Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Curious George Birthday Party Under $200

It has been almost 5 months since's Hannah's first birthday, so I figured it is about time to show off the birthday party.  From the time she was very little, I knew Curious George would be the perfect theme for our little monkey.  I started making a lot of the decorations very early because I only have about 10 minutes here and there to get anything done.  It was a lot of fun making almost everything myself. I got a lot of my ideas from these two blogs:  Hostess with the Mostess and Frosted Events, and other things I just had to wing and come up with myself.  It was a small party of about 20 family members and close friends, but I think it came out really great.  It was a fun project and it did not cost a lot of money!


I made the banner from scrapbook paper purchased at Michael's.  I just guessed with the size of the pennant, printed out the letters, used round objects in the house to cut out the circles, punched holes in the corners, and strung it all together with ribbon.  Cost:  $6

For the flower vases, I used recycled oatmeal containers.  I created the stripes in Photoshop making sure the file was 8.5 x 11 inches.  Luckily, the oatmeal containers were about 11 inches tall, so I didn't have to buy any special paper.  I printed out two sheets of regular paper per container and taped them on.  I happened to have two glass vases that fit perfectly inside.  The flowers were purchased at Trader Joe's that morning.  Cost:  Free for the vases.  $10 for flowers.


I bought the three Coca-Cola glasses and the candy inside of them at The Dollar Tree.  The candies are Red Hots, Lemon Drops and bubble gum.  Cost:  $6. 

I borrowed the white cake stand from my mom and she made the angel food cake on top of it.  Cost:  I have no idea.  Free to me!

The books and stuffed animal were Christmas gifts.  

I purchased the table cloths, plates, cups, and napkins at Party City and probably paid too much, but it was easy.  I think it all cost $40.  



I borrowed the cupcake holder from my mom.  I bought the different colored cupcake papers on Amazon for more than I probably should have, but I HAD to have them!  For each color (yellow and red), they were about $5 for 40 papers.  For the toppers, I found some random blue circle things in the scrapbook aisle at Michael's. I printed out red H's and meticulously cut them out. Also in that package were the fancy yellow rectangles I used for food labels. I think that package was about $3.  I didn't have enough blue circles for all the cupcakes, so I used leftover yellow and red scrapbook paper from the banner, cut out some pictures of Curious George, and glued them to the back.  I got the white sticks at Walmart for about $2 for a huge package (I had a ton leftover.)  I just used boxed cake mix and premade icing. 


Total cupcake cost:  $25 for 40.



I made the chocolate chip cookies and put them on two white plates purchased from The Dollar Tree.  Cost: $4.50 



I took a photo out of this white frame that we already had, printed out this quote and glued it it to yellow paper.  
Cost:  Free


The main food table.

For food, we had taquitos, a veggie tray, chips and salsa, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  I made everything from scratch, including the salsa.  I really don't know how much the food cost, but I'm going to guess about $30. 



Every month, I took a photo of Hannah.  I printed out all the photos, taped the month number to the corner, hole punched the corners and strung them together with ribbon.  I bought an assorted pack of balloons at The Dollar Tree and just picked out the colors I wanted.  They are strung together with thread.  Cost:  $2  


In the room off of the living room, I put a red table cloth over our coffee table and called it the doodling desk (an idea from one of the linked blogs above.)  I printed off Curious George coloring sheets for free, and i got the yellow box from the dollar section at Target.  I made the sign in Photoshop and glued it to leftover red scrapbook paper.  
Cost: $2  


I got the popcorn tub at The Dollar Tree.  Inside are the goodie bags.  I wish I had a better picture of the bags themselves.  Inside of the clear cellophane bags is a banana, a yellow lollipop, and a small bottle of Curious George bubbles purchased from Amazon.  We had 7 bags total for a cost of about $1.75 each.  
Total Cost:  $14 


We set up the drinks on our island.  I already had the metal tub.  I borrowed the water dispenser from my sister.  Keeping with the color scheme, we added lemons to the water, and we had Coca Cola and Squirt (yellow and red cans!)  
Cost:  $12


I made this sign for the door.  
Cost: Free


For Hannah's cake, I made a no-sugar recipe from wholesomebabyfood.com, used low sugar Cool Whip for the frosting, and surrounded it with sliced bananas.  She really didn't eat any of it.  Oh well!  
Cost:  I don't know...maybe $7 for all the ingredients.  


Grand Total:  About $160

All of the numbers I gave above are complete estimates because I'm going off of memory from months ago.  I think they are all pretty close to what I spent though.  

