Debt-Free in December!

🎶  "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" 🎶

This month was a FANTASTIC month for our family, and here are some reasons why.


Farewell Debt💸

We started off the month becoming completely, 100% debt-free!

That's right -- W E   A  R  E   D E B T   F R E E !

Here's Hannah coloring in our families debt-thermometer.  We are amazed at how much she has learned in this process.  When we told her we made the final payment, she screamed really loud "WE'RE DEBT FREE!"  That's right kiddo -- we are!

And I had to include Nathan's chart (he wanted a visual chart in his office to look at, so I made him this one in February).  Kind of ironic that the boxes marked off look like little Alabama flags.

It was the greatest feeling in the world calling the government to make our final student loan payment.  It was very emotional (at least for me).  We owe nothing to anybody -- anymore.  It hit me how liberating that feels.  The next paychecks that we receive get to stay in OUR account instead of going to student loans.

The last several years have been very challenging for our family as we have scratched and clawed our way out.  We wold  A LOT of things in our house (some that were really hard due to memories attached with those items).  Nathan sold his blood for a couple years and carries those scars on his arms.  We put a lot of work into our home to have it work for us.  I did cleaning jobs.  We ate cheaper food.  We even sold a car that we absolutely loved.  But it was all worth it in the end!  Every single bit of that struggle was worth it.

Now, we are on to the next goals of SAVING!💵

Hannah was excited to start coloring our savings thermometer.  But this time, we are coloring it in GREEN and not red, since we are no longer in the red. Yay!

Birthday for Hannah🎂

Before she headed off to school, we decided to let her open one of her presents:

She was so thrilled to finally have a strawberry whiffer sniffer.

Apparently, these are all the rage right now at the elementary school.  A few weeks after she started school, Hannah kept asking us if she could buy a "smelly" toy.  I had NO CLUE what that was.  We asked her to show us what they were at the store, but we could never find them.  About a month ago when Hannah and I went to go pick up Nathan from work, one of his co-workers asked Hannah if she had a "whiffer sniffer."  As soon as she said that, Nathan and I looked at each other and figured it out. That night, we got online and ordered one for her birthday.

Later that night, we took Hannah out to dinner for her birthday (sorry for the lame photos).  This kid loves to eat french fries at restaurants, so we decided to take her out to celebrate.  She was also really excited to eat a chocolate cupcake.🍥

After dinner, we came home and opened up the rest of the presents:🎁

Books

The book I read this month was called 48 Days To The Work You Love.

I've heard about this book about 18 months ago, and I hear references to it all the time.  I decided it was time to read this book since I have been exploring the idea if becoming a professional organizer.

The book was really good.  Quite honestly, I wish I read it my senior year of high school. It's a book that goes through a step-by-step process for finding meaningful work, and making successful career and job decisions, by understanding your God-given skills, abilities, personality traits, dreams, and passions.

I learned somethings about myself.  Some good.  Some bad.  Some eye opening.  What I love about this book, was that the information in it will still be applicable 10 years from now, which is good because I'll probably have have Hannah read it during her senior year of high school.



Work

I have been working now for a month and I have really enjoyed it.  I am so grateful to have something that accommodates my schedule to ensure I'm home when Hannah's home. Honestly, I couldn't ask for a better job.  Plus, it's been a really good outlet for me, and it allows me to utilize some of my God given talents.

One of my first big tasks was to start organizing the supply room.  Here's the before shot:

And here's the after (so far).  I'm not done yet.  There are several more things that need to come in and out of that room in the next several months, but in the meantime, we at least have a functioning supply room.

Annual check up

Hannah had her annual check up, and things are looking really good.  We go see a pediatric ophthalmologist next month to check on her eyes, but for the most part -- this kid is healthy!

This kid loves going to doctor appointments.

Date night👫

I LOVED date night this month.  My favorite dates are the ones that Nathan plans them, and then surprises me with what we are doing on the date.

We drove to Birmingham and ate dinner at a very yummy Italian restaurant called Bettola.

Then we went to go see the play A Christmas Carol.  It was at a small children's theater, so it only lasted an hour (again, children's theater here), but it was so much fun.

Thanks honey for a fantastic date.  I loved it.

