Putting Together a Quick & Easy Minecraft Birthday

Earlier this week we celebrated the middle child's birthday.  Where the last few years have gone is a mystery to me!  The night before his birthday we went on a mommy/son date for a haircut, dinner and a little shopping trip to Toys R Us to spend the gift card and birthday money that had arrived in birthday cards that day.  While we were out together I said to him that I didn't think I was ready for him to turn five and asked if he could be four just a little bit longer... he's a smart little guy though, and replied with "How about I be four for the rest of the night?"  Ok.  Guess I can't argue with that...

He is a Minecraft fanatic.  I'm not quite sure how that even came to be, but Minecraft on the iPad, Grandma's computer, playing "real life Minecraft" and watching Minecraft videos on Youtube consume his little (now) five year old life.  I should also mention that he was Steve from Minecraft for Halloween!

He had seen some Youtube videos of different Minecraft themed cakes.  One in particular in the shape of Steve caught his eye and he had me watch it with him multiple times.  Unfortunately for him, my cake skills are severely limited... fortunately for me, Pinterest has a plethora of Minecraft themed birthday ideas and I found a cake that I thought we could replicate AND that would satisfy our blonde birthday boy AKA DanRidesMinecarts. 

This is what we ended up with, I was so happy with how it came out and our birthday boy was pretty excited too!  It was easy to control the portions on this cake, we only needed to have enough for our little immediate family, but you could easily build something similar on a larger scale.  For this cake I used one box of chocolate cake mix, two 6oz packages of blue jello and one batch of Rice Krispie treats (and ended up with leftover "blocks" of each)  I used square pans, either 8x8 or 9x9, to make each component so it would be thicker and more block like than having the batter spread out in a larger sized pan.  I also grabbed a can of green Betty Crocker cupcake frosting, and the star tip was perfect for making the grass on top of the dirt blocks.  I will freely admit that the star of the cake was the little figures we found to put on top.  I was hesitant to fork out $25ish dollars for these guys, but he has played with them every day since his birthday so I've considered them just another one of his gifts.  We found the packaged figures on Amazon, Core Player Survival Pack and the Creeper Pack. 

The one thing I forgot to consider were candles for this awesome cake.  Thankfully the man of the house came to the rescue with the brilliant idea of using matches to represent the Minecraft torches. (I apologize for the crummy picture, but you get the idea)

We also decided to go the Minecraft route with birthday treats for his preschool class.  Again, with the help of Pinterest, we were able to come up with a cute and fairly inexpensive idea.  I like coming up with things that are a little different than the standard store bought, sugar bomb cupcakes.  I bought clear treat bags from the Dollar Tree (they come in packs of 25), a roll of green curling ribbon, a bag of stick pretzels, rolos and new cookies and creme Hershey's Kisses in very diamond-like blue foil.  Too keep these preschool friendly, each treat bag got two of each candy and a handful of pretzels.  The real Minecraft highlight of the treat bags were these free printable tags I found on Pinterest.  We downloaded the ones we wanted to use (diamond, gold & sticks) to a USB drive and took them to the office supply store to be color printed on cardstock.  HERE is the site I found on Pinterest full of great party ideas AND free food printables.

 All in all, I think we pulled off a pretty fun day for our boy!  Without breaking the bank, without spending WEEKS upon WEEKS planning and preparing and still managing to give him a themed birthday to remember.

Happy 5th Birthday DanRidesMinecart!

 

Goal Setting {Week 2}

After my mostly successful first week, I'm using this forum again to gain some accountability for a new week's goals! 