Now that she is almost a year and a half old, I guess it's time to start planning the 2nd birthday party!  





And let's not forget the dress I made from a thrift store adult sweater.  My mom added the scarf because my sewing skills are mediocre at best!  This is the tutorial I used.  


Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Step Stool That Saved Dinner




Toddlers love to be involved in absolutely everything their parents are doing.  They want to learn, explore, and experiment.  Being only 29 inches tall does not serve Hannah well in this regard.  Most of the time, I am on the floor exploring with her and teaching her how the world works.  Unfortunately, there is this thing called "having to eat."  Any time a meal needs preparing, or a dish needs washing, Hannah freaks.  She literally wedges herself between my legs and the counter and pushes with all her might while screaming.  I try to be as quick as possible.  I sometimes sit her up on the counter, which buys me a little time, but then it just turns into a game of me cooking with one hand, and preventing serious injury with the other.

Then came the step stool.

We went to Ikea a couple weeks ago and picked up a nice sturdy, wooden, and most importantly tall step stool.   This thing has completely changed our lives.  Not only am I able to actually cook dinner, Hannah is now involved.  The stool has replaced horrible, screaming fits with wonderful learning experiences.  She stirs things for me and pours ingredients in bowls.  She loves standing at the sink and pouring water from one cup to the other, splashing, and "doing dishes."  She is head over heals in love with her stool.  This is a child who has never had anything hold her attention for more than 3 minutes in her whole 16 month long life.  Now, she will stack spice containers for 15-20 minutes (!)  If you have a toddler, and you don't have a stool, go get one NOW!


If you don't have an Ikea nearby (I don't see the stool online), look into buying a Learning Tower.  They a re pricey new, but you can sometimes find them on craigslist.  If you're handy, here are some  plans to build your own.
Stacking spices is actually a really great activity.  The way the caps and bottoms are, they fit nicely on top of one another without falling.  Hannah easily stacks 3-4 all by herself.  

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Evolution of a Parent: Our Sleep Journey

Before reading this post, please read The Evolution of a Blog.

While pregnant, I skimmed Dr. Sears' The Attachment Parenting Book.  A lot of the ideas made sense to me, but I wasn't going to take it as gospel.  I kind of had an idea of what kind of parent I wanted to be, but I also wanted to wait until H got here, and then kind of wing it.

And wing it, we did.  

There were many things I didn't know and wasn't prepared for.  When H was about 9 months old, I wrote a post on here called The Honest Truth.  This post was written as I was slowly coming out of a bad place, hence the overwhelming negativity in it. We had a pretty rough infancy with H, but it wasn't because she was a particularly hard baby.  I believe now that I had a hard time because of my perspective of the situation.

If I could rewrite The Honest Truth, I would probably keep the bulk of it the same.  I think it does a good job of describing to people the details of how having a baby is hard.  What I would change is the ending.  Yes, it is difficult, but what I realize now is the reason for it.  It wasn't hard for me because Hannah was a "bad" sleeper.  It wasn't hard because she refused to take a bottle or pacifier, or because she loved bouncing on the yoga ball.  It was hard because she was a baby, and babies have a lot of needs.  She wasn't a bad sleeper.  She just loved to be close to her mommy, (can you blame her?)  I would have melt down after melt down because she wouldn't nap anywhere except my arms.  Instead of reading books and researching the internet to try to figure out how to make her nap flat on her back all by herself, I think it would have been easier to handle if I just would have realized that she's a baby.  I should have realized that she just spent almost 10 months curled up in a nice warm, safe place, with the slightest bit of motion, listening to my heartbeat.  I was expecting too much of her, and had zero empathy for her in those moments.  This is my deepest regret as a parent so far.  

I had a love-hate relationship with co-sleeping.  I loved snuggling with her, and knowing she was safe right next me.  But I despised having to go to bed so early, barely seeing my husband, and sleeping in 30 minute increments.  Although nothing can really cure sleep deprivation, I think a better attitude about it would have made all the difference in the world.  I always said we coslept out of desperation.  "She has to sleep with me.  She refuses to sleep anywhere else,"  I would say.  As with my example about naps, I should have realized that it is only natural for her to want to cozy up with me.  I should not have made it sound like she was lacking some terrific skill that all other babies possess.  I should not have made it sound like she was totally and completely inconveniencing me.  The truth is, it was inconvenient.  But she is a human being that I am raising.  I'm not trying to make her fit into the life I had before.  This is a completely new life filled with new challenges.

