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Checking In On YOU

March 26, 2020

Hey, babe. What a crazy couple of weeks it has been. How are you holding up? I don’t know about you, but despite the obvious frustrations and inconveniences of quarantine, I have found it somewhat therapeutic in a weird way. I feel so many emotions that range from angry to sad to content… and everything in between. But, I have truly loved being home so much with my son and husband unexpectedly before Baby R makes his arrival. We’ve had a whole lot of snuggles and extra family time, which has been so sweet to me. It’s been fun working from home WITH Paul, which we used to do. And, it’s been fun to go on family walks around the neighborhood whenever we feel like it. All in all, though so many unknowns can haunt my mind (I am not excluded from the economic toll this crisis has taken on our country), I am so grateful. I love that this time has forced me to get back to simplicity. It’s forced me to go slow. It’s forced me to snuggle with my son more and laugh with Paul more.

Funny as it seems, crisis can bring out the best in us (while also uncovering the very worst). I pray your time at home has brought about more good than bad. I pray you are taking advantage of every spare moment you get, and that when “normal life” comes back, you take with you lessons learned in this weird season.

If you are a nurse, doctor, or ANYBODY working hard still to care for our country – please hear from the very bottom of my heart, thank you. We love you. We are staying home as much as possible for YOU. We are practicing social distancing for YOU and for our family members who need help from our world to prevent the spread of this virus. Thank you for all you’re doing. I wish I could hug and kiss each and every one of ya. Or send you all Tiff’s Treats. Regardless, I hope you hear my sincerity. You are loved and appreciated and so seen in this household. Thank you.

If you are a teacher somehow teaching children online and discovering creative ways to continue pouring into your students- thank you. You learned an entirely new way of connecting and teaching over night… WOW. You are a hero. Thank you.

Tonight, I will be doing a giveaway with some of my favorite IG gals from all over the country to give a lucky winner a gift that makes home COZIER in this time that is seemingly uncomfortable and weird. Be ready at 7 PM CST to see what all we have for you! IT IS SO GOOD.

In the meantime, I have below a round-up of just a few favorite things for you and some sales that you could take advantage of right now, if you are in need or looking to support businesses while their doors are shut.

60% off Nasty Gal online

15% off PinkLily ‘March15’

ASOS 20% off site wide when through the app

Anthropologie 25% off home and furniture to make home cozier

American Eagle/ Aerie 40-60% off whole site

Urban Outfitters up to 50% off home

Getting in the Kitchen with HelloFresh!

January 22, 2020

Phew, how has this month already come and gone so quickly? January is always so weird to me, because it feels like Christmas was ages ago… You know, like so last year… 😉 But in reality, it’s only been a few weeks. Anybody else feel so off the first couple weeks of a new year? To kick off our year right, we have made sure that our meal plans are back on track after all the craziness that ensues during the month of December. We ate out so much over the last 6 or so weeks that I am pretty sure it was more than the rest of the year combined.

I am so pumped to partner with HelloFresh to kick off 2020 and share why it’s so important to me to get into the kitchen this year! I believe so wholeheartedly in family time, cooking together, and eating at the dinner table together every night. I mean, truly, we eat at our table almost every single night, other than nights we have family or friend outings for church, etc. I grew up eating a home cooked meal at the table with all 5 of us every night, so I honestly don’t know any different. All I have ever known is you come home after work and start dinner so that your family can be together and eat well. It is just something of importance I carried into my own little family. But, whether you grew up that way or not, I really believe cooking together and eating healthy meals as a family is so important. Knox has also shown interest in the kitchen, too, which has made trying to include him in making the meal fun for us! He gets a kick out of just standing on a chair by the island and watching me, if anything.

I love HelloFresh, because their recipes are fool proof and also something I probably wouldn’t pick on my own. Not because it doesn’t sound good… but because if I was just scrolling through Pinterest, I would feel intimidated by ingredients in a lot of the recipes and just count it out. But, HelloFresh makes it so easy to try new recipes, challenging you to try something new with EASY to follow steps + ingredients all included so you don’t have to worry about a thing. After I finish a HelloFresh meal (in usually about 30 minutes, mind you!!!), I feel empowered and like I should earn a degree in cooking. I also have a stack of about 30 recipes now that I keep on-hand from HelloFresh for when I meal plan for those nights that we don’t have a HelloFresh meal to cook. So one way or another, we cook HelloFresh in our home a lot! Either their recipes or their full meal delivery. To date, our absolute favorite meal we’ve made was the Poblano Enchiladas… OH MY WORD. Y’all, it was so good. Paul took one bite and said, “Whoa, best one yet!”

With our food allergies (Paul is allergic to dairy and I am allergic to gluten/yeast), HelloFresh is really easy to navigate for us because every ingredient is individually wrapped with its own individual nutrition facts. I never have to guess what I can or can’t have! Plus, I like to feed Knox as “normal” of a diet as possible until we know otherwise. But I have been praying he has no food allergies, and so far so good! So, for example, our Poblano tacos required 3 different versions: Dairy-free with corn tortillas, dairy-filled with corn tortillas, and then the normal recipe as it was sent for Knox. The filling was the same for all of us as well as the red sauce they sent ingredients for! You can do this for pretty much any HelloFresh recipe, if you pick wisely. Obviously, you don’t want to pick a breaded chicken recipe if you have a gluten allergy. But for the most part, I would say 90% of the meals can be modified for people in your home with allergies. If you don’t have food allergies… GO HAM! They’re all so amazing. Each week has different options to pick from, so you never will grow tired of their meals!

If you want to challenge yourself to new recipes and family time in the kitchen in 2020, click here to get 10 free meals off your first month of HelloFresh! (Purchase Required)

What Makes Me Smile

December 10, 2019

Merry Christmas! Today I have teamed up with an amazing service called Smile Generation to share what makes me smile this holiday season.

