Holidays On The Cheap

   Hey y'all! I'm sure everyone is busy making plans and lists for Thanksgiving next week, I know I am! According to the buzzfeed quiz I'm the tradition enforcer. I was pretty surprised by how accurate that is haha!
   Speaking of traditions we just finished up a tradition at our house of putting up all of our Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. It really makes it feel cozy to have all our decorations up for Thanksgiving. Plus we have longer to enjoy them before we have to take them all down. If the stores can put up their Christmas decorations now why can't we?!
   Here's what I did with our mantel:

   I felt like doing something a little different this year, more simple. All, I repeat all, of the items on the mantel were purchased from the dollar store. We actually used those glass vases as centerpieces for our wedding. I really like these led candles better than the plain white ones. First of all for looks, second of all for the effect they give off. They're way brighter than the small white ones.
   In other news, the other day when we were picking up our weekly groceries, Food Lion had a bin of pumpkin flavored baking goods on sale. And I may or may not have bought 10 boxes of pumpkin pudding on sale for 30 cents each... I also found a few boxes of Jello brand pumpkin cheesecake mix for 50 cents, so I made 2 of the boxes the other day, and here's a picture of the end results:

   It didn't firm up quite like I expected it to just from chilling in the refrigerate for an hour, so I put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, which seemed to help. It had great flavor and everyone enjoyed it in our house, but it was nowhere near like what you think a pumpkin cheesecake would be like. I can't wait to see what I can do with the pumpkin pudding.
   By the way!!!

  I'm sure y'all don't care about this but I just had to share my phone background since no one really gets to see it and I think it's adorable haha! I made it on this app called Marley Lilly(it's free by the way). I know the app is suppose to be used to shop on their site but they have a great feature where you can choose from tons of different backgrounds patterns and colors. And as you can see you can add your own monogram to it! And yes I've already made my Christmas background....and one for when Baby H arrives....
   That's all for now, just a post to say hello! What kind of traditions does your family have around this holiday season?