Winter Weather in Alabama⛅

Many of our friends and family have been asking us what winter in Alabama is like.  Well, here's was our high (by the way, this snapshot was the weather on Christmas Eve.  When we went out an ran errands, we had to turn the AC on in the car because it was so warm).

And here was our low during the month (this was the temperature at night.  I think the high that day was about 40 degrees).

Organizing projects at home💁

In case you hadn't noticed, I like to organize.  I love the peaceful, relaxing feeling that comes from finishing a project.  There were a few things in our home that needed to be re-organized.

One project was a kitchen drawer with utensils, knives, measuring cups, etc.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a before picture.😮  Trust me though, this is a VAST improvement!

Another project was organizing the DVDs.  We hated having all these cases stored in a bulky storage ben, taking up precious closet space.

So, we got rid of the cases and filed the DVDs in this storage box.  Viola!😄  So much better.

The last project I worked on this month was wrapping paper.  This storage container was not working for us, and it needed to go (this was a before pretty much through emptying the tote shot).

The Christmas wrapping paper also needed another home other than this red storage tote that was filled with other Christmas decor (again, another half-way through shot).

The final result: all the wrapping paper is now hanging in our spare closet, and it's easily accessible. Viola!😃

Party at school🎉

Hannah got to have a party on her last day of the school this year.  The entire school had a performance.  Each grade sang a Christmas song, and the Kindergartners got to sing "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer."  All the kids ins the K classes made their shirts, and they are so cute!

Jasper

Many of you know that our family has an Elf of the Shelf that comes to our house each year.  Well Jasper showed up again this year, and we had a lot of fun finding him each morning.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve here was WARM (which we liked).  We spent the day doing several things:

We made cookies for Santa:

We lite the candle and waited it to burn down to the mark (this is a tradition my family does: we get out a waxed candle, and make a cut/knife mark in it.  When the candle burns down to the mark, we get to do something special).

While we waited for the candle to burn down, we Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa, and we re-enacted the Nativity scene.  Seeing that there is only 3 of us in our family, we needed some help with casting the roles.

Hannah and Nathan were Mary and Joseph, and she used her horse stuffed animal as her donkey.

Hannah's baby played the role of the baby Jesus.

I portrayed the angel (and forgot to take a picture).😯  But we had these stuffed animals play the shepherds, who watched over their flocks.

And these awesome animals played the three wise men.

When the candle burned down to the mark, we went out an looked at Christmas lights.  We found a house that was all decked out.  The mailbox looked like it exploded with Christmas lights.  I tried to get a good shot (it was hard to do as we were driving by.  There were people behind us).

After that, we came home, and went to bed in hopes that Santa would arrive.

Christmas Day🎅

And Santa did arrive, and he left a note too!

We opened lots of presents, and played with them all day long.

Christmas is so much fun with kids.  They make it so magical.

Tinsel Trail🎄

Each year, the city puts on a "Tinsel Trail" where local business decorate live Christmas trees on a walkway / pedestrian trail.  We went an checked it out, and we were super impressed with several of the tress.  They decorated their trees to match their businesses/line of work.

While walking the Tinsel Trail, we also noticed that our places of employment decorated trees as well.

Miscellaneous

Lately, all Hannah has been wanting to wear are shorts, and flip flops.

This girl does not want to wear pants, or any shoes.  I think she has become spoiled with the warmer weather we have been having. Unfortunately though, it has been getting cooler since winter has arrived, which means we've had a few "discussions" about what to wear when we get dressed.😒

One day I was in the kitchen, when I noticed Hannah was totally engrossed in playing.  I love it when she is so focused with her toys.  I stopped what I was doing, and had to take a few pictures, which is hard to do because as soon as she sees that you have been watching her, she stops playing.  Luckily, I wasn't detected.

Hannah really enjoys it when Daddy says "let's do a science project."  She LOVES to do projects with him.  On Christmas break, they decided to do one, so I snapped a few shots in between cookie batches.  They experimented with oil and water, food coloring, and different objects in the bottle to see what would float, or sink.

Hannah found Nathan's Christmas socks, and thought it would be fun to wear them over her pajamas. Silly girl.

In some ways, we are sad to see 2016 come to a close.  It has been a really great year for our family. But we are excited to see what adventures the next year will bring.  We know this for sure -- we're already going on an adventure next month!

48 Days To The Work You Love picture courtesy of Google images