6 Ways to Save Money on Birthday Parties

I love planning parties.  And planning my kid's birthday parties are my very favorite thing.  I love having them help pick a theme for the party based on what they're currently into and then having lots of fun collecting the perfect items for the party.  We always celebrate with both sides of our families and then do a little something small at home on their actual birthday.

We recently celebrated Fletcher's birthday and it was so sweet.  It's hard to believe right after we celebrated his birthday last year that the world shut down in a lot of ways.  Life has been weird this year, but we are starting to see sunnier days ahead.  It was great to get together to celebrate Fletcher.

1. Check Your Party Supply Stash First

Go through you plates, napkins, cups, silverware, platters, straws, etc. and see what items you have that would work for your theme.  Once you've done that, make a list of the party supplies you still need.  I grabbed flag napkins from my 4th of July stash, some leftover striped straws from Halloween and added in some yellow to use platters I already owned.  Everything came together so cute... I mean tough :)

 

2. Make Your Own Invitations

A really easy way to make your own invitations is to take your own picture, use Pic Monkey and then text out the invitation to your family and friends.  You can opt for a Pic Monkey subscription and that is still much more affordable than paying someone else to design an invitation for you.

Fletch is really into "army guys" right now.

I kept my eye out for some army vehicles in our town and this tank just jumped out at me one day.  I knew I had to get Fletcher's picture by it for his invitation.  He thought it was so cool.  It took us maybe 5 minutes, I didn't plan a special outfit for him, we just stopped by and took some fun pictures.  It really don't have to be complicated.

Then I added the wording, saved the files to my computer and texted them out to family and friends.  I got several compliments on the invitations.

3. Make Your Own Treats

You can save big $$$ by making your own birthday desserts.  None of my kids love cupcakes so I just usually let the birthday boy or girl pick their favorite desserts.  Fletcher requested brownies, chocolate chip cookies and I added in some chocolate dipped pretzels.  I picked out the green, yellow and brown M&Ms to go with my theme.  The desserts turned out great!

4. Edible Favors

You can't go wrong with edible favors.  We grabbed Fletcher's favorite treats - found great deals at Sams and Walmart and packaged them up.  We added key chain compasses from Amazon and found lots of camouflage party items on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  I didn't add any bows bc boy party and Fletcher was thrilled to hand these out.

5. Free Greenery

I wanted something fresh and something green for the tables, but I didn't want to buy fresh flowers.  Green roses just didn't seem to go with the army guy theme.  We have boxwood bushes and I got to thinking that Boxwood bouquets would be perfect for the tables!  I used a set of my favorite vases, cut enough branches to fill each vase and they looked perfect.  Fresh, green and went perfectly with our theme.  My husband wasn't thrilled with me trimming the bushes, but if you trim bottom branches that are close to your house, no one will ever notice you gave your shrubs a haircut.

6. Decorate with Toys

I borrowed Fletcher's favorite army guys and their vehicles for decorations.  Olive set up all the army guys and everything looked cute with the army guys in groups of 5 (because Olive said that's how they had to be since Fletcher is turning 5).  She's the best party helper!  I picked up the camo tanks at Dollar Tree along with some more bags of army guys.  We used them for the party and then added them to his stash of army guys afterwards.

I've done this same thing for a dinosaur party, bunny party, LOL doll party, Princess Sofia, etc.

I got a mix of things on Amazon, Walmart, Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree.  I'll link anything I can below with affiliate links from Amazon in case you've got someone who'd love an army guy party :)

More Monster Trucks

We had a fun time celebrating Fletcher's birthday with Kevin's family.  We ordered pizzas and were surrounded by our favorite great grandparents, aunts and family.

Fletcher called the menu - pizza, bread sticks, Cheetos and his favorite desserts.

The kids helped me decorate.  Fletcher was so proud of his monster truck line up.  Olive had a headache so she wasn't feeling 100%.

He got lots of fun presents and Olive was a good helper.

I never got around to taking posed pictures with everyone.  But I did snap pictures of Fletcher giving everyone thank you hugs.  It was really sweet.  He's a lucky guy to have so many great grandparents, grandparents and family.

So glad we were able to celebrate Fletcher turning 4 with family!

Little Brother or Little Sister???

We are excited to announce that Baby #3 is a BOY!!

What a fun surprise!

Olive was hoping for a sister.

Fletcher was hoping for a brother.  He kept telling people he was going to kick a girl out of the house.

I was confused.

Kevin was leaning towards a boy.

Everything about this third pregnancy has been different.  I couldn't line up much of anything with my other two pregnancies.  With both Olive and Fletcher, I knew their genders before the doctors told me.  This time, if I had to guess, I would have said girl.  I was wrong - ha!

