Tag Archives: party

Frugal Finds, Fun

Budget Blast Off Birthday Bash

I was curious to see how “cheap” I could do Holden’s party…

Since I came up with the Outer Space theme about a year ago (OCD), I had plenty of time to search around and find some bargain finds throughout the past 12 months!

These are just estimates, but I made a mental note of what I paid for everything, so these totals are pretty close:

Invitations: $3 (notecards & stickers ~ printed myself)
Goody bags/favors: $45
Rocketship cake: $8 (1 box cake mix, 1.5 containers frosting, “3” candles, candies)
Layered cupcakes: $7 (1 box cake mix, 1 container frosting, 2 food color gels)
Decor: $25 (rocket ship piñata, balloons, posters, hanging stars, silver garland)
Food: $60 (Taco bar, bean dip, chips, guac, bagel bites, pb&j’s, jell-o, sugar cookies, non-alcoholic beverages, etc.)
Adult beverages: $47 (Midori, tequila, wine & beer)
Serving stuff: $21 (platters, plates, napkins, cups)
Thank you notes: $3
Postage: $4

I wanted to download some Star Wars music off iTunes, but instead Jay discovered the NASA channel on our Direct TV so we put that on in the background…it was pretty cool….and FREE!

Grand Total: $223

Contributions:
Gramma K: rocket ship tent (Holden’s gift), bean bags, hanging planets (decor) and glass jar beverage dispenser
Meghan: jump house
Lisa: lime green utensils

Thanks Ladies for helping me stay under budget! I appreciate your contributions to a fantastic festivity! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! XOXO

There were a total of 28 guests (including our family). So, for under $230 I was able to do this party….I’m pretty proud of myself….I’ll have to check with Jay, on the other hand, and see what he thinks!

Believe me, I could’ve spent a lot more!

Family, Feathered Nest, Fiestas & Fetes, Flip Flops On The Rocks, Food, Friends, Fun

100 & 3

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Today is special for a couple of reasons…

We celebrated Holden’s 3rd birthday.

This is my 100th post.

I’ve been at this blog thing for almost 4 months now and already at 100 entries. Wow! I didn’t think I had that much to say!

I’m having a lot of fun with it and am looking forward to the next 100! If I stay at this rate, we will be at 200 around the first day of Summer. Another reason to celebrate.

Speaking of celebrations, today we had a houseful of astronauts, robots, martians and aliens. Hard to believe my little space cadet is already THREE.

This was Holden when the guests started arriving:

Oops!

It was a BLAST! (pun intended)

Thanks again to all our little astronaut friends for coming to our planet for an afternoon of fun!

Below are a few recipes and links to the extra terrestrial eats:

For the “taco bar” I just browned up a couple packages of ground turkey and chopped onion and added 2 envelopes taco seasoning and a little water. I set out crunchy shells and small flour tortillas with all sorts of toppings lined up ~ shredded lettuce, cheese, sour cream, mango peach salsa, sour cream, jalapeño rings, cilantro lime corn salsa & guacamole. Everyone created their own taco masterpieces ~ super easy!

Battlestar Bean Dip

2 cans Campbell’s Bean soup with bacon

1 pint sour cream

1 package taco seasoning mix

1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and then transfer to an oven safe dish. Bake @ 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Serve with Fritos Scoops or your fave tortilla chips. (Another yummy recipe from Melanie Corona!)

Pineapple Limeade (AKA Solar System Citrus Punch)

Midori Martian Margaritas

Cosmic Cake

Layered Cupcakes

Alien/Martian Sugar Cookies

1 package Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix

McCormick NEON food coloring

1 small container (12 oz.) white/vanilla prepared frosting

Gingerbread man cookie cutter

“Red Hots” candies

Prepare cookies as directed on package for “cutout cookies”. Roll out dough, as directed, and cut out with cookie cutter. Place only about 8 cookies at a time on cookie sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes @ 350. Let cool and then frost with lime green frosting.

Lime green frosting:

I used about 25-30 drops of the green in one small (12 oz.) container of frosting. Frost cookies and then add Red Hots candies for the eyes!

Family, Fitness, Fun, Funnies

{ROCK} A Bye Baby

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We do things a little differently around these parts…

and I’m NOT 100% proud of it, but I want the kids to learn how to express themselves through dance.

We have a little family tradition that we do before the kids go to bed on non-school nights (Tues & Thurs) ~ the kids have a “Dance Party”! (on school nights we read our favorite books ~ Pinkalicious, Fancy Nancy, Three Little Pigs, etc.)

We have a “retreat” off of the master bedroom and Jay has the stereo set up there. Holden turns on the stereo, Elliott pulls the antique step stool away from the edge of our bed into the middle of the room and Jay starts playing the music from iTunes on the laptop!

The Dance Party starts off innocently with songs from Glee or her Sarah McLachlan fave “Ordinary Miracle”…Elliott dances around, twirls, kicks and jumps off the step stool. Holden follows along…

Well, last night I came home from the gym to the whole house shakin’, rattlin’ and rollin’ and went up stairs to find them dancing to this:

OK, this is NOT my song of choice (clean version, of course!), but we were in complete hysterics watching these two dance. Holden started a new move that he does with his arms and then breaks out into some robot motions. Elliott is borderline locking and popping….it is so interesting to me that they can switch their style of dance from flowy and graceful during the Glee soundtrack to hard hitting, more sharp moves for LMFAO!

We NEED to have the video camera ready at the next Dance Party!

Family, Feathered Nest, Food, Friends, Frugal Finds, Fun

Friday Five

1. Superbowl menu is set….making it easy:

Cranberry Meatballs (as seen here)
Sonoma Salad (find it here)
Artichoke Dip (check it out here)

Superbowl sipping will be vodka crans with a twist of lime.

There…..done! That was easy!

2. Elliott made all her playdate friends some paper chains – one for each child. She was busy, cutting, taping and creating this morning…this was all HER idea! Love that girl…

3. I’ve been bitten by a creativity bug….all these cute blogs that I’ve discovered…the only thing is is that I’m not a sewer or a scrapbooker or a gardener, but I am feeling inspired and am going to look around the house and see what I can CREATE or REARRANGE or ORGANIZE and give the place a little kick in the pants for Valentine’s Day! So glad it’s on a weekend so we can celebrate as a family and I can try some new recipes! Stay tuned…

4. I am feeling a little selfish lately and am looking forward to reserving a teeny bit of this year’s tax return for MYSELF. (Don’t worry Jay….I only need a few bucks (relatively speaking, of course!) There are some goodies that I have my eye on….nothing expensive, just a couple things on Etsy, The Pioneer Woman Cookbook and a couple apothecary jars….that’s about it.

5. Countdown to Holden’s 3rd birthday party…I am having fun planning the menu, getting the favor bags all figured out, picturing the decorations all hung and working out the FUN cake that I have planned…

I am also excited to see how low I can keep the budget on this party ~ so far, so good:

*Invites were under 10 cents a piece
*FREE bounce house thanks to MEG!
*Decorations from Dollar Tree and 90% off Christmas stuff @ Target
*Making my own cake

Should be a “blast”!

Happy Friday!