35 and...Happy

You guys...I'm 35.

35 FREAKING YEARS OLD.

Wow.

But you know what the really crazy part is?  I am totally cool with it...excited about it, even.

I'm not resisting, not pining for my younger days (okay, maybe just a little...), not thinking about all the things I haven't done with my life.

For once, I'm in a place that I love.

35 is awesome.  Even Claire thinks so.

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This Kid is Four

Jack just turned four.

FOUR!

That seems so...old.  So grown up, so...big.

And yet, so little.

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Birthday Bash on a Budget (or, The $57 Party)

Claire turned a year old last month, and to celebrate, we had a big family birthday party.  This was great fun and we were able to celebrate another event at the same time - Claire's cousin turned three the same week!

But I wanted to throw her a little shindig at home as well...something we could invite the neighbors to (that they might actually attend - the family party was an hour away, out in the country).  At the same time, it was going to be her second party - and she wouldn't remember either one - so I wanted to keep it low-key and mostly, inexpensive.  Because while I love looking at other people's super-duper fancy first birthday parties, that just wasn't in the cards for this party-thrower.  

Claire's party cost us all of $57.  We had seven adults and eight kids (three of those were babies, though, so they didn't really add to the cost), and we fed everyone lunch and sent all the kids home with goody bags.  We had some fun activities planned and it was a smashing success.  

Keep it Small

Our party was right at lunchtime, so I knew we were going to have to feed everyone - and that food would be our biggest expense.  We kept this party small (7 adults, 5 kids, 3 babies).  This way, we could afford to feed everyone and provide the kids with a few goodies to take home.

Feed Cheap Food

Walmart (or Aldi!) are your friend when you're feeding a large crowd.  I thought of the cheapest food I could - hot dogs - and went from there.  We "splurged" on fancy hot dogs, because come on - hot dogs are kinda gross.  I wanted all-beef hot dogs (no inter-species mystery meat for me).  I bought buns on the cheap (less than $1/bag) and chose some middle of the line potato chips.  We already had the condiments.

We brewed a bunch of iced-tea for the grown-ups (we already had the tea bags), and I picked up some kid-friendly (read: blue and sugary and not something I would normally buy) drinks for $2 (for 16 drinks).  

Find Free Party Decorations (and Invitations!) Online

You know what my biggest expense was?  Invitations.  Because I bought them impulsively one day in early July as I was perusing Target.  And almost immediately regretted it when I realized I could have used *cuter* invitations that were available online - for free.  This discovery is actually what prompted the whole "budget" part of this party.  

Google "free party printables" and before you know it, you'll be up to your ears in cute invitations and party decorations.  

Be Flexible

Originally, I wanted Claire to have a popsicle-themed party (how cute, right?).  But as I started actually planning it, I stumbled across a bunch of fun summer-themed party ideas that weren't necessarily popsicle-y.  So I got a little bit flexible and expanded my "theme" to include all things cute and summery.

Use What You've Already Got

We blew up our kiddie pool and borrowed another one from the the neighbors.  We have a little play slide that we set up between the pools, and, VOILA! Water park in our back yard.  I set out a basket full of rolled-up towels next to a bowl of sunscreen bottles and another bowl of water toys - these looked cute and came in handy, too. 

Here's the breakdown of our total party spending:

Party Invitations - $10 (rip-off!)

Food - $24 (hot dogs, buns, two bags of potato chips, lemons for the tea)

Food accessories - $7 (goblets, plates, candle and napkins)

Decorations - $5 (balloons and a couple of bowls for chips - the rest of the stuff was free)

Party Favors - $11 (toys and goody boxes)

Cake - Free

I've listed some general guidelines above.  Now, here are some specific ideas for games and decorations and such!

Get the kids involved!  I let Jack paint several times during the week leading up to the party.  When the art had dried, I cut it into flags and strung them along some pink ribbon I already had.  This made the cutest banner for the front door, and Jack was excited to see his art turn into a party decoration (and, I've moved this banner to his bedroom wall, which he really thinks is cool).

I combined goody bags and thank-you notes.  A Party Etiquette foul?  Maybe.  But since we knew everyone we had invited and I am pretty sure they aren't going to mind, I was okay with this.  

I bought these cute little boxes for $.47/each at Wal-Mart.  I used a horse hole punch I had around the house to punch the holes and attached the thank-you "cards" that way.  I actually received these ridiculously cute swatch-cards from Paper Coterie* for free (to see what the inside pages looked like and to read the complete review, click here), but you could easily make something similar for free or cheap.  The inside simply said "Thank you for coming to Claire's party, we are so happy you could be here!"

OK, confession time.  I didn't pay for our cupcakes.  My mom made them.  If I had made them, I would have...wait, hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!  I couldn't have made them.  OK, so my mom made super cute ice cream cone cupcakes with butterflies on top.  She wanted to use sprinkles and gummy worms to make eyes and antennaes but rant out of time.  But they were cute, and delicious, and the only thing she bought (that we didn't already have in the house) was cake mix, ice cream comes, sprinkles, pretzels and some frosting (which she made from whatever you make frosting with).

