Category: Birthday

Happy Birthday J

I’m popping in with a simple birthday wish for my amazing husband.  Today he turns the big 3-2!  I thought I would keep this post from getting too sappy with just some of my favorite pictures.

Denton’s Birthday Recap

 

how to make a tissue paper number, how to make a sign from tissue paper, easy birthday decorations

We survived!  We had our son’s second birthday party over the weekend at a park with friends and family.  It was a blast!  So. Much. Fun.  I just love watching our son play with his cousins, he always looks so much bigger when he plays with the big kids.

We decided to do something easy this year – we had the party at a park instead of our house.  We also opted to have it later in the day to save on our food costs (we didn’t have to serve lunch!).  Here’s a few snaps from the party.

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I ended up starting to plan for our son’s party back in February.  I knew with tax season, my exam, and a few other parties I had in the works I would need all the time in the world to make it happen.  I also wanted to keep ourselves under a pretty tight budget this year.  Last year for his first birthday party, I worked hard at making a lot of things myself (like his smash cake) so I could stay under budget.  This year, I wanted to do the same thing, but with less work (HA!).

The first thing I did back in February is I created our party budget (I used this template HERE).  I wanted to be realistic, but also not get too crazy.  I think kid’s birthday parties are so easy to overspend on.  You’re trying hard to make it fun and have lots of yummy food for everyone so it can be easy to get carried away with.

Once I had the budget, the next thing I did was transfer by saved Ibotta reward dollars to our paypal account.  I had close to $60 saved, which was the bulk of his budget.  Once the money hit that’s when I booked the pavilion at the park and started looking at decorations.  I browsed Party City and Amazon, and they had some great decorations, but they were a little on the high side.

So I opted to do a mix – I bought one tablecloth, a set of plates and napkins from the store (just like these HERE) and then I went to Dollar Tree to buy the rest.  I ended up spending around $8 for the rest of the plates, silverware, cups, napkins and tablecloths for the party.  I also decided to not go too crazy on the decorations.

At the park there were 8 tables, but I only bought tablecloths for three – thinking one or two for food and the other for the kids to eat at.  I also made the number two out of tissue paper (keep reading for directions on how to make it yourself!), which was really cheap since I used what I had on hand.

Finally, I used the leftover Halloween costume iron-on fabric to finish his outfit.  Using Canva, I printed out dinosaurs onto the transfer paper, ironed it on his shirt and that was it.

dinosaur birthday shirt, DIY shirt for little boy's birthday

easy birthday costume for a dinosaur party

We also made most of the food ourselves and by having it later in the day, we decided we only needed snacks.  We ended up making pinwheels, meatballs, chili cheese dip, rice krispie treats, fruit tray and a veggie tray.  I bought chips and dips to have with it.

We ordered a few items for the party to make it easy on ourselves – I bought a cupcake cake from our local bakery.  It turned out perfect.  J also found a great pretzel place, called Pretzel Boys not too far away so we ordered a dinosaur shaped pretzel from them.  On top of that, I found these perfect dinosaur toys at Dollar Tree.  So I picked up eight of these bad boys to hand out as favors.

dinosaur pretzel, diy dinosaur birthday party decorations dinosaur party cake, dinsoaur cake, cupcake cake, boys birthday party easy party favors, dinosaur party favors

I made a quick (less than 4-minute) video on how to make the tissue paper sign.  It was so easy to make and took us less than 20 minutes to finish.  You can watch the video online or down below:

diy tissue paper number

diy tissue paper number, diy dinosaur birthday party decorations

That’s it!  That was our son’s second birthday party.  I think it turned out perfect.  The weather was perfect for a park party, we were close to the playground for all the kids to have fun on and the food turned out great!

How Much to Spend on Birthdays

how much to spend on birthdays, how much to spend on birthday gifts, birthday budget, budget for birthday gifts

Creating a budget for all the birthdays in your life can be hard.  There are so many questions – Do we need to buy them a gift?  Did they get us a gift?  How much should we spend?  Should we spend the same on everyone?  

