Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Planning a birthday party!

In the midst of our adoption journey I have felt very strong in making sure that our life carries on as normal as possible. I think that my husband and I have done an incredible job making sure that happens. A big thing in our family is birthday. As we wait for our princess I wanted to make sure that my boys have one of the best birthdays! I had decided in May of 2008 (yes a year ago) that I would have a carnival themed birthday party for my boys. Since their birthday is only 11 days apart we have always had them share a party. This year I invited all the kids from my oldest son's class and all the kids from my youngest son's playgroup. We are expecting about 14-17 kids as of right now. Here are some ideas and some money saving tips for this theme:
Decorations:
For a carnival theme birthday I want colors and more colors! I ordered a bag of balloons from Oriental Trading. It was much cheaper than Party City and I got so many more balloons. I will blow up all the balloons and disperse them in groups of 3 all of the banister inside the house, the front lamp posts, the mailbox, all along the fence in the backyard, at each station table. I also ordered streamers from Oriental Trading which was cheaper as well. I will put those all over the fence and inside on the banister.
Stations:
I am having a pop corn station (rented the popcorn machine from a local business) this was only $75. I have a station for pin the tail on the donkey, bowling, toss the bean bag, cotton candy (ordered from www.rainbowcottoncandy.com, great site and cheap!), duck pond (got off ebay for $15), face painter (made a reservation with a local artist to come), lollipop tree, and candy apples (my mom is making those)
Food:
I went to Costco and got all the food and drinks. My total for the food and drinks was about $120. I am only serving hotdogs and chips. I figured with popcorn, cotton candy, and candy apples that should be enough.
Cake:
I have a friend making a cake that is going to look like a bag of popcorn!
Bags and Tickets:
Each child will get a yellow bag with their name on it and inside the bag is 20 red tickets that they will use to go from station to station. I bought the bags and tickets at Party City.
Helpers:
I recruited some young teenagers to come over and man each station as the kids come up to it.
Signs:
I bought some poster board and decorated each poster board with the name of the station and the number of tickets that each game requires.
Prizes:
I got some bags of candy/prizes from Party City and some fancy suckers from Oriental Trading.

A party like this can be very manageable and low in price. The kids will probably have a great time!
I will post pictures after the party so you can visually see!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

My baby turns 4 on May 25th







As May 25th approaches I remember where I was and what I was doing 4 years ago. I was impatiently waiting the arrival of my first son- William. I was on bedrest with William for about 2 months because he really wanted to come early. So I laid around and let him cook as long as he could. He tried to come on May 24th while Scott and I were watching American Idol! My water broke - but not enough for me to know that William was trying to make an appearance. I went to the doctor the next day only to find out yes my water had broke and I was off to the hospital! That evening William was born via C-section. And he was perfect! I remembering being so scared and then when they brought him over to me and I looked at his face it was love at first sight! I had never seen anything as perfect as him! At that moment I knew what people had been talking about- that love you feel for your child when you first see them. William is an incredible little man! He is just like his dad- a great sense of humor, handsome, loving, and compassionate. He makes me laugh everyday. Someone told me that a son's love is like nothing else and I definitely know what they mean.

Happy Birthday William, I love you always and forever!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Crabs!







I am happy to say we had our first crab feast on Saturday. It is a big event in my family. See I grew up running up and down piers, riding in boats, chasing and catching lighting bugs, and swimming in the river! Yes the river. Anyone who has grown up in Virginia has been to the river and some even live on the river. I was one of the lucky ones, both of my grandparents had a house on the river and both sets of my parents now have a house on the river. It is definitely a way of life! The "rivah" folk are seen laying in old T-shirts and capris/shorts (nothing ever matches!) laying on the pier enjoying the breeze coming off the water. You will also find us picking crabs, eating oysters, and the open door policy always in play. It is a relaxed way of life and no one can replace it!
My sister and her husband pictured above enjoying the crabs- caught off the pier!
I love knowing that my children will grow up with such wonderful memories as I have from a childhood on the river.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

How can we do it?