We moved H to her crib at 6 months by making her cry, like everyone told us to, and it worked.  I don't regret this because I don't think it scarred her for life, and we all ended up sleeping better (including her.)  To this day (at 16 months old), she continues to wake at night.  We've been through so many different routines of sleep.   We go through about 2-3 weeks of consistency, then things change.  The times when I have been happiest are not when I am getting adequate sleep.  It is always when I accept the situation, look at life through her eyes, and have empathy.  It is when I stop reading things on the internet, or talking to other moms, making comparisons about how I "should" be doing things, what I should try, what is normal.  I'm happiest when I stay in my own world and realize I love the way things are, and we are absolutely fine.  I feel this way for a little while, then I get sucked back into the comparison game and try to change things again.  I tried to night wean, I tried CIO again.  We tried so many things I can't even remember everything we've tried.  I went back to having the "She's a terrible sleeper" attitude.  It was exhausting always trying to figure out how things should be and how to get there.

At this moment, I can say with confidence that I have come full circle.  We decided to go back to co-sleeping, at least part time.  We realized, as a family, that this is just what H needs.  By waking up so many times at night, she is trying to tell us something.  She is not ready to be by herself all night long.  Sure, sometimes she only wakes twice, which is less than some toddlers do, but it would always take me about 30 minutes to get her to go back down.  This meant about 2.5 hour sleep stretches per night for me.  We bought a mattress a few weeks ago and put it on the floor in H's room, and I have never been happier.  Sometimes when she wakes, I can rock her and get her back in her bed, and I sneak back to my bed.  Sometimes, I just lay down with her and sleep with her the rest of the night.  It is amazing.  I now have a love-love relationship with cosleeping.  There are times when she only wakes once, and I only have to nurse for a bit and she rolls over and goes back to sleep, all without me having to get up.  There are times when she wakes, and all I have to do is pat her back and remind her I'm there for her, and she goes back to sleep.  If she was alone in her crib, a simple little wake up like that always turned into a big prodcution: cry a little, stand up, cry a lot, wait for me, I come in, nurse, rock, nurse, rock, try to lay her down, cry again, nurse, rock, nurse, rock, etc.  All she was trying to tell me in those wake ups was, "Mommy, I'm alone in here!  Where are you?  I'd like to see you and have you hold me for a minute please."  Now with her next to me, when she wakes up, she is thinking, "Mommy? Are you there? Oh you are, I'll go back to sleep now."  Even though H may be waking just as frequently at times, I feel more rested than I have in a very long time.  There are times when I feel pretty tired, but I try to maintain a good attitude about it.  I love waking up in the morning to a big, wet, open-mouthed kiss from my little girl.  When she had a cold, I was able to nurse her a lot at night, so she didn't keep herself up all night coughing.  I love that I could do that for her.  I was tired, yes, but I felt good about the reason for being tired.  And I was much less tired than I would have been if I had to get up constantly all night to tend to a sick a baby.  

So there you have it.  My evolution as a parent so far, and our roller coaster of a sleep journey.  I'm sure parenting will continue to be a roller coaster in and of itself for the duration of my motherhood.  I'm not much for labeling the type of parent I am because I think it's better to pick and choose little things here and there that work for you.  But here I am, a co-sleeping, breastfeeding, amber teething necklace buying softy who most would probably consider an "Attachment Parent." I suppose if I'm labeling, that is the label I would prefer; however the woman at nurshable.com uses the word "gentle parenting," which I like better.  I didn't start off as a parent thinking, "I am going to be an attachment parent."  We just do what works for our family.  What I've come to realize is that I am happiest as a parent when I listen to my gut, and respond to my child's needs according to my instincts.  I regret not knowing all of this and for not having this point of view before Hannah was born, but I'm forever grateful to her for teaching all of this to me.  

The Evolution of a Blog

This blog has been quite ignored lately.  The answer is simple:  I have a toddler.  I know it is easy to make time for the things you want to make time for, so I suppose I just haven't wanted to make time for blogging.  It isn't a priority.  But writing is cathartic for me, so I think it will be good to get back into it. The original idea of this blog was to be all about "home" type stuff, i.e., crafts, recipes, diy and the like.  When I get the chance, I will post things of that nature.   What I recently realized is that the place where I have the most to learn is parenting.  Because of this, I will start to post things about my personal parenting journey, as well.

As a disclaimer:
Please keep in mind that when you read any of my parenting posts they are about me.  They are not me telling you what to do.  They are not me judging others about what or how you do things.  With each individual child and parent comes just as many individual ways of doing things.  Do what works for you.  Just because you do things differently than I do, does not mean that I think you're wrong.

-Magen