We already had this giant drink thing (pitcher? I don't know what it's called) that I bought at Costco for a whopping $17 several months ago.  The "PARTY" banner was from a free printable (Paper Coterie).  We filled this with iced tea and lemon slices.

I rolled up some towels and stuck them in this cute green bin (which is normally a clothes basket) and rounded up all the sunscreen in the house and put it in a plastic bowl.  The other plastic bowl is full of tools/water toys (more on that later).

Party "goblets" - $1.47/4 at Wal-Mart, and great fun to decorate and use as adult cups.  The napkins and plates were also Wal-Mart specials, and cost $3 (combined).  The napkins did smell a little funny, but beggars can't be choosers.  The kid drinks were just $1/8 and were a hit - who doesn't love a little blue juice, right?

See that giant purple thing that the kids are beating into submission with toy tools?  It's my Shining Moment of Party Throwing Genius.  I wish I could take full credit for it, but I saw it on Pinterest.  It's a giant block of ice, with several different-colored layers, filled with toys.  In the excitement that ensued after these giant blocks of ice were unveiled, I forgot to take pictures of them!  I made two (if you do this, start early...like, a week early...it takes a long time for the layers to freeze properly!) over the course of the week leading up to the party.  Jack *loved* this - I let him throw in a few toys and mix the food coloring into the water as we added each new layer.  The plan was to have the kids work on these for awhile, throwing all of the toys (as they were retrieved from the ice) into a large bucket that I would later dry and sort into goody bags to be sent home with the kids (thus avoiding any fights over who got the blue snake or the purple bracelet).  The reality was that they were completely melted in about five minutes (if that, even) and the toys were strewn all over the backyard...but the kids LOVED this! 

 The pools turned out to be great fun for everyone (especially the Birthday Girl!).  We had a small pool for the babies (that was overtaken by the big kids), a larger pool for the big kids, and a plastic slide.  

After all that partying, Claire was ready for her cupcake.  This was technically her third go at a birthday cake, so she was pretty much an expert by now and didn't waste any time.

What I Learned

As soon as I started getting things together, I realized that I could easily throw a more extravagant party for less money.  And $57 isn't very much money for a birthday party these days!  All it takes is a little planning and foresight.  Jack's birthday will be here before I know it, and he tells me every.single.day that he wants a Transformers party when he turns four - I've got some ideas in the back of my head and I'm keeping my feelers out for any Transformer-related anything I come across for free or super cheap that I might be able to use.  

Oh!  And one more thing.  This wasn't part of the budget, but next time I might include it.  It's that important.  

WINE. 

So tell me...are your kids' parties "Go Big or Go Home?" or low-key?

And if you want to read all about the disaster that was Jack's third birthday party (or just look at a picture of the giant, creepy Chuck E. Cheese balloon we brought home), you can find it here.  

* I'm a Paper Coterie affiliate!    

Here I Am Again...Only This Time, I'm Turning 34

Wow.

What. A. Year.

Last year (for my 33rd birthday) I wrote this post, sort of a State of the Union Address for me and mine.  In short, when compared to my previous (32nd) birthday, I: weighed more, was in more debt, still hadn't been back on a horse, still wasn't drinking as much wine as I'd like to, still didn't have time to read books, and was still living in a house and location I wanted to leave behind.  So basically...nothing changed except I got a little fatter and we racked up some debt due to massive home repairs (not even fun stuff, I'm talking actual repairs - boring).

Well, one thing had changed...I was pregnant...but it was still early when I wrote that post, which is why I didn't share it.  At the time, my pregnancy only made me *that much more* aware that I needed to lose a few pounds, wanted to move and had an extra million dollars (not quite, but felt like it) in loan payments each month.

So where are we today?

Well.  I'm 34.  34!!  Maybe one day I will stop acting surprised when I am a year older on my birthday.  But not this year.

I just don't feel like I'm old enough to be 34.  I'm still a kid!  I like ska music and ride horses every day and  drink flat Boone's farm on the weekends and whine about how tough it is being enrolled in junior college.  That's who I am.  Right?

WRONG.  Tonight (I don't even want to write this), Charles called me a...cougar.  Yeah.  He said 34 is official cougar-status (I mean, aside from the fact that I look way younger than I am and I'm married and not on the prowl for younger men, and even if I was single I still wouldn't be on the prowl for younger men...I would totally be looking for old and rich - kidding/not kidding).

So, I'm not a cougar but I'm also not the young girl "struggling" to make it through my early 20's anymore and drinking Boone's Farm every weekend (flat because I don't like carbonated drinks) because we all know Brass Monkey makes me puke.

The years are just going by so damn fast!

With years like 2011, it's no wonder.  I still haven't had time to sit back and breathe.  Here's the short version of 2011:

Find out I'm pregnant (technically, that was 2010), put our house up for sale, work a lot, get more pregnant, Charles gets laid off for the second time in six months, get an offer on the house (from crazy people, but desperate times call for desperate measures so we take a leap of faith and sign the contract), Charles gets a new job, we find new house and make offer, I quit my job of 5+ years, our house falls out of escrow (lesson learned!), we get new offer from another set of buyers and house goes back into escrow, we pack and do more packing, Jack decides to make good on the "terrible twos" as everyone and their mother has promised us he would, I have a baby, we move to our new house with a 6-day-old, and from that point until now I have been learning to be a Stay at Home Mom (which, shockingly, involves a lot of...staying home...) while Charles has been busting his heiny at his new job so we can enjoy our new house and location and hopefully use this upcoming year to GET OUT OF DEBT.  Oh yeah!  And I still haven't ridden a horse and I still don't fit in any of my pre-second-pregnancy jeans.

