Alot .Of. Tola

Once your kids get to an age where they start to understand what is going on and also get the concept of birthdays and birthday parties, then you have to put a little more thought into planning those birthday parties. But as much as you would love to give them the entire world and go all out for those birthday parties, you also have to be realistic and keep it within budget. So I thought I would share some ways to make it a fun and memorable party, but keep it easy on your wallet as well.

Keep it very low maintenance, something as simple as a backyard party or if you don't own a home doing it at the pool in your apartment or club house. This saves you money from having to plan an extravagant party, or having to worry about paying for a hall space or purchasing a party package from you local party locations.
Seek out cheaper options, the dollar store and even the dollar spot at Target are always life savers, you can get so many good items either to entertain the guest or for your goodies gift bags.
Stick to non-traditional themes, so instead of doing a popular Disney movie theme, mix it up and do something more in line with colors. Or instead of my little pony theme, do a unicorn theme birthday party. You can check out the site basic invite to get amazing different birthday party invitation that not only affordable, but give you variety of options to stay on theme for whatever theme you decide to with. They offer a custom party invitations at the fraction of the cost which is amazing for the mama that wants to have a party that looks and feels like she spent a fortune, but her wallet doesn't feel it.

Buy store bought cakes rather than doing a custom order. Stores like whole foods or Sam's club have beautiful inexpensive cake options that are also delicious
Keep it low key, sometimes we get overly excited to do it up for our kids. But honestly when they are young, they could careless they just want their parents there and the people that matter the most. So keep it low key and make it close family and friends, less people means less foods and less spending.

I know that pressure we put on ourselves as moms to go the extra mile for our kids and give them the world, but we have to also be smart about it. I think celebrating your child's birthday and marking that age in their life is necessary but it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg!

What are some ways you plan and celebrate your child'd birthday on a budget?

No comments

After you get out of holiday mode and start to get back into life as you know it, that can also mean getting yourself and your family out of holiday habits and routines. I don't know about your guys but, honestly from thanksgiving till after the new year I tend to find myself in this phase of constant snacking and just eating everything within sight. So now I am trying to transition us back to healthier new year habits, by making very minor but much needed changes

More outdoor activities, during the holidays and the two weeks that the girls were out of school, we ended up being indoors a lot more than I would have liked to be so for the new year I plan to try more outdoor activities to take us out of the house and away from our screens. More park days, taking a walk around the neighborhood, and some good ole running around outside

Meal Planning, it is so easy to want to order pizza or just have the entire family go out to dinner because you got too lazy to prepare dinner. Or you get back from work and the last thing you want to do is stand in a kitchen and prepare a meal. But if you stay ahead of it, by preparing the entire line up of food over the weekend for either the week ahead or even in some cases I have heard people prepare their meals for a month ahead, its a chance to prepare healthier meal options and also you are saving money so win win situation!

Staying active, I never quite understood why moms had their kids in so many sport activities but being a mom now I get it. Especially in a world where kids end up spending so much time indoors and behind screens. Putting them in some type of physical activity, where they get to burn energy and also it keeps me accountable for my own fitness journey
Incorporate more fruits and veggies, especially when you have young kids. It can be so easy to incorporate more fruits and veggies, be the example of for them if they see you eating and enjoying it then they are more willing to want to enjoy it.
Switch out juices for more water, I recently got into sparkling waters and so I have been using that as the perfect substitute for juice and soda

I know it will take some time to get my entire family aligned with the lifestyle changes, but just being the example and staying on top of things with time it will become the norm.

No comments

After the holidays it almost feels like my body and mind just seems to still be stuck on holiday mode and can't quite snap out of it. By the time the new year rolls around, I am having to pep talk myself back into the swing of things, and make sure I can get going on all the goals and various things I have set out to accomplish for the year. So this year to get ahead of things and not allow my January to run away from me before I know it, I am implementing some minor ways to mentally reset after the holidays.

Clear out my Christmas decor within the first few days of the year. This one can be hard, because the decorations tend to keep the spirit of Christmas alive and I mean who can look at Christmas lights and not instantly get into a good mood. But, that also gets us stuck in Christmas mode. So this year, we actually took down the Christmas decoration on new year day. I saw it as a great way to start the new year, everything fresh and cleaned up.
Purge out your refrigerator, all those holiday left overs that have been seating in your refrigerator. The Christmas desserts that you packed away that you probably have no real plans to eat except as a late night snack, just go ahead and toss it out. Creating space for fresh new meals that you will be making in the new year, fresh and healthy!