I sat down with my coffee this morning (anyone else's favorite time of the day?) and came up with the following list:

Goals for the week of March 10-16

1) Drink 4+ glasses of water each day

2) Focus on real food - No fast food or gorging on junk snacks

3) Dannon's Birthday!  (Wrap gifts, make cake)

4) Follow week 2 of 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home challenge

5) Wake up with alarm

6) Sell $85 worth of stuff and pay natural gas bill

7) Consignment sale prep

You'll notice my first two goals... I have felt pretty crummy over the last few days and I'm attributing that to not being aware of my water intake AND splurging on junk that wasn't in our budget and didn't agree much with my body.  The crap food I consumed over the weekend included a late night Dairy Queen snack of chicken strips & fries, Mt Dew, cheese cake complete with cherry pie filling, pizza, donuts and multiple Cadbury Creme Eggs.  I tend to go through periods of zero impulse control, and then I pay for it massively.  Enough is enough!  Its one thing to have a treat (or fulfill a pregnancy craving... thats where the Cadbury eggs came into play) occasionally, but I need to do a better job of cutting myself off.

I wrote "Consignment sale prep" as a goal for the week, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to measure that.  I'm consigning at my second Super Kids Resale next month and I've got a lot to do between now and then to get ready!  There is definitely work involved in being a consignor at these types of sales, but its really something that I look forward to.  I have fun volunteering during the sale, I LOVE shopping the sale and I really love the check that comes a few weeks after the sale.  The income from the sale will be very beneficial to us this year, but I'm also at a bit of a disadvantage with our desire to leave the gender of our baby unknown until birth.  IF we knew we were having a girl, there are a lot of baby boy items I could tag for the sale and if we knew the gender I would also be able to stock up on clothes and other items we're needing for baby at a great discount.  But... since thats not the case, I will come up with a list of items that we're needing that can be gender neutral and I'm sure I'll find more than a few good bargains during the sale!

Week 1 Review & Unplugging Success!

I sat down on Monday morning and wrote out a list of 6 goals for the week, I will admit that I didn't follow through on ALL of them, but nonetheless I am happy with what was accomplished over the course of the last week.  Here is the recap:

Goals for the week of March 3-9

1) Follow 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home plan

2) Sell $50-100 worth of items

3) Attend family night @ headstart on Tuesday

4) Get fabric & make Minecraft Steve pillow for Dannon's birthday

5) Get up each morning with the alarm

6) Yoga x2, Just Dance x1

My biggest feat was following along with the daily tasks associated with the 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home challenge.  Its kind of a no brainer that household chores are easier when you stay on top of things, but I have a habit of NOT staying on top of things which results in a massive house cleaning attempt when the motivation does hit.  I'm slowly becoming the type of person who does a little bit every day in order to keep things manageable, and to avoid the hit-by-a-tornado style of  "decorating!"  The tasks for the week included a 15 minute quick pick up of living areas, cleaning out the purse/diaper bag and getting rid of 7 things on Monday, a 15 minute quick clean of the kitchen, cleaning out the refrigerator and finding another 7 things to get rid of on Tuesday, a 15 minute quick clean of the master bedroom, ANOTHER 7 things and cleaning out the freezer (the one task I didn't feel was necessary to our home this week) on Wednesday, a 15 minute quick clean of the master bath, cleaning underneath beds and furniture, and yes, you guessed it... 7 more things on Thursday and finally cleaning the couch (vacuuming under cushions, spot cleaning and washing all the covers) on Friday.  

I was able to do each of these special cleaning tasks in addition to the other 5-7 things on my daily to do list.  There were a few days that I procrastinated the things on the list, but at the end of the day, it felt great to follow through! I love knowing that if I devote 15 minutes to a quick clean I can get most of the needed things done in one specific room (NOT including our bedroom which will require more than one 15 minute interval!)

The next goal for the week that I was able to cross off was selling $50-100 worth of items!  Between the local facebook buy/sell group that I am part of and one item sold on ebay I was able to make about $72 this week.  Its not close to closing the income deficit we're experiencing since my ex husband stopped paying his court ordered child support, but every little bit helps.  I applied $40 of my sales to our natural gas bill and spent the rest on a few things we needed to pick up at the grocery store and Target.

