Pre-Christmas Adventures with our Family!

Due to my new job (that I have been at for almost 3 months now!) and my mom, kids and I being sick, we were pretty late on doing everything Christmas this year.  I didn't get to do my Black Friday haul but still got my shopping done by budgeting $100 every week for my kids, family and friends presents.  I think I did pretty well with what I had and have no complaints at all.  Our tree (shown above!) was put up the weekend after Thanksgiving but we did not get around to decorating the tree or the house until just two weeks ago.  We went a little overboard this year getting decorations done...I mean putting a Christmas toilet seat topper on the toilet and a Christmas rug in the bathroom. 

Next came Olivia's 5th Birthday & Party on Dec. 21, 2012.  I couldn't believe my little princess turned 5, it was so hard to accept that she was another year older because she is my little baby! (And she will ALWAYS be!)  We had her party at Michaels Arts & Crafts with just a few of her friends from Pre-School.  The party went over extremely well, even though we only had 3 other girls aside from my two!  Olivia had so much fun and couldn't stop talking about her big girl party!  We all made foam Gingerbread Houses in honor of Christmas, which was right around the corner!  I also took some time out of my morning to make Snowman cupcakes for her party, which turned out adorable!

We didn't get to see Santa until yesterday, the day before Christmas Eve and boy was there a line.  We waited for about an hour and 45 minutes to see Santa at the mall, but that hour and 45 minutes was so worth it when my girls got up to see him!  They told him what they wanted for Christmas and Olivia got to tell Santa that her birthday had been just a few days before.  She was super excited when Santa said, "Happy Birthday!" to her.  The picture came out great and I also snapped one really quickly on my phone as well! 

After meeting Santa we ran over to mail our letters at Macys.  This was especially important to Alayna since every letter that's "mailed" is a donation to the Make A Wish foundation.  Alayna has a best friend that has been in the hospital in Philadelphia for almost an entire year.  He needs a heart and kidney transplant and so far has had no luck, but he is part of the Make A Wish foundation and that cause has become very dear to my 7 year old's heart because of her best friend.  

So today I got a bit of last minute wrapping in when the kids were still asleep and I am in between doing some cooking for tomorrow and getting ready to bake cookies for Santa.  Tonight I'm going to be seeing Les Miserables with one of my friends at the movies so I want to make sure I get everything done with my girls and get them into bed before I leave!  Santa will be here before we know it and I'm sure he'll leave lots of presents for my girls -- they've been good this year. (We won't talk about the times they weren't!)

Merry Christmas Eve to all of you!  

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The price of children's birthday parties.

Alayna is going to be 5 in a little over three weeks and we're looking for places for her 5th birthday party.  We usually end up going into Staten Island for her parties, since that is the closest large city to us (other than NYC) with [usually] decent priced party venues. We have had all of her birthday parties in various places around there, for the exception of her first birthday. (Which I stupidly held at our house.)  

We picked up a magazine today that has most of the party places and while looking through it, we found a Spa birthday party place that had just opened.  Alayna, of course, wanted her party there because they did hair, make-up, manicure, pedicure, etc...  My 5 year old is the epitome of a sparkly princess girly girl.  She wants to be a princess when she grows up, she constantly asks me to do her make up, curl her hair, all she wants to do is wear pink and sparkly princess dresses... This party was right up her alley.  So when we got home we went online, certain we were going to have her party there, to look up the price... We soon changed our mind. (With much protest from the little princess.)  The party was $699 for 10 kids.  SIX HUNDRED NINETY NINE DOLLARS!!  (And that doesn't include a lot of things, we soon found out.)  As much as I love my daughter and as much as I want to make her birthday 100% special, I just don't have $700 to throw around for a 5th birthday party.  

Looking around at the other websites of places around the area, I realized that kids parties are just too expensive.  The majority ran from $499-$699.  Unfortunately, for someone living paycheck to paycheck, someone who is unemployed or a single parent working her ass off to do the best for her kids, that's impossible.  If you really take a good look around, even people who seem to have money or be financially comfortable, they're having the same money problems.  Who can afford those parties?  

Doing more research I finally found an indoor amusement park that is easily accessible from my town that includes a good amount of things.  It's only $159 for a 1.5 hour party and 10 kids.  That is plenty for us and that's probably where we're going to end up booking the party.  I'm just very sad that I couldn't give my daughter the princess spa party she wanted.  She finally understands, after I sat down and spoke to her about finances and why we couldn't have the party there, but on the other hand I know she is still disappointed.  What little girl wouldn't be?  

I really think that parties should be affordable.  Especially in this economy when unemployment is higher than ever and finances are at an all time low.

 

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