Get back into schedule/routine, during the holiday especially with everyone being on break routines everything slowly makes it to the back burner. But in other to shake off that holiday and vacation lifestyle, you are gonna need to get back to your routines. Get back to going to bed when you usually do, waking up with your alarm rather than just hitting the snooze button.
Plan ahead, take some time to plan out your year. For me I actually purchased a calendar and went through the entire year and plugged in important dates like birthdays, vacation, no school days, appointments and so on. By doing this, it clears it out of my head and it gives me a chance to see what is to come and plan ahead.
Write down your goals, this year I am very intentional about writing down my goals and having visual representation of everything I am setting my sight on for 2020. By writing it down and having it where its constantly in my face and I am always reminded of it. This keeps me motivated to get my stuff together and achieve what I need to.

Being a mama to young kids the holiday season end up being such a busy and hectic season, trying to keep up with all the endless to-do lists as well as trying to make sure you make it memorable for the entire family. So after all that running around, usually you kind of want to rest up some more and so those first few weeks of the new year is spent recouping, but hopefully taking the right steps to mentally shift your mindset rather than lazying around or being in limbo.

No comments

New Year's Eve celebrations start to look a lot different once you have kids, gone are the days of turning up all night long. But that doesn't mean it can't still be a fun night even with your kids, so here are some ways the entire family can ring in the new year!

Enjoy a family house party, some times we are more worried about celebrating some big and grand way with a big group but honestly you can invite other friends who also have kids and just have your own in house party and countdown. Its more personal, fun and safer
Find Midday New Year's Eve celebrations, so many local museums and amusement parks host day time celebrations so the entire family can go and celebrate. Places like Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark which will be hosting a roaring new year's eve celebration from Dec 31st at 10 am to Jan 1st at 1 am, so you get to pick the time that works best for your family and celebrate until you are tired.

Make it a Netflix and New Year Eve, your children might not be able to hang into midnight but you can still make it a movie night. Everyone gets to snuggle up with blankets and their pjs, enjoying as much movies as the kiddos can take till they fall asleep.
Buy all the fun new year's party supplies, like party hats, blow horns and those cool year glasses and have everyone ring in and count down into the new year. And sometimes if the kids can't make it into the actual new year, I know so many of those new years eve count downs on TV will count down to new year on the east coast and sometimes even other countries. So you can get excited for that and get the kids all happy for the new year.
Make it a fun family game night with all sorts of new years activities to keep the kids busy or just tire them out lol.

I think realizing that new year's eve celebrations will a tad bit different once you add kids to the equation is so key, and honestly even if you decide you still want to celebrate how you have always done prior to kids you still have to realize a lot more planning goes into now. Making sure you have someone to watch the little ones and having things aligned properly so you can go out and fully enjoy the night without worry. But either way you decide to celebrate whether with the entire family in the comfort of your home, or with the kids being in the care of a family member or sitter just make sure to enjoy the day and enter the new year with a fresh perspective and ready to conquer it! How do you plan on celebrating your new year's eve?

Shop Our Looks!!!

2 comments

Holiday season can be quite hectic and if you are also privileged to have a big family or have family members who you can spend the holidays with, it can get a little hard trying to figure out how to spend time with everyone. When you marry someone you pretty much marry them and their entire family, and so when the holidays come around there is this need to share the love equally. Which honestly is just unrealistic, but I think the most important part is being as fair as you humanly can be and do what works most importantly for yourself and your family.

Communicate with you partner way ahead of time on how you all want to handle the holidays, I think we all sometimes just assume but rather than assuming everyone is on the same page have set out plan on how you want to spend the holiday. Especially those first years try to understand what each other's traditions are around the holiday and try to build your own traditions based off of that. But having a set plan of where and what family you will spend each and every holiday with, will make it all easier.

Be fair and try to shuffle things around, some years you might choose to spend thanksgiving with one family and the next year you choose to spend Christmas with them. Trying to give everyone a fair amount of family time is so important. I recently spoke with a co-worker who was explaining how her brother recently got married, and the whole time him and his now wife were dating they had always done Christmas with his family. Now that they are married, they have completely switched it up and do all holidays with her family which is something her mom is very disappointed and hurt by. So I think just trying to be fair and know which holidays you will do with each family, or if you even want to do both holidays with both families be sure to break up times so everyone feels the love.
Sometimes you can make the decision to not do the holidays with either family and just do it on your own, and then your families can decide if they would like to come to you. A friend of mine told me once she and her husband started having kids, they made the decision they would not be traveling to see families for the holidays. Instead they host their own small family holiday dinner, and extended family decide if they can make it down or not. By doing this, it makes it easier on her and her husband not having to figure out which family they would be spending what holiday with.

Honestly there is no one size fits all on this topic, every family gets to decide what works best for them and no matter how hard you try someone will always feel like you didn't try hard enough. So just do what works best for you and your immediate family, and build your own traditions that will last as life long memories for your kids.

No comments

Alot .Of. Tola

About me

Follow Me

recent posts

Blog Archive

Linqia

brandbacker