It can get complicated, but I want to share with you a simple rule we live by that has helped us a lot!  We have classified everyone in our family and our close friends into groups. Each group has a specific budget to use.  If someone is in the group then that’s how much we spend on them.  

The reason we created this budget system for birthdays was to make sure everything was equal.  It was important to us to make sure we treated my family the same as we treated my husband’s family.  Now before I get into it, I do want to have a disclaimer:

This budget idea is a just a suggestion.  It may not work the exact same for your family as it does for ours – and that’s okay. You also need to have the wisdom to know it’s okay to spend more or less for a specific person.  For a big birthday then we might spend a bit more than usual.  If we find a really good deal then we spend less.  For instance a few years ago J and I (along with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law) spent more for J’s Dad.  We bought NASCAR tickets for him and at the same time we bought a ticket for J so he could go with him.  That was an exception to our budget rule.  We saved more money and gave ourselves permission to spend more, and it was awesome.  Now we don’t splurge on everyone, which is why we get to do it every once in awhile.  

Again, these are just guidelines for your budget.  You can spend less or you can spend more depending on the space you have in your budget.   

Spouse – $30 each
Children – $30 each
Parents – $25 each
Siblings – $20 each
Nieces and Nephews – $15 each
Friends – $15 each
Children’s Friends – $15 each
Others – $10 each

A great way to be prepared for birthdays is to treat them as a sinking fund.  Make a list of everyone you buy gifts for, how much you budget to spend and then add it up.  Take that total and divide by 12.  That’s how much you need to be putting back each month to afford birthday gifts.  

For example, let’s say you have 15 people you need to buy for through out the year.  This includes spouse, kids, parents, sisters, nephews and nieces, coworkers, friends, and birthday parties that your kids will go to.  You take the amount for each category, let’s say equals $350 for the year.  You would divide $350 by 12 months to get about $30.00.  You need to be saving $30.00 each month into a separate account or earmark it in your checking so you can buy gifts.

Here’s what our family’s birthday budget looks like:

our birthday budget, budget goals, budget for birthday, how to budget, how to birthday budget

We spend about $475 a year on birthday gifts. This means we save $39.60 each month to cover everyone’s birthday.  Now our family is kind of big.  J has 2 brothers and a sister while I have one sister.  They are all married (or in serious relationships) and some have kids.  We have also come to an agreement to skip buying larger gifts for each other.  We might spend $10 on one another so we can have a little more wiggle room in our birthday budget.

Again, I want to be fully honest here.  If I can find a great gift for less than my budget then I call that a win.  I don’t have to spend my budgeted amount.  I just try not to spend more than my budget. 

We even use these budget amounts for Christmas gifts, too.  I have a great way to help with our Christmas budget and I plan on doing it again this year.  It has really streamlined everything.

31 While 31 {My Birthday Goals}

birthday goals, things to do for my birthday

Around my birthday each year I create a new list of birthday goals.  

I’m super creative and I use my age to determine the number of tasks on my to-do list (I know, I know… I’m a genius!).  I’ve been doing this list for years now and I am not always successful at accomplishing each of my goals, but it gives me something to strive for.  Something to work towards in the new year and I feel that with age comes wisdom.  Wisdom to say no to things I no longer want to do or want to spend my time on and the wisdom to take more chances.  Yes, wisdom to take chances.  It may sound backwards, but it’s true.  With age comes the ability to stop caring what other people thing and be my true, authentic self.  If you like me, great!  If you don’t then that’s okay, too.  

Here are my birthday goals, the 31 things that I want to accomplish during my 31st year.

