Hannah Morrison

Formal Christmas Outfit Ideas

Hey, hey friends!! Can you believe it?!?! I don’t know about you, but our family Christmas photos are in two weeks and I can’t hardly stand it. I took a poll on IG and the vote was nearly unanimous… FORMAL for our photos this year. I am so freaking excited. The only gown I ever wore was my wedding dress and a sorority formal I went to in college. I didn’t wear a gown to my senior prom, which is SO SAD looking back. But, whatevs. I get to play dress-up now all I want hehe 😉 So we are doing formal with Cottonwood Road Photography in two weeks, and I had a few people ask to share outfit ideas. (I can’t wait to show you what we are cooking up with Dillard’s!!)

Last year’s photos are here on Pinterest and then you’ll also find our Christmas photo shoot from the year before, which doubled as our maternity! You can see pics from both. I hope this helps inspire and give directions or your own Christmas photos this year. I value good photos SO MUCH and am so thankful for every photo shoot we’ve ever done. Don’t get stressed out about what you’re wearing or anything like that. Have fun and maybe our links below will ease the stress of all that for you.

xoxo,

Han

Last year’s casual shoot is here!

Baby:

Her:

Him:

3 Things That Changed Our Budget & Created Margin

Heya babes! Today I am sharing about that dreaded “B Word”… Budget. WHOA WHOA, what word did you think I meant!? Ok, just kidding. BUT, for real. How many of us hate the word “budget?” I used to hate talking about the budget, money, or anything of the sort because I just didn’t want to know. This was, of course, no help to my husband who was trying to keep us on track.

For 2019, the word that Paul felt on his heart for our family was “margin.” We felt this was for our time, family, and money. I am sharing today 3 things we use that has brought margin for our family’s finances with the hopes it will do the same for you.

  1. I took over the budget. We decided to do this for a couple reasons- one of them being to make me feel the weight of our money. And now that I have… I ain’t going to lie… I freaking love it. Like, neither of us want to go back to Paul doing it. It’s become a GAME to me. I love running our budget. I love knowing how much value even $5 spent here and there is, and how quickly it adds up and cuts into our margin. I literally look at my budget spreadsheet every.single.day. I legit asked Paul today as I left the house, “Hey babe, can you make sure lights are off when you leave? The electricity bill was high last month.” LOL. WHO AM I?! I encourage you, if you don’t know your family’s budget or are like how I used to be (“I just don’t wanna know”), then I would seriously consider running your budget even just a one month commitment with your spouse. This will help you both!
  2. Twine App. Paul started using Twine as our external savings account. We found it way too easy to “steal” from our savings when it was in our bank account. If we really wanted to establish margin, we needed to remove that savings account from our grasp altogether. We send money over every month and it is accruing interest like a true Savings Account. It helps you set goals, too! It’s so great.
  3. Robin Hood/Stocks. You guys, this one has been a game changer for us. Like, life-changing. As part of his mission to create margin for our family, Paul began educating himself on stocks. We have some big goals to pay off everything but our mortgage as quickly as possible (cars, school, etc.), and this has been HUGE for us. We are talking a side income for our family FROM STOCKS. Robin Hood helps manage your stock investments easily and is linked to your bank. We have a healthy number in there we keep for daily investments, and Paul sends the surplus he’s made that week to our bank. He has really figured out a system that’s almost fool-proof. However, we don’t budget this profit into our monthly budget just in case there’s a low week or month. I assess what we made and allocate the earnings accordingly toward debt. As of now, Robin Hood is our debt payer and it’s been such a blessing!

Whether you do these exact steps, or you figure out something else that works for you, I hope you know you CAN create margin with your budget. It takes getting everybody (yes YOU!) on board with unified goals. You can do this, y’all!! You can spend and save wisely, and steward your money well. We are cheering you on!

What We’ve Worn Lately

Happy Saturday, friends! 

I hope today finds you sleeping in, rested, full of coffee and good food. I wanted to round-up for y’all my latest Instagram pics with EASYYYY to shop links, because I have shared quite a few new pieces both for myself and for Knoxy lately over on the gram. I think it’s always helpful to see things laid out in one spot! I have Knox’s newest sneakers and Paul’s latest go-to outfit linked below along with my own. Knox’s Nana just bought him a ton of new clothes from ZARA Baby, which is 100000% the BEST spot for little boys clothing. Unfortunately, they are not linked with LiketoKnow.it so I can’t link his latest outfits.