I have spent a lot of time on the adoption forums and message boards over these last 8 months. I can tell you that I have learned so much and met some incredible people. The most frequent post I see is How do I raise enough money to pay for an adoption? I thought I would take a few minutes and share some things that we have done over the past 8 months.


My husband and I live a comfortable life. We have always been able to get what we need and what our children need. Of course when looking at adoption and the adoption fees we knew that we would have to watch what we spend and complete a few fundraisers in order to pay for our adoption. We are very careful and cautious with our money, we do not like debt and except for our house of course have been able to live debt free throughout our marriage. Knowing that about us we knew that we would not be comfortable taking out loans or emptying out any retirement accounts. We were going to do this the old fashion way!


When we started the adoption process we immediately set our budget knowing that over time that budget would increase as we continued to cut back and complete fundraisers. The first thing we did was a yard sale. Many adoptive parents start here. I do reccomend it as it went very well. I had posted on some of my local mom's boards that we were having a yard sale and if anyone was trying to get rid of stuff let me know I would be happy to take it off their hands as long as they didnt mind we sold it for our adoption. We had a few people donate some items and the rest was just stuff from our basement that we hadnt taken the time to clean out. It went very well.

From their I knew I needed to cut back on our grocery shopping. We averaged about $500 a month in groceries and I knew I could bring that down. I sat down every 3 weeks and organized my shopping list- I planned out my meals for each week and knew exactly what I needed. I then got on http://www.mygrocerylist.com/, I could enter everything I needed and it would tell me what stores near me had each item on sale. It was great. Now granted this would take a little bit more time because I would be having to shop at 3 different stores, but I didnt mind and it really wasnt that bad. I bought my meat and chicken at Costco along with cleaning supplies. I also took the Sunday paper and clipped coupons. Before I entered the store I went through the coupons. I also took advantage of Giant's 10 for $10 sales. If it was 5 for $5 or 10 for $10 I bought it! I was able to lower our monthly grocery bill to about $300 a month. This helped a great deal.
Also looking on a great website: www.mommysavers.com helped tremendously. Great tips and tricks on saving money everyday!

We also completed a fundraiser through Antiquities Portrait Fundraiser. We sold 60 tickets at $10 a peice for people to get their pictures taken. The pictures turned out great! These are the pictures above of my boys.
We also did two online Tastefully Simple fundraisers. We sent out an evite to all family and friends and was able to get 30% of the total sales toward our adoption.
We continued to save every penny- we tried not to go out to eat as much unless we had cash to pay for the meal. We used to just put it on the credit card and pay it off each month but now we were going cash only!
I am lucky to stay home with my boys. I love to take them places and keep them active. The best thing has been my mom's group. We have about 50 members and there is an activity to pick almost everyday of the week. The best part is most of these events are in people's homes. We got to get out of the house, have fun at no cost, I could have adult interaction, and the kids could make great friends. As our group became more active our playgroups became more craft oriented as well- now you can pick from tie die playdates, to play-doh playdates, to park playdates. It is great entertainment!
A big fundraiser for us is Hope For Reagan. I started this small fundraiser in honor of our future daughter Reagan. I custom make tutus for children and adults. I saw a tutu online and thought to myself, why cant I do that myself. So I researched how to make them and there you go! I was making tutus for people left and right! With my dance background I know how young girls love to dress up and pretend to be a princess so I knew little girls would love this!
Find a special talent that you have and run with it! The possibilities are endless.
We were also very lucky to have people donate money toward our adoption. We will never forget the generosity of those people! We started a chipin event on our website that people use to donate.
I tell you I still think in amazement that we were able to raise and save as much money toward our adoption as we have. We know that we can do anything we set our minds to. The people that participated in our fundraisers have been amazing! I will always be greatful!