So, it's been a busy year.

I can cut myself some slack in the weight department because, well, I just had a baby.  I am comfortable with the debt because we have a plan in place to crawl out of this hole, we have implemented it, and we really, really like it here (which makes it worthwhile).  Charles bought me some riding lessons for our anniversary.  So, I should be on a horse in the next few weeks.  Woo-hoo to that!  And there is a bottle of wine in the kitchen just begging me to drink it (which I will, as soon as I am not sick...damn you, sinuses).

I feel like 2011 has been the busiest year of our lives.  

I feel like 2012 is going to be amazing.  I really do.  

34, you say?  This cougar is down.  Bring it.

Happy Birthday to Jack (or, OMG...My Baby is THREE!?!?!)

Jack is three years old today.

When Jack's first birthday rolled around, I found myself feeling a little weepy for the entire week leading up to the big day.  I could not believe that my baby was turning a whole year old.  Where did the time go?  How did he go from this...

To this...

...in just 365 measly little days (the second picture was taken on his first birthday, which also coincided with his first ear infection and first trip to the doctor for something other than a Well Baby Visit...and you can see my sad attempt at giving him Tylenol all over his shirt).

As two rolled around, I felt a little emotional...but I contribute this to pregnancy hormones (I was a few weeks pregnant for his second birthday).  We kept saying that he was no longer a baby, but when I look back at this picture from his second birthday, he sure looks like a baby to me!

And that brings us to the Big Three.

In the days leading up to this birthday, I haven't felt the same "my baby is no longer a baby" sadness that I felt the last two years, mostly because there is no doubt in my mind that Jack is no longer a baby.  He's a kid.  A little kid, but a bona fide "kid" nonetheless.  No more baby boy for me.

The weeks leading up to Jack's birthday have also brought about another "never say never" experience - you know, one of those things you will never do, yet here you are...doing it.

A few months ago, when Claire was just a wee three weeks old, we took Jack to Chuck E. Cheese's for the first time.  While we were there, some kid was having a birthday party in the party area (right next to our booth).  It was loud.  Chuck E.'s mouse costume looked dirty and Jack yelled "I don't want to see the mouse!!" when he made an appearance at the party.  There were lots of kids running around.  It was impersonal.  The "live show" was...dare I say it...cheesy.

I said (out loud and in front of three adult witnesses), "We will NEVER have a party here."

Go ahead and start laughing now.

In my head, we would have a train party or an airplane party or an ANYTHING-OTHER-THAN-CHUCK-E-CHEESE-PARTY.  I would bust out handmade invitations.  My mom would make the cake.  I would thoughtfully put together age-appropriate games centered around the party's theme and hand out the kind of party favors parents actually *want* to take home.  Jack and Claire would wear matching outfits.  This would all take place in our new home.  It would be perfect!

But then November came around.  The first week passed.  The second week passed.  I suddenly realized I hadn't picked out a party theme or date, let alone started on my handmade invitations.

So we decided to maybe think about having the party elsewhere.

I started calling around.  Gymboree, Little Gym, the airplane museum, the local bounce house place.  It appears that, umm, you need to book these kinds of parties more than a few weeks in advance (lesson learned).  Also?  It appears that these kinds of location parties are expensive.  And you have to bring your own food.

Charles suggested, more than once, Chuck E. Cheese.  I said no.  Then, after being told by the third party location I called that nothing was available until January unless I wanted to schedule my party for 9:00 (AM or PM), I just went to the damn Chuck E. Cheese website and took a gander.

Food for all the kids?  Chuck E. Cheese e-vites?  Party favor bags and balloons and tokens for all the kids?  And (best part) no clean-up afterwards?

Sold.

I booked it.

I won't lie - I'm feeling a little guilty and lame about the whole thing.  But I'm also feeling relief (and really, this isn't really about me, even though I have somehow turned this blog post into a story about me and my party-planning-failure - it's about Jack and he really likes Chuck E. Cheese's).

And I can spend all my non-party-planning-and-preparing time thinking about how I can't believe it was three years right now that I was in the hospital pushing out a kid.

Specifically, this kid:

My three year old.

My bright, vibrant and insightful little boy who I give thanks for every day.  The boy who substitutes the "L" sound with the "Y" sound and says, "Can I please have a bowl of Yucky Charms?" The boy who loves trains, cement trucks, trash trucks and pretty much anything with wheels.  The boy who today came up and kissed my hand and said "There, Mom, that's so you can feel better" after hearing me complain that I was sick.  The boy that now calls me "MOM" more than he calls me "Mommy" or "Mama" (when did that happen??).

I am so proud of him.

Happy Birthday little man!