  1. have more fun
  2. take more risks
  3. finally step out of the hustle mindset
  4. take more picture
  5. don’t be afraid to live in the moment 
  6. work out more
  7. be outside more
  8. enjoy the lake
  9. take trips with my little family
  10. cuddle with my little boy
  11. bake more
  12. cook dinner at home
  13. start taking my lunch to work with me
  14. don’t be afraid to be on video
  15. reach out to other bloggers to partner with them
  16. finish my budget program
  17. continue to pay down debt
  18. start saving for our son’s college
  19. finish landscaping the yard
  20. become more patient with others
  21. slow down
  22. donate my time to a good cause
  23. create an editorial calendar for posts and emails to my VIPs
  24. earn my CFP® designation
  25. start my accounting degree
  26. finish our little guy’s baby book for his first year (I haven’t even started this one yet… oops!)
  27. start contributing to other budgeting sites more
  28. travel more
  29. put my family first
  30. be there for my friends
  31. teach my son to be the best man possible

There you have it!  My list of 31 things to do while I’m 31.  As I’ve gotten older and (ahem!) wiser, I’ve started scaling back my goals and making them more holistic and approachable.  No more specific tasks to try to achieve.  I want to work on who I am as a person and grow to become the person God wants me to be.  So I will stop and listen more instead of pushing.

If you want to see how my birthday goals have changed then check out my lists from 27, 28, 29 and 30!

Recapping My 30th

 

Can you believe another birthday is around the corner?  I feel like I just celebrated my 30th weeks ago and yet here I am, turning another year older.  I don’t mind aging, which I think comes from being pretty confident in myself and knowing God has a plan designed just for me.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not too crazy about the wrinkles I’ve been noticing around my eyes for the past few months or the fact I can’t stay up passed 9:30 without feeling like I’m hungover the next morning.  But I can accept all of that because I know everything else is good.  This past year has been pretty amazing.  Being a Mom sure has a lot to do with it.  Waking up every morning to my little boy singing from his crib and three dogs who can’t wait to start the day is pretty special.

 

This past year has been full of some great moments.  Our son took his first steps, I’ve advanced in my career, I continue to peck away at this little blog of mine trying to grow it and help you with your budgeting and financial needs, and I created my very first budget template to share with you and guide you on creating a sustainable budget.  It’s been good.

thankful for

fall bucket list, things to do in the fall

 

Since turning 30 we’ve been able to do so much as a family.  So I had way too much fun going through pictures for this post.  It was so neat to see how much our little guy has changed in just a year and to remember the crazy first-time Mom that I was.  Always making sure we had everything we could possible imagine when we left the house.  Now I’m lucky if I even remember a diaper most days.  I have come full circle that’s for sure!  This past year has brought a lot of changes to our family and to me.  I’ve mellowed out and have learned to rely on my inner strength.  It’s been a  good year.  Here are a few of my favorite memories from this past year:

Florida vacation, travling with a toddler, flying with a toddler, how to travel with a baby

Florida vacation, travling with a toddler, flying with a toddler, how to travel with a baby

Beautiful beach vacation with J’s family when our little guy was just a few months old.  At this point our little guy had been to the beach twice before he was 3 months old.  We went again more recently on a beach vacation just the three of us, which was so much fun.  We played in the sand, toured the Daytona Speedway and just spent time together.  

I finally bit the bullet and hired someone local to take family pictures and birthday pictures for our little guy.  If you’re in Southeast Missouri and looking to get some pictures taken, take a look at Josh DeFord Photography

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what to bring for family photos, what to take to photo session with baby, what to bring to family photos

 

I can’t wait to see where 31 takes me!  It’s going to be an adventure.    

Happy Birthday, My Love

I wanted to take a few minutes to wish this man a very happy 31st today.  This man has unselfishly loved me from the very beginning… all of me.  Even my messy ways and how I can seemingly go into a panic about anything.  He is the calm to my storm.  When I’m too tired, he picks up the slack without even being asked.  This man.  He’s a keeper.

Thank you J for being the best husband and the best Dad to us.  I will spend the rest of my days knowing how loved I am (even when you don’t say it all the time).  Your actions prove it.  

