12 Favorite Pictures of 2023

 I always like to look back on the past year and pictures are my favorite ways to store memories.

Here is my favorite picture from each month in 2023...

January

We went to Disney on Ice as the kids' BIG Christmas gift.

I loved that they still loved all of the magic of it! 

They each got to choose a souvenir as part of the trip and wisely chose a snack

that came in a take-home cup so it was a "double" souvenir. 

February

Owen and I had Mesker Park Zoo to ourselves on a cold, winter day.

The highlight?

A half-hour private session with the penguins. 

March

Annabeth and I got our ears doubled pierced on a Sunday afternoon.

I always hoped for a daughter and I am so thankful for mine!

April

Annabeth performing her solo at Just Dance.

When she was little, she set the goal of having leaps "like the big girls"

and what a joy it has been to watch her work tirelessly to achieve that goal. 

May

We celebrated our 14th Wedding Anniversary with a

weekend at the lake. The dock broke as we took this picture so we ended up 

with quite the project. Mark's ideal way to spend a weekend.

June

Dance Recital Night.

We so love watching the kids do what they love to do!

July

Our last morning in Pigeon Forge. We cleaned out the freezer and 

the kids had breakfast sandwiches and Bomb Pops for breakfast so we would

have zero food waste. I love their matching shirts and big smiles. 

August

Owen played a long, HOT, Fall Ball season in a new league.

He grew so much as a player and we were thankful for great coaching and positive fans.

September

Annabeth's first Girls' Trip with Mama, Grandmama, and Aunt Lu for Lu's Birthday.

We spent a few days in Chicago and finding a safe Gelto place was the highlight

for me. I was so happy to allow her to have that simple experience of dessert out!

October

The wonder of connection. 

November

Birds at Sunset.

Long Beach, MS

December

This one is a tie for me. On vacation, Annabeth asked for us to have matching sweatshirts 

which was such an exciting moment for me! Some days she is very 12 so I take the sweet when

I can get it! 

December #2

Our day at Gracelend.

We went as Owen's 8th birthday gift but all fell in love.

It was the perfect day together. 

Thank you Dear Readers for another year of following our journey in Life, Love, and living our goal to "owe no many anything but love." 

Frugal Friday 520

 Happy Frugal Friday!

Here's how we saved money/spent money wisely/made extra money this week:

- Friday night I enjoyed a Hallmark movie night at a friend's house. Four of us were there, we each brought snacks to keep it simple for the hostess. Her husband kindly treated us all to peppermint cocoa from Starbucks at the end of the movie. I took hot cooca cookies that the kids and I made and a cheeseball and crackers from my Mama's ladies group.

- Saturday morning I helped with our church Cookie Walk. I'm currently serving on the Children's Ministry Team and we took care of crafts and stories. The kids had made gingerbread houses the Sunday before and entered those in a fundraising contest. 

- The kids spent Friday night into Saturday at Mark's mom's house. She spoiled them with their favorite foods, games, and movies. 

- Our original Saturday evening plans were cancelled, so after dinner we check off "Drive around and look at Christmas lights" from Owen's holiday wishlist. I don't think it was quite as fun as he had hoped but we explored our neighborhood, the old downtown houses, and then drove through the Masonic Home light display. It was lovely and free!

- Sunday after church and Sunday School, Mark and Owen took Uncle Luke out to lunch to celebrate his completion of his Masters Degree. Annabeth had her final youth group of the year and enjoyed Mexican lunch and wrapping Christmas gifts from some families that the youth sponsored this holiday season.

- Monday morning we had our first snow of the season! I do think it snowed a few weeks ago while we were on vacation so this was our first snow sighting. We had to take a break from bookwork to run around in a bit. Just like I remember from my own school days, no one could sit still while snow was falling! 

- We took several books to a Little Free Library. I like to donate books to those, or share with our homeschool co-op, so people in our community can enjoy them for free vs having to buy secondhand.

- We had some small games and toys in my gift tote that didn't find a home with anyone else this year, we took them to a Little Free Pantry with a note for people to enjoy taking them if they still needed stocking stuffers or gifts for their children. 

- Yesterday morning a friend had on Facebook that she was looking for fresh cranberries. I had accidentally bought some last week so we were happy to drop them off at her doorstep. I love when God gives us just what we need to share!

- We spent the day yesterday in Charlestown with our best friends. We always try to kick off the Christmas season with Christmas together. I am so thankful for a lifetime best friend and pray our children will be best friends too!

As we look forward to Christmas, I pray that each of you know that this season isn't about fancy meals, presents, songs, silly sweaters, or anything except for the One who came for us all. He came, as a baby, lived a perfect life, and died that we might life. Forever. With Him. 

Frugal Friday 519

 Happy Frugal Friday!