Please note: I receive a lot of clothes as gifts from brands! We spend money wisely and I don’t want you to see “Wow she buys so many clothes.” Reality is… I get a lot of them for free. We have a portion of our budget for clothes we have to follow when it comes out of our own pockets. The reason I do this job, though, and receive so many clothes is to try them on and style them so that you can purchase items wisely with your own budget! I enjoy styling outfits, and it brings me joy when I know I helped you spend your money wisely and with your BEST “yes”!

So, to make it super easy for all of you if LiketoKnow.it just isn’t your thing or you haven’t learned how to use it yet, I will have everything below. But, SPEAKING OF, if you’re new around here or just haven’t dove into LTK yet, here’s the mini tutorial:

  1. Download the app for FREE
  2. Follow me in it (Super easy- just search my name in the top bar and click the pink button!)
  3. OR You can even screenshot any pic you see the LTK link on at the end of my captions and it pops up in your app!

This is the easiest and quickest way to always answer that “Where’d you get that??” question with a guaranteed response. Plus, it helps me out just as much as it does you! And I am all about that mutual friendship, because let’s face it… We are pals. You and me, we are friends once you join this little community. 🙂 Another place you can find my outfits with easy to click links to grab everything for yourself is right here on my website under “Shop My Insta”. It’s located on my Home Page of the site just below the main photos on my page.

Latest Outfits:

The Black and White Plaid Skirt- My current favorite piece! Get the skirt HERE.

***I bought a small and it fits perfectly. I was scared it’d be too big, but it’s great! I am 5’1 and size 0 for size ref. I paired it with their cute Pumpkin Tee, but they also have a few other cute options I linked! 

 

 

**Closest to my bag that they have currently!

**Sweatshirt will be in the new Chelcey Tate x The Cake Shop collection, dropping October 8th in The Cake Shop!

 

Pattern Play 2.0- Leopard skirt and stripes! 

 

The Cutest Cream Cardigan! Get it HERE. 

 

Pink Suede Mini Skirt- From Landry Kate. DM them THIS image and ask for your size. 

Beauty Products Lately:

I have been testing the Sunday Riley CEO Oil, and I am obsessed. Basically, at this point, anything Sunday Riley is my guaranteed YES to spend your money on. I also love Drunk Elephant, which is more along the toxin-free route. But, hands down, Sunday Riley through and through in my opinion for most things.

Silky Smooth Jazz Fall Playlist

The soundtrack to fall is jazz. It just is.

Like, the whole earth needs jazz when the nights get crisper and the leaves start to change. And because this is fact, I have created a Fall Playlist with my favorite silky smooth jazz. Most of it’s from the 50’s, though I have some of my current favorite jazzy stuff on as well.

Shop my dress you see, here! This is literally my favorite dress is my closet right now and I get so many compliments on it every time I have worn it. The shape and ruffles are so feminine!

 

 

Burgundy Dress + Knoxy Update

Happy Labor Day and happy Mommy Monday, gal pals! I hope you are getting a nice day off and enjoying some extra time with the family.

It’s officially September and I have pulled out all of my favorite transition pieces that are my favorite fall colors (but can also beat that heat here in Texas still!). This burgundy dress is SO CUTE and the fit with the bunching on the sides is very flattering for every shape! It’s also conveniently enough a great one to chase after your babes in because it stays put. I can speak from experience, obviously… 😉 It’s also available in olive and a gorgeous slate gray that I think I might need to get!

Shop here.

But gosh y’all, it’s seriously so crazy watching Knox in this season. We are just shy of 2 years old and he is a full-on little boy. I am loving it! He wants to see everything, asks questions *of course we can’t understand half of them..haha*, and he is doing 3 word sentences randomly that blow me away. He is so kind and gentle, funny, and I just feel so lucky to be his mommy. I think my favorite thing currently that he does is he will walk around with his Buzz Lightyear, “shhh shhhh shhhh-ing” him while he pats him on the back. He no doubt picked this up from the nursery at church and it kills me. He is so sweet. Yesterday at church I had one of those moments that I was like “WOW God, help me to really develop this nurturing side of Knox and keep him a kind kid” when the ladies in the nursery told me he was going around making sure every kid had their cup and was patting babies on the back and playing with their hair if they were crying. Like… WHAT? So special. I want to bottle up his sweetness and save it for later.

We prayed every night when Knox was in my belly for a fierce spirit with a tender heart. I feel like we are getting to see that tender heart play out already and it just truly melts me. Mamas, pray over your children and watch God show off. It grows my faith constantly to see things I prayed so specifically for pan out in different areas of my life, parenting or not, with no explanation than the Lord’s doing. How sweet God is to hear our prayers and answer them just to show He cares.

Have a great day, friends! You are rockstars and so loved.

My bag is the Original Fawn Design.

All photos by Cottonwood Road Photography for The Cake by Hannah

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