Let me tell you about this man.  He makes our little guy laugh the deepest belly laughs I’ve ever heard.  He’s the fun Dad who let’s you jump on the couch (of course he’s right there with his arms ready to catch).  He’s the neighbor who starts the weekly mowing rounds because everyone else follows his lead when it comes to cutting the grass.  He picks up toys and prepares bottles each night while I gently rock our little guy to sleep.  He turns the TV off when I’m too tired to keep watching knowing that the sound will keep me awake.  He sends me random Snaps through out the day (some I don’t want to see… ahem filters with women’s faces).  He changes all of the light bulbs in the house and takes the trash to street each week.  He helps with dinner on nights I’m too tired or too forgetful to lay anything out.  He helps with laundry, dishes and cleaning.  

This man.  I could go on and on about the things he does for his family, but who would have that much time to read it?  Plus, he might be embarrassed if I kept going.

Happy birthday J!  You deserve so much on this special day!  Don’t worry – Baby boy, Bud and I will be patiently waiting to see you walk through the door tonight!  

DIY Mother’s Day Gift or Birthday Gift

Affiliate Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you content free of charge. In order to do this, please note that when you click links and purchase items, in most (not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to continue to offer you lots of free stuff. Thank you!

DIY mother's day gift, DIY birthday gift for mom, DIY photo gift

I wanted to treat my Mom to something special for her birthday and Mother’s Day last year.  I know, I know I can’t believe I am just now getting around to sharing what I did last year! #momissues

Our little guy was right around a month old, I was still struggling with the recovery from my c-section, I was tired and learning to adapt to this whole motherhood thing.  My Mom was great (a little overwhelming at times, but what new Grandma isn’t), she had really helped with the Baby and there were a lot of days she would just bring me lunch and sit with me for an hour.   When it came time to start thinking of Mother’s Day and her birthday, which is just a few days later, I knew I wanted to do something special for her.  Our son is my parents’ first grandchild and they were over the moon with excitement for him, so I knew he had to be a big part of her gift.  That’s why I wanted to create a DIY birthday gift for her.  

Honestly this gift can be created for a birthday, Mother’s Day or even Father’s Day gift.  Heck, it would even work for Grandparents’ Day.

J and I were trying to mind our budget, like always.  And with medical bills and some home projects our money was pretty tight.  I had to put on my thinking cap and come up with something creative that wouldn’t break the bank.

DIY birthday gift

I headed to Hobby Lobby and came across this pretty picture frame that holds three 5×7 images.  Luckily it was on sale and was 50% off.  After taxes I paid a little over $13.00 for it.  You can find the exact same frame on Amazon for less than $16.00 if it’s just easier to order one.  I typically buy everything on Amazon, but for those last minute items I tend to go shopping in-person.  

Once I saw the frame, I decided I would do something similar to my DIY Father’s Day gift I created for J.  I created a simple image using canva.com.  They had the heart image under the elements heading and under the shapes tab.  I then added his name, the month and year to remember when it was done.  

DIY mother's day gift, DIY birthday gift idea

I came home and used the same ink pad that I used in J’s gift that was leftover from our wedding thumbprint tree guestbook.  I simply pressed his feet into the heart by overlapping his heel prints.  I let it dry then placed it into the center frame.  I used plain printing paper so there wouldn’t be a problem with the thickness when I tried to close up the back. 

I then headed onto walgreens.com to upload a few pictures.  I of course googled a coupon code and found one for 40% off.  I ended up paying less than $3 for the images.  I placed them in the remaining slots and that was it.

DIY mother's day gift, DIY birthday gift for mom, DIY photo gift

I updated the image so feel free to download the DIY Mother’s Day PDF or click the image above to print. 

So for right around $17.00 I created a really sweet and memorable Mother’s Day gift.  My Mom loved it and she still has it proudly showcased in her home.  I have plans to do personalized gifts for both grandparents every year – that way they can get gifts that show off how their grandson is growing and I know they’ll be gifts they want to have around.  

DIY Birthday Party Decorations

Affiliate Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you content free of charge. In order to do this, please note that when you click links and purchase items, in most (not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to continue to offer you lots of free stuff. Thank you!