Lets talk about Family Night at Dannon's school!  It was totally worth sitting through a presentation that was mostly done in Spanish, to see how happy Dannon was to have us all there.  They fed us all an amazing meal of tostadas and all three of the kiddos got to play in the classroom.  It was a nice way to break up the sometimes monotonous feel of our weeknights without spending a dime.  We'll definitely plan on attending next month too!

The last weekly goal I was able to cross of the list was getting up each morning with the alarm.  I guess if I'm being TECHNICAL I should admit that I hit snooze once or twice... but each morning I was out of bed before 7am and it just feels better to get a start on the day, instead of the day starting without me.

Now for the weekly goals I didn't complete:
Exercising and making a Minecraft pillow for Dannon's birthday.
I've got no real, valid excuses for not exercising a minimum of 3 times.  I just didn't do it.
As for the pillow... I ended up ordering about $25 worth of Minecraft miniatures to use as decorations on Dannon's birthday "cake."  I am crossing my fingers that he will love the idea I came up with (thank you, Pinterest!) and we're sure the little figures will provide hours and hours of play.  There just wasn't anything left in the birthday budget to buy fabric for the pillow project.  It will go on the back burner though and definitely will be completed sometime.  Maybe he'll get a Minecraft quilt and pillow for Christmas if he is still obsessed in a few months.

The last thing I wanted to touch on for this post was our success at unplugging for 24 (turned 36) hours this weekend.  We are a family that has a habit of being entirely too wrapped up in our gadgets (ahem, boys...) and social media (guilty as charged.)  Bob shared with me an article he read on cnn.com about the National Day of Unplugging and we decided to participate.  I'm happy to report that it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be and in fact, its something I want to incorporate on a regular basis!  There were a few times that Dannon asked about his iPad, and a few times I though "oh, I should post this on facebook" or "I need to remember to look this up..." but I discovered that a lot of the time I spend online is just wasted time and it takes my focus away from my family and my home commitments.  I wish the weather would have cooperated so we could have gone outside to play catch or another fun family activity outdoors, but in true pacific northwest fashion it was rainy.  We used our time to get a few things done around the house, rest and recharge and watch movies together.  We questioned at the beginning of our unplugged time what that really meant for us and how we would apply it, and we decided that tv and movies were acceptable, individual usage was not.  It was a nice break, but I was definitely happy to hop on Facebook and check my email this morning while I was drinking my cup of coffee :)   

My Project for the Month of March

I started this year with the thought of having one thing I would focus on each month.  In January my focus was to begin eliminating clutter, in February I loosely followed my goal of setting an alarm and getting up at 6:30 each morning and now for March I will be following along with one of my favorite bloggers,  Money Saving Mom, and her 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home. 

You can find her first post on the project here, which includes the first day's "assignment" and a sign up to receive the free e-book she has written to go along with the project.

Today's "assignment" includes getting dressed, writing out 5-10 goals for the week, create/follow a morning routine, 15 minute quick pick up, finding 7 items to get rid of and cleaning out your purse/diaper bag. 

Since I'm a stay at homer, and regularly bite off more than I can chew and get frustrated later when I don't follow through to the fullest extent, I appreciate that she has a complete list of suggested things for the day, and one highlighted task to make sure you accomplish. 

I wanted to share my list of goals for the week, I have found that its easier for me to stay accountable when I put myself out there! 

Goals for the week of March 3-9

1) Follow 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home plan

2) Sell $50-100 worth of items

3) Attend family night @ headstart on Tuesday

4) Get fabric & make Minecraft Steve pillow for Dannon's birthday

5) Get up each morning with the alarm

6) Yoga x2, Just Dance x1

I plan on checking in through my blog later in the week to update with my progress.  Please let me know if you will be joining this month's project, its always encouraging to tackle something like this with a friend (or two!)

Thrift Store Scores - The Mommy/Daughter Date Edition

Thank you Queen Bee Coupons for posting about Value Village's 50% off sale on Presidents day!

