I Started Christmas Shopping in July

I sound like a nut job, but I started Christmas shopping in July so that we can save money around the holidays.

The problem is that now I  am so excited about everything we’ve bought that I just want to tell everyone all about it.  I feel like we’ve really nailed the gift giving so far this year.  And by we’ve I obviously mean I’ve because we all know that he’s not the one doing the planning, or being this thoughtful.

I want to give Brailyn everything I’ve bought for her, and on top of it I keep forgetting where I’ve put half of it.

I hope she doesn’t find it before I do 

Its so funny how much time and effort I put into planning the perfect Christmas.  I’m really like that for every holiday.  But all of this planning and preparation to make it perfect and its all over so quick.

Oh well, its almost October so I’m just going to focus on the hayrides, pumpkin patches, scary movies, and Halloween for now.  I can smell fall in the air. 

Creating a Whimsical First Birthday on a Budget

My baby is turning one!!!

We all know that the first birthday is more for the photo ops and the parents than it is for the babies themselves.  So this is it, this is the one year that I get to do her birthday in a cute whimsical theme and not in some  cartoon character that she’ll be in love with one moment and over the next.

But how do I make a whimsical themed birthday on a budget?!

Well first its all about choosing the right theme! We chose the classic “Breakfast at Tiffanys,” but originally we were deciding between that and a theme I named “The Enchanted Forest,”

The first step for me was to make sure we had some first birthday pics to display at the party and to use on the invitations.  When you’re on a budget doing a photo shoot at home will be your cheapest option and can be made easier by draping a sheet for a back drop and being sure you have Photoshop available to do some quick edits after the fact.  If you don’t have Photoshop you can still do your own photo shoot but you want to make sure you have a fantastic camera and that the outfit and backdrop are perfect.

Next, I made the invitations for her party instead of buying them.  Yes, this took a couple hours and didn’t come out flawless, but it gave me the creative power to really tie the invitations into the theme of the party, while also saving us a lot of money.

Doing a birthday party in a theme like this is more about the small touches than it is about big obvious details.  For example, I addressed the envelopes in blue writing to “JANE DOE &CO” (obviously with their names and not Jane doe).

Above is the invitation I made from scratch, but if you don’t feel the desire to be as creative, there are tons of templates available for all sorts of themes online.  I just find it easier to make my own instead of fitting everything into someone else’s guidelines.

See what you can do from home, with no professional help, and by spending very little money?

Next step is the decor at the party.

In order to stay on budget some of it can be as simple as buying utensils and napkins in a color that matches your theme.  You don’t have to go overboard and buy tons of posters, or pictures, or huge special order balloons.  For us, we are buying all the table cloths, utensils, cups, etc (which are things we would need anyway) in Robin’s Egg Blue which is essentially Tiffany’s Blue, but cheaper because you aren’t paying for the name.

We will also be buying plain balloons in blue and white.

If we would have done the “Enchanted Forest” theme then we would have used green, brown, and pale pink for utensils, cups, etc.  We also would have incorporated the theme into the food by doing simple touches like brown ice cream cones (the pointy kind) with fruit, or smores as favors for the kids.

Paisley’s outfit is simple and black in keeping with the Tiffany’s theme.  She will wear a HUGE fluffy tutu.  Again, this is something that can be made at home for about a fourth of the cost of buying one.  We were lucky enough to have my sister in law make us one for free!  We will also add some pearls for that classic and elegant look appropriate for the theme.

If you go with an “Enchanted Forest” theme it would be cute to put a little flower tiara on your baby’s head and do a pale pink tutu.

The one thing I don’t mind spending the money on is the cake.  The cake really ties the whole party together and creates a wonderful discussion piece and focal point.  My suggestion is to find a local small cake maker or company because they generally do a fantastic job and don’t charge an arm and a leg.  We have a cake lady who also happens to be like a second mom to me, so we have that part covered.  I will post pics of the cake, but I don’t want to give too many details before the actual party.

We also plan on purchasing one of the giant cupcakes from Kroger bakery to be her smash cake.  That way we can control the color and type, but we don’t have to spend an arm and a leg since we are already getting a custom cake

The photos I took for her birthday will be hanging from clothesline attached by clothes pins to add just a little extra personal touch.

I will post more pictures once the party is over and everyone attending has had a chance to enjoy them 🙂

Small Touches That Make a Big Difference (With Pics)

We recently moved into a new place. We are hoping to buy a house next year but in the mean time we moved into a town home. Its the first time we’ve lived in an apartment and the downsizing has forced us to get creative with how we decorate.  If we put out all of our decoration it almost looks cluttered, and since this is only a temporary home I don’t want to do anything major like paint it.