DIY birthday party decorations, gone fishing party decorations, first birthday party ideas, gone fishing party theme

For our little man’s party I ended up creating most of his decorations.  I searched on Pinterest (you can check out my board of inspiration) for tons of ideas.  Then I went to start looking at buying the decorations.  Whoa!  Those prices were big, at least in my book.  I knew if I wanted to provide lunch for everyone then I wouldn’t be able to afford all of those fancy decorations.  So I took what I saw on Pinterest and made it myself.  You can make your own party decorations, too.  All you need is a little bit of planning and some creativity.  I swear you can create most of the decorations for a fraction of the retail price.  

I want to have an Honest Abe moment with you…. If I had the extra room in my budget and wasn’t worried about saving money then I would have just purchased everything we needed because it would have been easier.  I didn’t spend but a few hours making everything, but it would have just been easier to buy it all; however, that is not my reality.

Before I go any further I need to say… 

I am not the most crafty person in the world. I lose my patience easily.  I am all about progress not perfection.  Also, after looking at the party pictures I realized that I did not do the best at taking pictures of my decorations.  I was so pressed for time and then when the party came I was enjoying my son and our family and friends.  

Now with that being said let me share with you my DIY birthday party decorations. 

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

I created a photo wall using a net I ordered off amazon for less than $6.00.  I took a gamble ordering this decorative net because I couldn’t specify which color I wanted.  But after reading the reviews and seeing the prices of the other nets, I decided to roll the dice.  I was so happy I did!  I ended up with a yellow one, which was perfect.  Honestly any color would have been fine and I would have made it work.  The net was huge and I wound up cutting off a portion I needed.  I didn’t use the rest of it and now I have it tucked away for a future party.  

I used clothespins that I already had on hand to hang the pictures and then used some leftover fishing line from when J went fishing a few weeks ago.  I found these bobbers on amazon for around $4.00 and had my friend help me string them to the net.  

The pictures were part of the package our photographer gave us from our family shoot a few weeks ago.  

I then placed our kitchen table in front for a place to gather the gifts.  This wall cost me about $10.00 to do.  Not too bad.

Then over on the food table I ordered a table cloth from amazon (because everything comes from amazon!).  This striped plastic tablecloth was perfect.  I actually ordered two, but since it was windy we decided not to cover the tables outside.  They were only $2.99 each (the price actually has lowered when I was writing this post!).  Since it was so cheap, I decided to hold on to the one I didn’t use and the one we used was still in perfect condition, so I wiped it off and folded it up.

I made a few food decorations using canva and some construction paper.  I already had the dowels and the papers so after I printed them in color, I cut out the images, glued to the construction paper and taped to the dowels.  I think they turned out perfectly!  I even created them as PDFs so you can download them yourselves.

I purchased a tackle box from walmart for about $8.00 and used those to place the gummy worms, Twizzlers and Swedish fish in.  Now that the party is over J has a new tackle box he can use!  I’m the best wife ever!

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

The smash cake was probably the easiest decoration I made.  Two pieces of construction paper, a dowel and tape was all that was needed.   I even shared how I made his smash cake for only $3.00.   After we took our family photos a few weeks ago I learned just how much our little guy doesn’t like cake.  I think the icing is too sweet for him.  So I didn’t want to spend too much on his cake, including decorations.  In the smash cake pictures, the cake topper (the one I spent over an hour creating) was the first thing destroyed and ripped.  I learned my lesson!  For the party I kept it simple.  

I took a red and white piece of construction paper.  Then using my compass from the 6th grade (yep, I still have my compass that we used in beginning math class with the original pencil!) I drew a circle on each piece.  If you size the circles correctly you should be able to get 2 circles from each color, and I used the second one for the high chair.  I then cut the white piece in half and using a very old glue stick I put it together.  After I was finished I realized I forgot the top part of my bobber, so I used red scraps and made it work.  After it was glued, I took a black marker and wrote “the big one”.  I used regular tape to stick the dowel on and that’s it.