We did blood work at one of my appointments and they casually said, "You can call the office in a couple of weeks to find out the gender and then a little later the genetic testing results will be in."  I'd never done gender blood work with Olive or Fletcher.  I wasn't monitoring it all that closely, but Kevin was.  He kept bugging me to call in and check to see if the results were in.  He was dying to know.  I think I wanted to have a similar experience as with O & F and find out at our ultrasound appointment.  Kevin won out and I called to find out the gender.

The sweet office lady said my results were in and "You are having a BOY!"

I wish I'd have video footage of my reaction because I was SO surprised.  I guess that's been the theme of this pregnancy so far... sweet surprise!  I said something about being so surprised and that we were excited.  We really had no preferences for our bonus baby.

I had to tell a little white lie to Kevin on the day I called.  He texted midday to see if the results were in and I said they were not.  I hurried and baked up a surprise for him when he got home.  We weren't telling the kids just yet.  I made his favorite homemade cinnamon rolls and drizzled one with blue icing.  He was surprised that I knew and loved finding out this way.

We had our gender ultrasound appointment last Friday.  Kevin rearranged his morning so he could come along.  As luck would have it, the doctor was running way behind, the baby did not cooperate for the ultrasound and my doctor was confident in the blood results.  A little anticlimactic :)  Off to buy the boy stuff to announce it's a boy to the kids!

We waited until we were all home together to share the news.  We went outside to do some confetti canons for the kids.  They were really excited.

Olive was a tiny bit sad she didn't see pink confetti.  Then she spent the rest of the weekend making birthday cards for little brother, making me a list of all the things she'd be able to help me with for the baby and said she'd love to share a room with the baby.  She's already a great big sister, but it'll be fun to see her with a tiny baby again.

Fletcher wasn't quite sure what all the blue was about so we had to explain that blue = little brother.  He kept cheering OH YEAH!!!

Everyone was excited and talking about names, baby boy details and all the things little boy.  It was fun to come up with a sweet surprise for the kids.  We facetimed and called family over the weekend to tell them.

These confetti canons were so cool!  There was tons of confetti and they were just $4.99 for two at Hobby Lobby.  You buy the gender you need.  You can also use the 40% off coupon.  We would highly recommend them.  

You'll have to leave your favorite boy names in the comments because boy names are hard for me!  What boy name would go well with Olive & Fletcher??

Fletcher's 3rd Construction Party

We loaded up the party supplies and headed to visit family for the end of our Spring Break.  We celebrated Fletcher's birthday a little early at home and then spent his actual birthday with family.  We had two parties to spread out the fun. 

Fletcher was SO EXCITED for his birthday this year.  He asked for days about opening gifts, who was coming, what the menu was and was curious about all things birthday.  it was really sweet.  He kept reminding us... "Guys it's my birthday!!"

We gave him his own policeman uniform and you better believe he's barely taken it off since.  He couldn't wait until Papaw got home to show him that they matched.  We took some cute pictures of the two policemen together.

We did a nacho bar one night and ordered pizza the next night.  The desserts menu was based on Fletcher's favorites.

My Aldi plants made great centerpieces.

We brought all of our favorite construction toys from home.  The kids had a fun time digging and playing in the rocks.  I bought several bags of those decorative rocks from Dollar Tree and my kids play with them almost every day in the construction site at home.

My mom and I worked hard to shop and prep everything.  I couldn't have done it without her!!  She's the best party planner/helper.  The house looked great and we were ready for the party about an hour early!!

Have you ever seen these tiny street taco shells??  They worked perfectly for feeding a crowd!  I'll definitely be buying them again.

I wrote out construction themed food signs for the Nacho Bar.

The kids love sitting at a kids only table :) W hat a fun crew!

Olive was really a sweet sister the whole birthday weekend.  She was happy to help.  And she even surprised me with a construction themed outfit.  I picked out that green shirt for Fletcher as a back up and she decided she would wear it to be on theme :)

What a sweet birthday boy!!  He sang right along with us and blew out his candle before the song was over.

The weather was really awful for the party with Kevin's family.  Pouring rain and freezing temperatures so we scrapped our plan to grill and be outside.  We ordered pizza and enjoyed some treats.  I didn't take many pictures, but we had a wonderful time.  Everyone fights over Kevin's grandma's no bake cookies.  It's the only menu item that both of my kids requested.  They're delicious and a cookie that I cannot seem to master.  Maybe one day.

Fletcher is so lucky to have four great grandparents on Kevin's side!  Nana & Papa

Grandma & Grandpa - Fletcher thinks Grandpa's cane is the coolest!

We're excited to see what fun adventures we'll have with our favorite 3 year old this year!