Planning a birthday party while remaining frugal

So I am learning to be more frugal. Thanks to a little help from some websites I have visited. Here is my latest frugal adventure.

I am currently planning for Raegan's first birthday party. We are having a My Little Pony themed party. I already bought the outfit on Ebay. It was only $25 and it is super cute.

So to match her outfit I wanted a really cute party hat. I had seen them on Etsy before and they are pretty pricey. I pride myself on being a pretty crafty person. I guess I get that from my mom who can pretty much do anything crafty. Paint, sew, you name it. She can do it. So I went to Michaels and bought the stuff to make the hat myself. Here is what it looks like and to make it much better. Supples for it only cost me around $5. Now that is frugal. I saved myself $20.

Now if I can only figure out a way to save on the Pizza that we planning on buying for everyone. I do not plan this to be a small birthday party. I think my list is at 30 people right now. Unfortunately it is cold in January when her birthday comes so we can not do a bbq outside somewhere. I need to have it at the pizza parlor this year and I wouldnt feel right if I didnt buy the pizza for all. Oh well...Thats an expense I will just have to make. I am so happy to be planning her first birthday but at the same time I am sad that I am already planning this. My baby is going to be one in 3 short months.

Frugal

I consider myself to be a frugal person. I try to find the best deals. I dont always by name brands because 98% of the time the off brand is just as good. But I want to be super frugal. I know it takes a lot of time and some practice. I want to clip coupons and be that women who goes to the grocery store and walks out with $100 in grocery for $20. How is it done? I have tried it before. I can never find the right coupons. Where do you find coupons? I frequently visit this website called myfrugaladventures.com . This is a great site. If you havent checked it out yet, do so. I have saved about $30 since looking at her site but the lady that runs this site is the person I want to be. She always shows her purchases and how much she spends on them. It's amazing. I want to be that person.

What will I do with the savings that I get? I want a new camera. Not just a throw it in your purse camera. I want a really nice camera. You know the Lexus of all camera's that is probably between $500 and $600. In order to get that I need to save. So coupon clipping here I come.

Come and Gone

Here it is November 2nd. Another month has come and gone. The last 9 months of my life have been just that, Come and Gone. Way to quickly for my liking. My baby girl will be 10 months old very soon. Gone are the days where she used to just lay in my arms and sleep, gone are the days where she would just look into your eyes and smile because you are looking at her. She is very close to being a toddler instead of my little baby. She wants to be on the floor moving instead of being held by me, she now looks back and smiles at me as she is heading towards the entertainment center where she knows she should not be and now our house looks like a daycare because of all the toys to keep her occupied.

Why is it the times that you wish life would just stroll along and take its time really goes by super fast. I wanted the first year of my Princesses life to just slowly go on. I feel as if it went so quickly

This weekend was fun. We celebrated Halloween with friends. I dressed Raegan up and she lasted about 10 minutes before falling asleep for the rest of the night. She looked really cute though.



She was my precious little kitten. So now Halloween has come and gone and took the month of October with it. And now we come to November and Thanksgiving. I am sure it will come and go just as quickly as the past 9 months have.

Small town

I grew up in a very small town. A town where you know everyone in the town. A town where you went to school with the same kids from kindergarten through graduation from high school. I loved living in a small town at the time.

When I was 18 I wanted out of that small town. I left and moved about an hour away to a larger town. I miss the small town atmosphere and really wish I could move back to a little town. I want one smaller than I grew up in though. You know the one horse town. The towns with one stop light and one main street that everyone hangs out on Friday nights. I like the Gilmore Girls town. I know thats not a real town but only a television set on a studio in Los Angeles but thats what I want. Thats where I would love to raise my little girl. I know she would probably dislike me when she was older and bored because there was nothing for her to do,but I think when she is older she will realize what she had was good.

Back from my dream beacause I know that will never happen. I have married a city boy. A man who would never leave the big city for a small town.

This weekend I go back to the past. I will be visiting my small town for the day. I am sure I will run into a lot of old high school friends because a lot of them are still there. I look forward to Saturday.

Hire a Photographer

We took our little pumpkin to the pumpkin patch this weekend. It is so cute. She was dressed in little butterfly wings and a tutu. Everyone stared and pointed at how cute the little baby was. As a parent that always makes you feel good.

I took some pretty good pictures of her but I told my husband from now on we are going to have to have a photographer on staff whenever we go anywhere. I am always behind the camera so there are about 1/3 of the pictures with me and the family as there are with Jason and Raegan. We never really have a picture of the three of us unless you call the close up head shots of the three of us family pictures. You know the picture when you cram together and hubby has his arm straight out trying to center all three of us in the picture. So from now on we hire a photographer. Yay!!! probably not going to happen but its a good thought.

I leave you with pictures of our fun Saturday afternoon.

Sorry. Cant figure out how to put the pictures underneath but here they are anyway.

It's been awhile

It has been awile since my last post. I find myself to busy to get on and blog. I find myself unsure of what to write about that might be interesting.

I have a 9 month baby on my hands. She is precious as ever and has just started yelling mama at everything. Standing at my legs wanting to be held and yells mama mama. How can I not pick her up after hearing her say mama. I have to admit she is mildly spoiled. Mildly is saying the least. She is quite spoiled. Its hard not to.

She crawls, pulls up and has 8 teeth. She is moving right along. I love her so much and wish she would not grow up so fast but at the same time I can wait for the future. It will be so much fun.

You know your a mom when....

*you just put on clean clothes and now there is spit up on them and you wont change because in an hour there will be more spit up.
*you have wet spots on your shirt that are not from water.
*an exploding poopy diaper doesnt make you gag
*you dont yell at someone when they fart on you.
*you talk in a baby voice to almost everyone you meet.
*you find yourself swaying even when your not rocking the baby.
and the list could go on and on. i wouldnt change it for the world.