We're back with our usual content! Here's how we've been saving money/spending money wisely/making extra money the past few weeks:

- We've been checking off our low-cost/free activities from our Christmas Check List. Last week, Annabeth and I used giftcards to get Snowmen cookies and peppermint mochas at Starbucks. We took a long walk around downtown Franklin to look at lights and to enjoy time together. Friday night, we went to the Trafalgar Library for Merry Prairie. Annabeth was too old for many of the acitvities but still enjoyed looking at the gingerbread houses and petting the reindeer. Owen loved all of it still and was most excited for face painting and Santa. He insisted that we wait for Santa, in a 45+ minute line, "just in case" I'm wrong and Santa's real. He has an item he just decided he wanted and he had to cover all of his bases. 

We always LOVE the reindeer! 

- Saturday morning we volunteered at church for the Potato Drop. It's not quiet as exciting as it sounds as we don't actually drop the potatoes from anywhere. We met many, many kind people and enjoyed handing out over 39,000 pounds of potatoes! We could see by the end that we still had many pallets left so we did our best to help with the extra by delivering to little free pantries we knew of and to neighbors and friends.

- Saturday afternoon we had the laziest of lazy December days. We watched an entire season of a holiday baking show, Annabeth made gingerbread kiss cookies, and Owen and I got in a mile and a half Christmas light walk after dinner.

- Sunday after church, we took nachos to lunch with the Rileys. Annabeth's cookies were a hit there as well as at youth group that night. We love baking and it's always nice, especially for our waistlines, if we bake when have a plan for where to take it.

- My sister-in-law and her family brought Annabeth a HUGE box of hand-me-downs. Annabeth was thrilled to have a whole new wardrobe of fleece sweatshirts, tops, and dresses. Thank you Cass and Cindy!

- Monday we drove down to Charlestown to keep our friends' children for the afternoon. Our friend lost his father last Thursday quite suddenly. We drove down to help with childcare and while the five kids played I ran the dishwasher, did some laundry, vacuumed, and wiped down the kitchen. I am not always great with words but love to love people with acts of service. It was a blessing to pray for them as I cleaned.

- Monday evening was the kids' dance holiday party. Both of the kids have been very into making bracelets this year and they asked if that could be their teachers' gifts. I agreed and they have spent weeks picking the perfect colors and designs for every teacher. Mark and I had a date night thanks to a giftcard we found in a drawer! We rarely if ever pick up food so it was truly special treat. 

- Tuesday morning we drove back down to Charlestown for the funeral. We were very blessed with a beautiful memorial service not so much about the man but about what Christ did in his life. I was so encouraged that the family chose such a strong gospel message. I am still so proud and in awe of our friend A, age 8, who gave a beautiful memorial message for his grandpa and led us all in the Lord's Prayer. 

- Wednesday evening Mark's boss took the department out to dinner. Mark had a great time with co-workers and enjoyed winning $20 on his lottery scratcher gift. 

- We passed along a bag of clothes from my mom to my mother in law. We also did some pre-holiday cleaning out and took a bag of items to donate. We took books we are finished with to free little libraries. More on our decluttering mission in the weeks to come!

We are looking forward the the holiday celebrations to come next week!

Happy Savings to All! 

Review of Guesthouse at Graceland and Graceland Mansion

 In April, I booked a simple beach week for our family trip this year. We've done several big trips since 2020 and we needed a smaller, more affordable trip. I found a great place to stay right on the beach in Gulfport, MS and we planned several free excursions. Then, for Owen's 8th birthday we decided to surprise our Elvis Lover with a stop at the Guesthouse at Graceland and Graceland Mansion on the way home. 

Up first, the Guesthouse at Graceland. Our overall review 3/5

The Guesthouse Lobby

If you click the above link, you'll see that the Guesthouse is advertised as a "Luxury Elvis Hotel." We beg to differ. In our travels, we have stayed at several other Four Diamond hotels which have been INCREDIBLE so we had very high expectations for this hotel as well. 

Pros: It is an easy walk, or extremely short drive, to Graceland. If you're just in Memphis for Elvis then the location is perfect. It is in a bit of a rundown area so we really appreciated the guarded parking lot ($10 for the night). There are four restaurants and we ate dinner at EP's Grill which was fantastic and also grabbed a morning coffee which was fine. The highlights were the included nightly movie (ours was "Viva Las Vegas") and 9 PM PBJ bar. The service was exceptional. 

Movie night!

Cons: It really is not as special or luxurious as other hotels at this price point (our room was $230 before fees thanks to a First Responder Discount). Our room was larger and the bathroom was larger than your average hotel but they were not nearly as "Elvis" as we had hoped for. Our other Four Diamond hotels have been historic which maybe gave them the more special luxurious feel. The lobby is not very large, very basically decorated, and yet they want everyone to gather there for nightly music so it was quite crammed night and day. The kids were also very disappointed that the beautiful pool is outdoors and not useable year round. 

