Hannah Morrison

Date Nights Are EASY in 2020!

It’s the new year and we are rolling. How are you feeling so far? Whether you  make resolutions, set goals, or -like us- start with a fast from something for 21 days, I hope you feel you are doing great at whatever it is you’ve set your heart and mind to. If you feel overwhelmed trying to figure out “How do I make my life more intentional or fuller or better?! I have too much to work on!” … Girl, slow down. We all do. Here’s the trick to ACTUALLY acheiving a goal you make at the start of the year: Pick one thing you want to get better at this year. Just one! And spend time every single day on it, and before you know it, you’ll no longer be saying you want to be better at “x.” You’ve just become great at it naturally by focusing a little on it with intentionality.

A goal of ours this year is to be more intentional with our time together at home. Less TV, more collaboration, more chatting, more discussion, more laughter, more of… the good stuff! We can get so wrapped up in our jobs and work, yes… even in the evenings after dinner, or scrolling on IG and spending more time vegging out with strangers on squares than one another simply because we are tired, and we want that to go. A way we can intentionally do that is having DATE NIGHTS at home as often as we want. A date night at home means turning off the TV, picking some music, playing a game, reading a book aloud together, making the dinner together… It can be just about anything as long as you both are in agreement this is intentional together time and it doesn’t matter what we are doing or the we are under our own roof. We are having a date night! 

This is why I am so excited to introduce you to Datebox by Happily Co. This box delivers cute date nights AT HOME straight to your front door. We had a star gazing package, full with a fondue making kit, silly question cards, and a map for star gazing by the season! SO COOL! DateBox is a subscription service that you can take advantage of so that every month feels like Christmas when something fun for you and your spouse arrives! There are no excuses for not spending time together when a date is delivered straight to you. Dating your spouse can feel hard when life is tough or schedules are chaotic or you have kid(s)… but that’s the beauty of this subscription. Find recipes, games, projects… Every month is entirely different, but it’s something you get to do together and laugh through!

You can try out Datebox with my code: CAKEBYHANNAH for 50% off your first box! 

I hope this encourages you to make intentional time with your special someone more important this year without having to spend tons of money on “Quality Time.” Date night doesn’t have to be an expensive dinner every week! It can be right at home in your living room for so much less (which also helps us achieve our goal for our finances this year!). It’s all a win-win for us, and I am so excited to explore fun, intentional date nights at home with my favorite guy in my favorite space we’ve created for us. Happy dating, y’all!

xoxo,

Hannah

Getting in the Kitchen with HelloFresh!

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)  

The Best Gift to Give YOU

I get it. We’ve been there before, too. When people ask if you’re enjoying your holidays you think to yourself, “No, because I haven’t even been able to.” Rushing from one party to the next, trying to make everybody happy, and putting your own hopes and desires or your Christmas season on the back burner. And before you know it… It’s December 26th, you’re exhausted, and a little over it all.

Can I encourage you? Stop. Like, for real, stop. This is your year to take the reins on your Christmas season and saying intentional “yeses” ONLY for things you actually want to go to with your own family. It’s tough to say “no” to things, and especially things that are seemingly fun. But, if it keeps you and your family from accomplishing your personal list of hopes and expectations for Christmas, say no. Creating a Christmas you actually love is the BEST gift you can give yourself.

How do you do this? Glad you asked. 😉 MAKE A LIST, CHECK IT TWICE! You have 25 days, or now just 9(!!!), to make the Christmas season of your dreams happen. One that isn’t marked by franticness or chaos, but rather intentionality and joy. We have a list of 11 things that are non-negotiables for us this season. 7 bucket list items for my family, Knox’s birthday party, and extended family traditions. These are things we want to do and wouldn’t miss for the world. If you do the math… that means our weekends are basically claimed along with a couple week nights a week. Put these on the calendar, budget them in, and stick to the plan. Then, if fun opportunities come up that don’t interfere with your list of non-negotiables and it won’t be stressful to say “yes”, then go ahead and add something to your calendar!

A Couple Other Suggestions for Gifts to YOU (In addition to the list):

  1. Spend 20 minutes going through your “Follow” list on IG/Facebook. Unfollow anybody who doesn’t make you a better you. Whether their account can boil up insecurity or jealousy in you, or they just maybe aren’t part of your life anymore… Scroll through and see how you can declutter your IG feed. If I see an IG handle I don’t recognize, I unfollow.
  2. Plan a special lunch with a few gals at a fancy restaurant and wear your favorite dresses for the heck of it. I suggest Toulouse if you live in DFW. It feels like stepping into France.
  3. Clean out your closet. Again… declutter. Decluttering your life is the best gift to you, in my opinion.
  4. Pick one thing you’ve said you have wanted to do for ages but just never have. I am making a Gingerbread House tonight with my family, because I never have and always say I want to!
  5. Go get holiday nails done! There’s just something about having a fresh set of festive nails that makes me feel on top of the world.

You can be in charge of your Christmas, your family, and everything you do over this season. Own it! Be in charge of your schedule and set the boundaries you need to be able to enjoy this Christmas.

Love you guys. Merry Christmas!

xoxo, Han

Formal Christmas Card Photos 2019

EEEEP! They’re here, they’re here! I am so excited to share our formal Christmas photos for this year. Planning our Christmas cards is one of my favorite things I do every single year, even though my hubby always takes some convincing to do it. Ladies, you’re not alone! Even my husband hates doing family photos. But, it’s always worth it. I absolutely love seeing how my sweet family has grown over time and I actually REALLY want to get prints made from all of our shoots to hang up at Christmas every year. That’s my current project!

This year’s shoot was… an almost disaster. See just a glimpse below… lol. If it weren’t for our incredible photographer, Cottonwood Road Photography, we would have had a total flop of a shoot. Knox, who usually LOVES getting his picture taken, just wanted to explore. I mean, he is a toddler boy. I should have known! But, somehow, Hannah H. captured the milliseconds we got of Knox not asking to “get down” or yelling “stop it” as we would chase him down to keep from falling into the barbwire fences around us as he searched for the horses he swore were around, but absolutely did not exist. L O L.

Quick tips for shooting with a toddler:

  1. Just roll with it. If they want to run around, that is how your shoot needs to be. Our photographer, Hannah, set the tone for this so well and we just followed her lead. Rather than getting frustrated with him, which would have upset him and made the shoot a lost cause, we tried to be adventurous with him. It kept him smiling, even though he was frustrated with us for not letting him run into the open field by us.
  2. We would play in the leaves with him (which ended up being some of my FAVORITE shots Hannah got!) or tossing him in the air to get giggles. Whatever you got to do, do it. It’s not about you or about getting the “picture perfect” shot. It’s about capturing your family, as it is. And, if you have an amazing photographer, then you get the picture perfect shots mixed in WITH the real shots. I love them both, honestly! This is also why it’s so worth paying a great photographer, if you’re able, once a year for your Christmas photos. They can capture things you just wouldn’t be able to on your own or with a non-professional.
  3. We left saying “Well, even if we have to send out a funny picture, we are going to be happy!” Having images, no matter how your shoot goes, is so worth it and you’ll never regret it.

Thanks to Dillard’s for sponsoring all of our looks! Everything except for Knox’s jacket and Paul’s shoes are entirely from Dillard’s. I have them all linked for you below.

It feels impossible to narrow down our hundreds of photos to a graspable amount… so I tried my very best to pick the best, the funniest, and the cutest!

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!

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