Autumn is not only the kick off to a new season and the time the leaves fall or the weather gets a chill, but it is also the time that celebrates almost all of the birthdays in this family. My husband starts us off in mid September and from there the birthdays start cascading into an unyielding, sugar coma induced party state. Though five of the six of us have birthdays within a month of each other our extended family gives no reprieve either. There are aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and grandparents all thrown into this time as well. Needless to say the bank is, well… more empty than usual. Is that possible to be “emptier”? Oh!!! Yes it is… thank you credit! J Yes, October is the best precursor to the Holiday season on the finance side of things. NOT!!!
You would think I would be prepared for this! I do try to buy gifts throughout the entire year for birthdays and holidays in order to avoid the account crunch this time of year and for the most part I do well. The parties are where you get hit. We have done a home party for the three youngest for the past few years because it is a bit less expensive and they actually prefer it in its simplicity and intimacy. They said they like to be home and just play with everyone. Sold! Sounds good to me!
So, how do you try to do a fun birthday party for three little girls, have it be as healthy as possible and not as expensive as possible?
Here is how we (by we, I mean “I”) broke down our party. Hopefully you can find some helpful hints for your next home party in here.
Decorations- I made my own this year. I brought out all the fun stuff and had at it with the girls. I used the numbers and their names to be creative and make each one unique to them. They got a kick out of it and took pride in ownership of their 4’s and 2. I was going to do balloons, but they are so expensive for filled ones and so I purchased a big bag of them for under $10 and my husband filled them with the air compressor. We filled many more than I would have bought pre-filled and the kids had a great time bopping them around and playing with them. They just littered the floor. PLUS, we got to have a great popping party after people left. It was loud and fun and the kids cleaned up all the latex confetti like they were collecting gold. We had some streamers left over from a party in 2005… yep! 2005. Hey, you never know when you may need some streamers again. Those rolls have been through many a bash and doubled as mummy garb a time or two.
Food- I wish I had a picture of the spread! It was good stuff and I had to keep refilling. I did spend a little more for the organic varieties, but honestly it was only about $25 more when it was all said and done. Not bad at all and definitely worth it.
Snacks- I started with organic veggies with homemade organic ranch dressing, organic apples with natural crunchy peanut butter, organic home popped popcorn with some seasonings, an awesome all organic Mexican dip that my mother in law makes with chips (I have been known to eat the vast majority on my own at family functions!), a simple trail mix I made of pretzels, nuts, and raisins and an assortment of some organic cheese and sweet crackers for the smaller tykes to munch on.
Drinks- We kept it simple here. We had organic lemonade and organic apple juice to drink and obviously water was an option. There was also sweet and unsweetened tea.
Dinner- I thought it may be fun to do a pizza bar. It was a bit of work on the front end, but it was a hit and everyone made exactly what they wanted. So, the week beforehand I hand made 60-70 individual pizza crusts spread over 4 days. It was a process that I needed to be home a good 3-4 hours for because of two rising periods in there, but it was a neat learning experience and the kids LOVED kneading the dough, rolling and poking with me. Nap time ended up being a great time for a lot of it. These were whole wheat pizza crusts that were baked about 8 minutes to get rigid enough for people to be able to hold and apply toppings. Then we just gathered some usual suspect toppings, and some more novel ones, whipped up some homemade pizza sauce and people had at it. Now, since we do not have a commercial sized oven we used the grill and could cook 6-7 at a time. You just had to wait until the cheese melted and it was ready to eat! Yummy!
Dessert- For this I went with cupcake cones because the girls had them at another party and loved the idea. I couldn’t find an organic variety cake mix that didn’t have a bunch of stuff in it I couldn’t pronounce and so I made my own banana cake and stuck some cones in the batter while they rose. I will admit I bought the cones thinking they were cool and colorful and when I got home realized… “oh, hey Nellie I am not sure the extra dyes in those Crayola colored cones are so natural!” I wouldn’t do it again, but I stayed with them this time. Then I made some cream cheese frosting and they were awesome! The adults liked them, the kids liked them and I had WAY to many of them after people left. I couldn’t stop though, but it was my birthday too, so it was OK… right?
Entertainment- kids are kids and you can give them a paper tube to play with and they are good. I did go a bit beyond that however. We have a bounce house that we inflated in the backyard (which is a great purchase for these occasions that can be found used for a good price), our swing set, a large parachute, a playhouse, crawling tubes and I face painted. Now I am NOT an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but a little heart, butterfly, football or monster I can handle.
(We love our bounce house!)
(They found all sorts of ways to play with the parachute)
(My sister was giving it a try on my mom)
Favors- I went simple with fun crafty bags. A couple of pieces of hard candy, sidewalk chalk, modeling clay, wiki stix and some tattoo’s filled some translucent blue bags.
The food was great, the kids had fun, their was visiting and laughs so all in all it was a successful birthday party.
The truth, though, is that it is not about the budgeting, the party or the food and decorations… it is about celebrating the lives of these amazing little girls. When the chaos of the party was behind me and I had a moment to breathe and think about my little monkeys turning four years old and two years old that was my moment. I hugged them tight and told them how much I loved all of them. A birthday party can be as huge or as small as you would like, but just remember that the party and the gifts are not the true celebration. To be with our kids everyday in between those birthdays and see every milestone pass, every smile shine and feel every proud moment is the real celebration.
(Trinity has such a gentle side to her)
(Lana all decked out like the princess she really is)
(My most mischievous monkey eating our watermelon harvest from this year)
Happy party planning to all of you out there. May your parties be successful and exactly what you hope for!
No comments:
Post a Comment