an old sheet and ate our cake and admired the moon. Maddy ended up really liking the cake...whew! We then pretended we were walking on the moon. There is no gravity on the moon so we had to do out best no gravity walk. Maddy did not want to go back inside. I ended up letting her sleep in her "spaceship" we had made. I spread her comforter over the end of her bed over to her toy buckets to make a fort. Earlier in the week we had talked about what we might need if we were going to go on a rocket to the moon. She was so happy to get to sleep in her fort. We made a bed out of blankets and all her stuffed animals are nearby. She has a night light she sleeps with, which helped for this unit because it's in the shape of a moon.

I am still learning how to do this homeschool thing. I want to make it as fun for her as possible. Pinterest has definitely been my best friend :) My goal is to make a post at the end of each week to talk about what we did for school and eventually add pictures.

2021 Victory

 I just received my 2021 success from Credit Karma and am amazed at the progress I made in 2021. I don't feel comfortable sharing my actual numbers just yet but will share the overview. 

In 2021 I raised my credit score by 84 points!

I have paid off over 50% of my car loan.

I have also paid off most of my student loan, thanks to 0% interest :)

This is a very small update, but I wanted to share the wins I have had just from applying the Budget Mom methods. I will be credit card debt free in 2023. It has been SO hard to not do all the things we used to do, but I am starting to see the rewards and the finish line is just up ahead. We have big plans for the future, and this is the first step to achieving those plans.

When I first started this process, I had to watch the Budget Mom YouTube videos every single day. That was my motivation to stay on track. After I got the hang of it, I was able to motivate my own self. I talk so much about the Budget Mom because she has really helped me to achieve goals I thought were impossible. It takes baby steps and before you know it you will be well on your way to achieving the bigger goals you may have set.

If I can do it, anyone can :)

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.

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!

The Budget Mom

If you are in charge of finances, you will want to follow The Budget Mom on Instagram. I have been following her for a year now and am blown away at the progress I have made in my budget. Prior to finding her I didn't have a budget. I charged all of Christmas. I had zero savings. Financially I was a mess and didn't even know it. I now have a budget for each time I get paid, although I am still learning and tweaking. I am now prepared for Christmas and I have some savings. My journey began because I have so many places I want to travel to, but I never have the money. I got fed up throwing away my check to debt and finally said enough is enough. Throughout 2020 and a pandemic, I have been able to pay off five small credit cards, have saved for Christmas, and a few other things. I am now working on my larger debt and will not see the same amount of progress in 2021, but I am okay with that because at least progress will be made. 

This is an older picture from The Budget Mom's Instagram account, but her workbook is pretty much the same.

I am so excited to see what progress is made throughout the year!