While Mark and I weren't completely thrilled

Owen was in heaven! He LOVED it.

After our night there, we spent 5 hours the next day at Graceland Mansion and Museum. 

Owen has always been a huge Elvis fan and just couldn't believe we were taking him there. Mark was the only of us who had been and assured me it was worth the detour.

Mr. O with his Elvis hat, shades, and lip curl ready for Graceland!

What did I expect? I expected a very overpriced (roughly $45/kid and $80/adult for tickets) trip to a possibly run down house surrounded by a certain kind of music fan.

I could not have been MORE wrong! Our visit to Graceland was an experience I never knew I needed!

First of all, the home is lovingly maintained by a staff who cares tremendously for Elvis's family and work very hard to keep the home beautiful. It has quite obviously been well cared for despite the half million visitors who walk through it each year. Our tour included the first floor, basement, carport, backyard, several outbuildings that served as offices and gymnasium, as well as a sentimental stop at the Presleys' Meditation Garden. We were surrounded by true Elvis fans who felt such a quite reverence for the man, the music, and the house. It was one of the quietest and most respectful tours we have ever been on.

An afternoon in Elvis's backyard. 

The audio tour is narrated by John Stamos. 

Paying their respect to the King of Rock and Roll

After our house tour, we spend the afternoon at the museum across the street. Here we saw some of Elvis's cars, planes, music, jumpsuits, and so much more. After Elvis died, his family remained in the house and within five years it was opened to the public for tours. Since the family still owns everything, there has been such incredible care about maintaining everything for the next generation. 

The museum intertwines home videos, tv recordings, memorabilia from 

Elvis, Lisa Marie, and so many others

Owen had a must-see list and included Evlis's Pink Cadillac 

He was also thrilled to see dozens of his jumpsuits

I was so thankful that Owen has such a love for Elvis and that Mark pushed for us all to go. We all enjoyed our day there tremendously. Graceland was a 5/5 for all of us!

**Traveler's Tip: Parking is $10 at both the Guesthouse and Graceland. If you stay at the hotel, it's a quick under five minute walk so leave your car there and save the Graceland parking fee. We felt quite silly that we had prepaid both as we definitely wasted $10. 

Frugal Friday 518

 Happy Frugal Friday and Happy December!

This week's Frugal Friday looks a little different because this time of year just feels different. It's colorful, magical, merry, and oh-so-busy.

When the kids were little I felt a lot of pressure to do all of the magical things. We saw live reindeer, living Nativities, storytimes with Mrs. Claus, made ornaments, baked cookies, sang songs, crafted, and went to soooo many Christmas events. It was fun, it was wonderful (well, kind of) but mostly I ran myself ragged only to find as they got older they didn't remember any of it.

Then 2020.

Even by December 2020, much of our usual events were modified or not brought back at all that year. We had a very simple, very quiet Christmas season with a 5 year old and a 9 year old and it was glorious! I was calm, I actually enjoyed everything we did, and it was still so magical. 

In 2021, I started a new tradition. I asked the kids each November what THEY wanted to do for the holiday season. We did the things on their list, of course went to church for Advent as well, and that was that. The season was so lovely. The kids were happy doing what they wanted, we spent very little gas/money on activities, and they loved loved loved that Christmas season.

It worked so well that I did it again last year. We had about a dozen activities on the list - some at the library, some around town, and some baking/crafting at home. We worked through the list and it was perfect.

This year, I did the same. After dinner one night the kids, now ages 8 and 12, came up with just seven "Must Do" activities for Christmas. 

Look how simple! Look how "small" they want Christmas to be. We'll use a library pass for the Eiteljorg and so our estimated budget for all of this is under $25 for the WHOLE Christmas Season. I feel comforted knowing that while others may have giant lists, big trips, or dozens of outings - this little list is all that my kids actually want to do.

Have you tried this before? What does your list look like? Maybe it's huge - maybe your kids have 100 things they want to do. That's great! That will work well for you then! 

I would never dare to say that our way is right or better than anyone else's but it is what works for us. I will note that since we have never done Santa, our children have rarely been to Santa themed events or "meet Santa" outings saving us a ton of activities right off the bat. Also, Mark's schedule at work is always very hectic for the holidays and he has worked more than half of the kids' Christmas Eve/Days. They are very used to it just being the three of us and enjoy opening gifts or doing special traditions on December 21 or 28 or whenever. His job has helped our children be thankful for any time they have with people that they love. 

As we have begun the Advent Season and as we look ahead towards the holidays, we pray that each of you Dear Readers have the holiday season that you want. That it is filled with the Light, the Hope, the Love, and the Peace of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.