Since the man of the house was home from work earlier than usual on Monday due to the holiday I decided to ask Ashlyn, my just-turned-11-year-old daughter, if she wanted to ride along for a little thrift store hunting.  She agreed to go and grabbed her purse containing her birthday money and off on our mommy/daughter adventure we went!

First stop was the local Starbucks for a much needed 3pm-ish pick me up.  I used my Starbucks gold card birthday reward for a free drink and paid $2.95 out of pocket for Ashlyn's chocolately chip frappe.

Then off we went to Vancouver.  Slowly. I forgot what a pain it is to deal with after work traffic.  One fun thing I discovered on our crawl towards I-205 was using Siri to send text messages.  We also noticed some fun graffiti with the message "Excuse me world, I know you're busy but I wanted to say you are loved" Ash tried to snap a picture, but the words weren't quite large/dark enough to see.

We finally arrived at Value Village and I put Ashlyn to work searching out clothes in her size.  She's not really in need of much clothing wise, but she is getting to the point where she would rather pick things out for herself than have me shop for her and I can accept that.  She ended up with 5 or 6 tops that we narrowed down to these three:

Top left: Longsleeve from Justice (her new favorite store, crazy expensive in my opinion!) I was happy to pay $3.50.  Top right:  xhilaration brand short sleeve, $2. Bottom: 3/4 sleeve short sweater that she is excited to wear over her zebra print cami, $2.

I paid for her clothing selections and she found a new book and a softball that she purchased with her own money.  Neither of those items were half price, but we talk a lot about the value of buying good quality items secondhand and I think she is beginning to understand this concept more and more each time she accompanies me on these treasure hunts and THAT, to me, is priceless :)

I found a few maternity items for myself, because who really wants to pay full price for something that will only be worn for a few months?  The best thing about these purchases is it will be easy to sell these online when I am finished with them and make back the money I paid or more.

Liz Lange shirt for $2.50, Liz Lange jean skirt for $2.00 and a pair of new with tags bermuda length khaki shorts for $2.50.

Our last, but not least, finds at Value Village half off prices were my favorite:

I heart Dad Oshkosh tee $2 (perfect for father's day, right?), Hanna Andersson 2pc pjs $1 (super score!), Old Navy muscle tank for my blonde boy who desperately wants to play tball in the spring $1.50, Gap swim trunks in the coolest nautical/sailor print $3, Thinsulate snow mittens $1, and a pink Gap onesie that says BYOB Bring your own bottle for .50 cents (we'll keep this if we have the girly sort of baby in June or toss in the consignment pile if our baby ends up being of the boy variety.)

We left Value Village and it wasn't too late yet so we checked with Siri to find the closest Goodwill because I know there are a few in Vancouver.  It just so happened that we were 0.3 miles away so we decided to head there for just a little more browsing before calling it a night and I'm sure glad we did because these are the treasures we found there:

Two new in packaging Taggie blanket clips for 99 cents each.  I will probably keep one for our newbie and use the other in a baby shower gift or add to my consignment sale inventory.  One pair of Gymboree cargo shorts for $2.99, and two pairs of excellent condition Stride Rite shoes in wide sizes for $1.50 each (they were marked $2.99 but happened to be the half off color!)  I am undecided on the shoes.  We may hold on to these until we find out the gender of our baby... we'll need wides if this one takes after it's bigger, redheaded brother... or I may list them on ebay, probably in the neighborhood of $10-12 each pair.  Not pictured are a usb mouse & keyboard for $3.99 each that we needed for our new kid's desktop computer set up.

Ashlyn found another book and a Nerf gun while we were at this location.

We worked up quite the appetite with our evening of shopping and hit up Subway for dinner before heading home.  It was a great time spent with my daughter, and I really do hope that having these experiences with her now will carry over into positive spending and saving habits as she gets older. 

Thrift Store Scores - Ikea couch & bonus!