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

For his high chair pennant, I took some orange tissue paper I had on hand and cut it into strips.  Then I tied the strips to some blue gift ribbon (I couldn’t find my twine and I was tired of looking so I improvised).  I then cut out a circle using red and white construction paper, glue it together and took a black marker to it.  I think it turned out wonderful!

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

Outside we decided to not do any decorations since it was windy.  We had two canopies set up and our little kiddie pool for the kids to play with.  The kiddie pool was a huge hit!  I bought a magnetic fishing set which came with 2 fishing poles, 2 nets, a blow up pool (that we didn’t end up using) and tons of fish, sharks, and food (weird, but they were probably the favorites) pieces.  Now the party is over, little man has lots of new bath toys to play with.  I bought the pool for about $8 from Wal-Mart and the set was about $25 on Amazon.  

That’s it!  That’s the DIY birthday party decorations we created for our little guy’s first birthday.  I was all about keeping it simple, doable and within our budget.  To keep you on track, I talked about how I stayed organized by using this handy checklist.  

DIY Smash Cake for the First Birthday

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines Please, please don’t try to look up smash cakes on Pinterest.  You will see some of the prettiest cakes ever created and then you will get it in your head that you can be that talented.  It’s a lie!  You can’t.  At least I couldn’t.  A few weeks ago I attempted to create my own smash cake.  I baked the cake, I made homemade buttercream icing and I pipped a design onto my cake.  It was awful.  The icing was drooping, the color was more mint then blue and it looked awful.  I asked J for his honest opinion and he said “maybe you should save your homemade cake for the party and order one for his pictures.”  I knew right then and there my cake was a disaster.  

I ordered a cake from the local bakery for our little guy’s pictures.  The cake was beautiful and so simple.  

picture by Josh DeFord Photography

I knew it was going to be a big deal if his party cake wasn’t as nice as his picture cake.  I still wanted it to look good and decided to take a different approach.  I went with easy instead of making it hard on myself.  That way if it didn’t turn out I could blame that.  Instead the cake turned out great!  It was a lot better than my first attempt.  Not as pretty as the bakery made cake, but not too shabby either.  

As he O-Fish-Ally turned one last weekend, we celebrated!  I wanted to make sure we saved money where we could and one of the best ways to do that is by baking your own smash cake.  Trust me!  There is no need to go out and buy a made cake that your little one is going to destroy in 2 seconds.  Unless of course you want to and have built in your budget.  I’m all about saving time and money, but I also know that not everyone enjoys baking.  So if it’s not your thing, then please go right ahead.

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

Here’s how I made a DIY smash cake on a budget:

I purchased a boxed cake mix that was on sale for $1.00 (gasp! boxed cake mix!… I know, I know).  I also purchased two cans of icing that were on sale for $1.00 each.  I already had the oil, eggs and water.  So my DIY smash cake only cost me $3.00.

I used two round cake pans to bake the cake, after they cooled I then took a bowl to cut out a smaller portion of each layer.

Once I cut out the portion, I popped the cake into the freezer so it would be easier to ice.

I took one can of icing and used it to do the crumb coat and the layer between the cakes.  I then popped it back into the fridge for about 10-15 minutes.

The second can of icing was the one I added some blue food coloring too.  I had about 6-8 drops to get the right color blue.  I then iced the rest of the cake.  

I added my DIY cake topper and that’s it!

gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

Super simple.  I baked the cake on Friday night so it would be nice and cool on Saturday.  Plus I knew how hot it was going to be on Saturday and I didn’t want to have the oven running in the morning heating up the house.  So I opted to bake on Friday night.

DIY Gone Fishing Birthday Party {free planning checklist}

first bithday checklist, party checklist, gone fishing birthday party, baby's first birthday party

 

Well as you can probably tell from all of the birthday posts lately and over on Instagram, our Baby Boy turned one a few days ago.  I swear Sunday morning I woke up and felt as if I had been hit in the head with a baseball bat.  I was so exhausted by the end of Saturday night and am so grateful our man slept amazing.  But seriously, I was dragging so bad Sunday.  I just wanted to nap and drink all the coffee.  But here I am, fully recovered and the house is back in order.  