So how do we make it look our own?

Without spending much money or taking too much time, because time is the last thing that I have.

I’ve recently discovered my absolute favorite small touch that makes a world of difference… picture frames! Yes, we have actual frames and collages on our walls which always adds some creativity, but whats even better are the old wooden frames I found in my grandma’s garage.

When we first saw them we though, photo props, but then I realized they can be so much more.  I hung a small wooden heart sign on the wall and just hung a small wooden frame around it.  Without the frame the sign would have looked too small and out of place, but the sign gives it the clean lines and bulk it needed.

Similarly I hung a larger frame around two of our custom wooden signs.  The signs themselves would have looked simply ok on the wall, but the frame adds cohesion and since the overall theme of our decor seems to be fairly rustic, the aged wooden frames are a perfect addition.

Extra Hint: I also love that I can easily pull the frames from the wall to use as props in our family photo shoots.

This is a cheap, if not free, way to decorate.

And if you’re looking for something more modern, try simply painting the frames all black or silver.  Or even an accent color to put around black and white photographs or 3D art.

I also love dried flowers, Im terrible at keeping flowers alive but dried flowers are beautiful, good smelling, and completely low maintenance.

I Caught Horrible Mommy Syndrome.

I’m sick.  I feel disgusting.  My head feels pretty much like my almost step daughter’s volcano in science class, right before it erupts.

My brother is getting married this weekend and I’m a bridesmaid.  All I can think is that I need to get better or this will be absolutely miserable.  But of course my number one concern is keeping my daughter from getting the same terrible sickness that I have.  Both because i love her and can’t bare to see her miserable, and because she is in the wedding too!

Well. I now know what this terrible sickness is that I’ve caught.  I have horrible mommy syndrome.  As a result of truing to keep my sweet P from getting sick, and being miserable myself, my little one has spent most of the day in baby jail!

My poor P is so good about baby jail (also known as her pack n play).  She rolls around and makes her little noises, grabs for her toys.  But at less than 6 months old you have to be SO careful because everything you do could mold your child.  So what if I ruin her personality because I spend a whole day barely holding her?

I’m sure thats not likely, but when I feel sick all I want is to cuddle my angel, and its the only time that I really can’t! That’s just ironic and unfair! 

I can practically hear her thoughts screaming out, “play with me mommy!”  And then she coughs… oh no. That’s when my heart stops.

Stop breathing. Sit as still as possible.  Listen close.  Is she sick or is it an innocent cough? How is her breathing? Do I hear any sniffles?

If shes sick I can cuddle her, but that is so not worth it.  

How Much Fuss is Too Much Fuss?

Weddings, babies, birthdays.  People love to celebrate!  But how much celebration is too much celebration?  When does it switch from harmless fun to annoying, selfish, over celebrating?

When I was pregnant with P we had a family baby shower, a friends baby shower, and a gender reveal party.  That may seem like a lot of celebrating, but we tried to do it as tastefully as possible.

Everyone kept insisting that they wanted to come to our baby shower, and we have so many friends in so many different groups so we wanted to find a way to include everyone without having a baby shower the size of a wedding.  We also didn’t want the boring traditional shower.

I had a vision of a cookout with corn hole and beer, but i still wanted it to be a baby shower.  So my friends threw us a coed shower to top all coed showers! It was a laid back outdoor party in September.

And since we didnt want the party to get out of control busy (even though we ended up having around 70 people there), and we knew some of our older family favored a more traditional celebration, we had a smaller but still amazing traditional shower thrown by our mothers for just the female family members.

As for the gender reveal, I knew i wanted to share the moment I found out the gender of our baby with those closest to me.  So we opted not to see the verdict at the doctor and instead to have it revealed to us at a dinner surrounded by our families.  His sister went to the doctor with us and had cupcakes made by a family friend with filling that was pink inside!  

It was amazing biting into that cupcake and being in that moment with my guy, and then looking around and seeing everyone else’s faces!

I wouldn’t trade any of our celebrating for anything, but we did limit the gender reveal to just family because I started to think that maybe we were making life more about us than others probably thought were appropriate.

But then again, its one of the happiest things that will ever happen to us, shouldn’t we be allowed to celebrate as much as we want? Its not like we were asking people to bring us presents to every occasion.

That brings me to my upcoming birthday.  My brother and I have birthdays a day apart so we are going out with our friends the weekend following our birthdays.  Is it too much to then have a dinner with just family?? But if I do that I have to make it a joint dinner, which doubles the amount of people in attendance because I can’t leave out my sister in laws family?

