This week is a busy week for birthdays in Frugal Upstate’s household. Not only do both my and Princess’s birthdays fall in the next week to 10 days, but we also have at least 2 of Princess’s school friends birthday parties to attend, as well as my nephew and SIL’s birthdays. That same SIL is due to have her baby this month! Wow!
Since the day Princess was born 4 days before my birthday, my birthday has become practically a nonentity. *Sigh* Oh well, it’s not like I want a huge deal made out of getting a year older at this point. DH is taking me out to dinner, hopefully for Thai or Indian food (which will involve a 1 hr drive to Ithaca or Syracuse and hiring a babysitter).
We’ve been planning Princess’s frugal birthday party for several weeks now. There are actually 3 separate events.
#1-On the actual day of her Birthday she gets to bring the snack into nursery school. I am planning on baking cupcakes in icecream cones. I have cones left over from last summer (they are probably a tiny bit stale, but the time in the oven baking should fix that) and I bought “Holiday Confetti” cake mix on sale at Aldi’s for $.49 a box. All I have to do is not add the package of red and green sprinkles in, and viola, no holiday confetti! Just plain old white cake. I’ll make homemade frosting too.
#2-Also on the actual day of her Birthday she gets to pick dinner and Nana and her Aunt B & Uncle J will also come (that is as long as Aunt B isn’t in labor!). We will have a cake (also made from the sale mix w/homemade frosting) and open her family presents. For her dinner she picked, and I quote “Tomato soup, meat, green beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy with mushrooms”. When I asked her what kind of meat she very helpfully told me “Pink Meat”. After a few minutes of conversation I figured out she meant pork. The boneless pork roast did cost me $8-but we’ll get at least 2 meals, if not more, out of it. And if I am trying to slice the meat to serve I hate to cut around the bone.
#3-Next Saturday we are having her friends party. This year she is turning 5, and it is the first time we are having a friends party for her. She decided she wanted a girls only party, and her theme is supposedly “princesses”. The party is being held at her nursery school-which the very generous owner makes available free of charge. You just have to clean up after yourself.
Over the next week I will cover the following topics related to this birthday bonanza:
Frugal birthday gift philosophy.
Creating frugal birthday invitations and thank you’s.
Decorating for a birthday on a dime.
Birthday Activities/Games/crafts
Making a pinata.
Gift bags (for guests).
Birthday Party Eats.
I will wrap up the birthday information with a total cost analysis of how much the entire process of Princess’s birthday cost us.
LOL! I bought some of those Holiday Confetti cake mixes at Aldi’s too! I bought them at .50 a box(I picked up 6 boxes). When I went back in a few days later, they had marked them down to .25 a box! I bought every single box;)
BTW, what I’ve done is replace the green and red sprinkles for regular colored sprinkles. It works just fine.
Sounds like your little girl is going to have a wonderful birthday party! I did a princess party for my daughter many years ago and it was a big hit. Little girls just love to dress up.
I’m laughing–from now on, whenever I hear pork referred to as “the other white meat,” I’m going to think of it as “the pink meat.”