I like to be prepared for just about everything, so when it came to planning a party during tax season I had to rely on one of my favorite tactics – the checklist.  I created a to-do list and checklist to help me plan our son’s DIY gone fishing birthday party. I wanted to make it memorable without going broke. So we created a lot of the decorations ourselves and made most of the food for the big day. I even made his smash cake. It probably wasn’t the prettiest cake around, but it served its purpose!

A few months ago I talked about how I was starting to plan for his party. But in reality I started planning the first week of January. I put together a very detailed to do list that encompassed everything from the big stuff (like mail invitations) to the small stuff (like buy ice). I didn’t want to forget anything. I also figured if I had a to-do list then I could rope in a few extra hands to help me put it all together.

Now that the party has come and gone, and we’ve barely survived it. I think it’s time to share my trusty checklist with you. I wanted to put together something that work great for the everyday planner and for the last minute planners.

I also had it broken up by what needed to be bought so we weren’t shelling out a huge chunk of money right before the party. I wanted to space it out so it was around paydays and times of the month where our bills were a bit lighter.

 

Here’s what we wanted from his first birthday party:

We wanted to have it at our house

We wanted it to be on a Saturday afternoon so it would be easier for out of town guests

We wanted activities for kids to play

We wanted family and friends there to celebrate with us

We wanted it on a budget

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I think we more than met our goals!  I started planning weeks ago for this party.  I am such a planner and a list maker that I created a checklist to go off of.  I wanted to share my DIY party checklist with you so you can use it for your next party.  It really helped me stay on track and not get overwhelmed.  Plus, we were able to split up the stuff we needed to buy so it wasn’t one big chunk at one time.

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I kept the checklist with me at my office until about a week before the party.  Then I stuck it in my purse so I could keep it with me.  I’m sharing how I created my own decorations later this week, so check back.  You can download your DIY birthday party checklist here.
gone fishing birthday, diy smash cake, first birthday party, birthday party on a budget, meredith rines

For the kids’ activities I decided to keep it simple.  We purchased a kiddie pool for $8 at Wal-Mart and filled it with fishing toys.  I found this amazing magnetic fish toy on Amazon that was filled with 50 pieces (I added a picture below).  It came with nets, a basket, two fishing poles and tons of objects for the kids to fish for.  There was even a blow up pool that came with it, but we opted for the kiddie pool.  It was about $25 and it kept all of the kids occupied.  We may have had a few take a dive, but no one was hurt and they had a blast!

For food, we kept it simple.  J grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.  I had my office tax season party for clients the day before so I was gifted pulled pork, cowboy baked beans (the kind with hamburger meat, bacon and peppers in it… yum!) and a veggie tray which saved us some serious money.  The hot dogs, burger and buns cost about $10 thanks to things being on sale.  

I also added a few snack items like chips and dips (which were gifted to J so we didn’t have to buy them), candies that I bought on sale and a fruit tray.  I had the fruit tray made by my local bakery and it cost $40… what?!?!  Let’s just say I learned my lesson of asking about price… 

I should have asked how much it was going to cost because I could have saved over half of it by making it myself.

Lesson learned.  

I also had the bakery make cookies for the party.  I ordered 2 dozen iced cookies and 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies.  Both of them were a huge hit!

I say overall the food cost less than $100 and decorations cost about $50.  The only other item I purchased was matching t-shirts for us to wear.  I got them on Etsy for about $40, but after I ordered them I found a local girl who could have made them a lot cheaper.  I guess I should have done a little more research on Facebook and asked around before ordering.  I really like them though and the quality is great, plus they came in record time.  So it was a win for sure!

The total cost of our party was about $200.  We have more than enough food left for about 3 other meals, which will save us more money.  Plus it was so great to have all of our family and friends (well the ones that were able to make it since it was Easter weekend, it was a bit difficult for everyone) at our home to celebrate our little man reeling in the big ONE!