I guess the biggest question is, who gives a flying monkey butt? 

Why do I insist on over thinking things?

How To Tell The World You’re Having a Baby

It feels like the trend these days is to obsess over ways to tell people your news, but it has to be a way that far exceeds the way that everyone else tells theirs.  This trend spreads across a wide range of events; engagements, pregnancies, baby gender, new jobs, etc.

Of course, the biggest news of all is when a couple is getting ready to bring a baby into the world.  For most couples you wait and wait and wait until you are safely out of your first trimester.  You want to tell your loved ones first so that they aren’t shell shocked when the announcement goes viral.  In today’s world of modern technology, the second you put news like that onto the internet (most people’s preferred medium), its everywhere in seconds.  There are no second chances or redos, taking it down doesnt erase it from people’s minds.  You have to do it right the first time.

So much pressure, and by the time you’re ready to announce, so much anticipation.

Well, the reality is you’re probably never going to find an announcement that is both adorable and has never been done.  So the key is to find an announcement that most of the people in your immediate circles haven’t done and likely havent seen, and make it as much your own as possible.  For example, add your other children, use your animals, or use a piece of landscape that is particularly special to you.

The key is also to make sure that you don’t tell the whole world before you do your announcement! If you do that then no matter how great your announcement is you will be completely disappointed in the reactions of your friends and family simply because you lost the element of surprise! The more sudden–> the more exciting!

Some of my personal faves:

“ice, ice, baby” — pretty self explanatory, two bags of ice and a baby bump.

“im getting promoted to big sister or big brother” — where you use your eldest child holding a board or something saying that they are going to have a little brother or sister.

There are countless others…

Here was ours.

It was SUCH a hit! and really a surprise to a lot of our friends and families.

It came at the PERFECT time, because i needed to project the pregnancy in a positive way because I was getting so depressed, and because I was about to boil over from keeping it a secret!

Share yours if you feel so inclined! I’d love to see them!

His and hers // Mine and Ours

Separate bank accounts or joint bank accounts, or should you do separate bank accounts until you’re married and then switch to joint bank accounts?  And what about everything else??

Is it his car or yours? Does it belong to both of you?? And if you answer that question with a yes, is it really in both of your names??

I work retail and every time a couple comes up to check out and one of them says something along the lines of, “I can pay if you want,” or “are you paying for this or am I?” I begin to listen more closely to see if I can find any clues as to what their relationship is.  If I find out their married it amazes me!

Why does it matter who pays??

you’re married.

Isn’t everything OURS in marriage?

Hell, everything is ours in my relationship.

I fully respect everyone’s own relationship feelings.  I also understand doing things to help build credit, or for tax purposes, etc.  But the way many people treat it is like its his money vs hers.

The other day my man called me and asked if he could buy a car from his friend.  It was a car we KNEW ran well and only one of our cars was currently working.  We needed a second working car the price was right.  We discussed it and decided that we would buy this car and fix up at least one of the two we have that don’t work.  We would then decide what to sell and what to keep.  So we withdrew the money from our joint account and he bought the car.  Easy enough, right?

We have NEVER worried about what belongs to who, but we do have cars that we each drive more than the other (his and hers).  So when HE was the one getting the new car while mine was less than desirable and I am the one always toting around the kids I told him that my only stipulation was that occasionally we switch cars for a day so that I am not ALWAYS stuck driving the honda.  He agreed.

Two days later I told him I may need to switch cars on Saturday so that I could drive both kids along with my nephew around.  A huge fight ensued, during which he told me that it was “his car,” and that I was not allowed to borrow it.

That was the absolute first time over the course of our relationship that I had felt as though I had screwed myself by having no separate money or property.

The reality was that it IS HIS CAR.  HIS NAME is on the title, and I have no legal ownership.

We worked it out, but it got me wondering… is it better to keep everything separate?

I still think the way we do things works, it shows our undying faith that we will be together forever and it shows a complete trust in one another.  

I’m wondering what others think?? Feedback is appreciated :))

To The Girl Who Decided To Tell Me How To Parent;

Thanks for nothing.

We’ve all seen ’em, people who like to tell others how to run their lives.  Well it gets worse when you become a parent.  People all of a sudden want to tell you how to do everything.  Its one thing when you ask for advice, but when its completely unsolicited, it becomes so annoying.

Here’s a story about a college “friend” of mine who took this to a whole other level….