To me, enjoying the holidays means slowing down to actually enjoy it. Gone are the days of saying “yes” to everything and flying by the seat of my pants, barely making it through the holiday season with so much as a single night home to enjoy my tree. I don’t want to live like that, and I hope you don’t either. Life is too short to live by other people’s expectations and obligations!

What makes me smile are slow nights in my home with cocoa, a fire, and Christmas pajamas watching Knox play with his choo choo by the Christmas tree. It’s watching my favorite Christmas movies with my husband. It’s dancing to Ella Fitzgerald’s Christmas album in the living room. It’s making my favorite family dishes and forgetting to count the calories. It’s driving through neighborhoods and pointing out our favorite Christmas light displays. It’s saying “hello” to the stranger at the mall or buying them their cup of coffee. It’s eating our traditional Christmas Eve meal around the table on my great grandma’s China. It’s setting up Santa Claus after Knox has gone to bed. It’s baking cookies and eating that third one just because it’s Christmas and you can. It’s calling your family Christmas morning that you don’t get to be with. It’s watching their face light up when you see them open the gift you knew they wanted the most.

So many things make me smile at Christmas time, and you can find me grinning ear to ear all season long. I feel like a little girl all over again during the holidays, and especially so now with a son to celebrate the magic with. I am proud to partner with Smile Generation, because they take the burden off your shoulders of trying to find the very best for your family. Every mom wants the best for their kids, and now you can find it without the pesky (and sometimes pricey) trial and error. We’ve had our fair share of bad doctors and dentists, and I certainly never want others to have to go through the “sifting through” process like we’ve had to do. Smile Generation has done it all for you, finding the best dental and oral cosmetic offices for you so you don’t have to worry about it. Whether you need just routine care for your family (those twice a year appointments!!), whitening, braces… you name it, they can help you find the best! And with less worry, you can focus more time and attention on the people you love most. And that is something you can always smile about (with pearly whites, might I add)!

Home for the Holidays!

November 2, 2019

Heya babes and HAPPY SATURDAY!

Okay, so by the title of this, you’re probably expecting some post with links to all the things you need for your home to make it beautiful for Christmas this year. There’s a time for that, because believe me… I believe in that. I love making my home as festive as possible every year and creating a special place for memories for my little family.

However, that’s not the point of this post. (If you want decor ideas, go here!) But here is what I wanted to share about a little: Prepping your home for the holidays goes way beyond the garland and ornaments. As the holidays inch closer and closer, I know there is probably this looming feeling of “gotta do”, “gotta buy”, “gotta deal with x, y, or z”, because the holidays can often bring up within us hurts or unmet expectations or a need to buy and spend and keep up.

DON’T DO IT! This year, I hope you can feel the freedom from pressure of the outside- whatever that may be for you. Whether it’s certain people or just cultural pressures, you are free from that and you just have to walk in it. Here are a couple ways you can ENJOY your holidays more this year!

Choose a budget for your family over the next two months and stick to it. Pull the cash and put it in an envelope titled “Holiday Fun.” Seriously, cash envelopes are a game changer. If you can’t put your whole budget in the envelope ahead of time, then go through your budget for November and December to see how much you can put in it bi-monthly as you plan for your Christmas activities. Include outings and presents in this budget! Then, stick to it. It’s that simple. Go through lists of things happening in your city this season and pick the ones you really want to do! Plan out your holiday season and make it FUN without spontaneous spending. Get a calendar and write out on it family activities for the season. Family movie nights in, Christmas light drive, hot cocoa and visiting Santa, Christmas shopping day, etc. You will enjoy the holidays more without the pressure of money or overspending. That starts with planning it out well!
To start off this year on the freedom train, yeah we are calling it that, I spent hours this week cleaning my home out of things we don’t need anymore. Bags of baby clothes, toys, odds and ends, clothes from mine and Paul’s closet… PURGING. I do this fairly frequently with my own closet, but I forced myself to get rid of baby things we don’t need or use finally (and I may have cried packing up Knox’s tiny sneakers that don’t fit anymore.) We went through all of his toys and got rid of ones he doesn’t tend to play with so that they can go to other kids who will. We sat down and dumped out everything! Knox helped as I would ask him what he wanted… I am not kidding, y’all. Your kid isn’t too young to make choices! We will take all of our donations together to the local Goodwill and make it special. I want Knox to hear us, though he won’t fully grasp it right now, say how important it is to give away what we’ve been given. We get to graciously give to others and share things. That is the spirit of Christmas and I want my kid to KNOW IT from as young as possible. That’s the gospel on full display for my 2 year old.

Anyways, we got rid of so much. I have ONE drawer of tiny baby toys in our office for future babies, and then one 3 shelf unit in Knox’s closet of toddler toys he actually plays with. A couple friends told me recently they actually OFFER to their kids a few options for the day and their child chooses one or two toys to play with… We have tried this for two days and already it’s amazing. Rather than making a disastrous space to play, dumping out everything, they have a few toys to be imaginative with for the day. Knox played with his Christmas Train and Tree for 4 hours, role playing and laughing by himself. FOR REAL. All from just having less to overwhelm his ability to play. Kids get over-stimulated with too much… and now I believe it more than ever before.

Give this a shot! I want to know how it works for you. At the end of the day, the holidays are honestly better when rooted in simplicity. I mean it. More isn’t better. Spending doesn’t mean special. Enjoy your time with your family and make the most of every moment this holiday season! Your home can be the most special space for your family, and it starts with simply being intentional!

xoxo,

Han

3 Things That Changed Our Budget & Created Margin

October 7, 2019

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.

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!
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.
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!