I posted a picture of my newly four month old daughter (at the time) who was eating cereal for the first time! It was a cute innocent picture that was meant to be fawned over by those who love her.  I started to get the typical “awww” comments, and then along came supermom.  

Shes the kind that makes her own cloth diapers, makes her child bandaroos, and breast feeds her one year old.  (There is nothing wrong with any of those things, just making sure you understand that she thinks that its absolutely her way or the high way when it comes to parenting.)

She commented advising me that children should not have anything mixed with their formula or breast milk until they are 6 months or older.  Now, at that point, while unsolicited, I read her comment as harmless and well meaning advice, until I responded telling her that our pediatrician had advised that anytime between 4 and 6 months is fine so long as they meet the requirements (My baby met all of them).  After I responded it became some sort of know-it-all battle.

Somewhere around ten of my friends chimed in, including 3 who have children above the age of 18.  Everyone’s pediatricians had seemed to tell them the same thing.  So then Dr. Know-It-All decided to tell us we were “uninformed parents,” which is just the absolutely most insulting thing someone can say to you as a mother.  She continued to tell us that pediatricians don’t study much nutrition, so they are simply all wrong.

She kept going, citing sources that she was citing completely incorrectly, I checked them myself.

My point is simply that it was fine that her son didn’t have food until he was 6 months, but I deserve the respect to make my own educated decisions about my own child.

MY own child.  Not hers. Gosh people really grind my gears.

By the way, my little P is 5+ months now.  She is considered advanced by her pediatricians. She sleeps and eats perfectly and will try her first vegetable tonight, so there’s that..

It Was My Birthday, I Could Cry If I Wanted To.

I told you that I would share the good and the bad,  I also want to continue to give you just enough of my past to understand my present, and to advance towards my future with me.

The first month or so after finding out I was pregnant was full of the ebbs and flows that I am sure are normal, even though many people are afraid to admit their feelings.  I was in shock, I was stressed, I was excited, then I was terrified.  By the time my birthday rolled around about two months later I was pretty comfortable about the fact that my whole life was changing,.

I was comfortable with the fact that I was going to be a mom, but not so much with the fact that seemingly half of my friends had simply disappeared.  When you go from being wild and carefree to suddenly being responsible for this life inside of me, not to mention a might as well be step daughter.

I became SUPER depressed and felt more alone than I had in my entire life.  I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted anymore, I needed to work more hours to save money, and I needed to stay in more often for the same reason.  Not to mention the morning sickness was terrible, and not JUST in the morning like the term would lead you to believe.

So once my birthday came around and I couldn’t have the big drunken celebration at the bar with ll of my friends that I had grown accustomed to, I could hardly contain my disappointment.  People will think thats shallow, or that its wrong that I was so sad about pregnancy….

But guess what! It doesnt make me a bad mom, or a shallow person.  It makes me human.

Things are not always easy.

Just a girl in a pizza parlor.

If I want you to understand me, then I should probably tell you a story that will share a little bit about the life I led before I became somewhat domesticated.

There is this local pizza place a few of my friends worked at.  Its the kind of place where the people who work there know all the customers, and you can get away with almost anything.  Anyway, we used to go up there and drink free beer and eat free pizza, pizza that we made ourselves.  It was kind of a fantastic set up.

This particular night I walked in carrying a grocery bag with a box of two pregnancy tests inside.  I walked into the bathroom and I peed on a stick.  I peed on a stick in a public pizzeria bathroom.  Who does that?! Who pees on a stick in a pizza place?! Whats worse is that I then left that stick in a disposable cup in the bathroom without ever once looking at it.  I walked out and a minute or so later my friend walked in.

She came out with a serious look on her face and said simply, “Its positive.”  I started laughing, it was this nervous laugh, and I replied “Shut up.  That’s not funny.”  I panicked.  I grabbed my stuff and said that I had to leave.

I never imagined it would be positive.  I had taken so many tests before.  My friends and I had taken tests and had celebratory drinks afterwards.  Gone dancing.  I thought this would be the same thing.  Same song and dance.  I was so wrong.

I drove home where I found my boyfriend.  I crawled into bed and refused to speak to him.  He knew something was seriously wrong.  He asked me if I were pregnant and when I told him that I had taken a test I broke up with him.  I broke up with him! Who does that?! are you sensing a theme yet? A theme of totally ridiculous things that makes up my entire personality?

He refused to let me break up with him.  Instead he held me.

That was the night my life went from beer to babies.  That single moment in a pizza parlor changed the rest of this girl’s life.

It was February 6th 2014.