Thrift store shopping (aka, treasure hunting) is one of my favorite things to do.  It actually fulfills quite a few of my passions; shopping, shopping at a discount, and reselling for profit.  I have been an on and off ebay seller for quite a few years, and have been involved in the children consignment sale scene for a year or two as well.  Having multiple kids and living on a fairly tight budget has made me much more aware of quality brands that will last and I am frequently able to find items used that will last through a child or two and still be able to sell at consignment when we are done with them.  Very rarely do I buy brand new kid clothes from the store, and when I do its always when there are sales/free shipping offers or other rewards involved. 

Finding half off deals at the thrift stores is even more exciting!  I love the ability to find things we can use in our home, and knowing what I can buy at a fraction of the retail price and sell to offset the cost of the thrift store scores we keep. 

This recent trip to our local Salvation Army during their half off customer appreciation sale has been one of my best trips yet!

As an avid fan of everything Ikea, I noticed this little couch right away and was happy to see the $75 price tag that equaled $37.50 with the 50% off sale.  I carefully inspected the couch for stains, structural issues and yes, I did the sniff test too because no one wants to take home a stinky piece of furniture.  The couch is in great condition, I wonder if maybe it was a floor model at the store, or just something the owner decided wasn't going to work out for them because it sure doesn't seem used to me.  When we relocated from northern California to the Portland, Oregon area we ended up renting a home that has a front room and a family room/den.  The extra space is great, but we haven't had furniture to fill both rooms.  Its nice now to have a comfy little seating area in our front room turned play room AND it is a pull out style that can double as a place to put an overnight guest.  (My mom recently visited for the weekend and apparently its comfortable enough for an adult to sleep on!)

Of course, when I got it home I was excited to find the retail value so off to www.ikea.com I went and this is what I found:  http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70087108/  Under no circumstances would I have ever paid $169, but for $37.50 I am thrilled! 

But wait.... there's more!

I also noticed this pair of shoes:

Cool, huh?!  They were Vans and possibly a size that would fit my older son so for $3 (half off the marked price of $5.99) I grabbed them up knowing that if they didn't work out for him, they would be a great resale item.  Again, I searched to find the resale value and found that they were only available at the store Journeys and had a retail value of $41.99! http://www.journeys.com/kidz/product.aspx?id=241289&c=1508

When I determined that they weren't going to work out for my son I posted them for sale on ebay with a buy it now price of $30 and offered free shipping.  After shipping costs, paypal fees, ebay fees and figuring in my initial "investment" I ended up with a $16.32 profit on the shoes.  (man, those fees add up!)  I like to think that after this was all said and done my cute little couch only cost $21.18 out of pocket.  I love these types of shopping trips.  Its a hobby, its a passion and sometimes its even a small income.

Grocery Challenge - Menu Update

As an extension of yesterday's check-in, I'll pick up where we left off with our menu over the past week or so.  We have deviated from the plan a bit, which is why I do menu planning the way I do -- to allow for flexibility!

{Wednesday}
B:  Muffins, yogurt, cereal
L:  PBJ for Dan, ham & cheese for Bob, and a lunchables type pack for Ash & Eli with chips and juice.
S:  Animal crackers from the bread store -- free!
D:  Breakfast for dinner - eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, cheese, english muffins and chocolate milk
Late night snack:  Cinnamon bread toast, cucumbers & ranch for Bob

{Thursday}
B:  Cereal (yogurt for Elijah)
L:  Ham & cheese sandwiches with strawberries & popcorn
S:  Grapes
D:  Chicken lettuce wraps, potstickers & crispy zucchini fries
S:  Cinnamon toast

{Friday}
B:  Cinnamon toast & cereal for the kids, plus a yogurt for Elijah.  Hard boiled eggs for Bob.
L:  Mac & cheese, strawberries & chips for kids.  Strawberry/banana smoothie for me.
S:  Marshmallows, chocolate chip cookies from the store for free.
D:  BBQ pizzas - one pepperoni and one zucchini basil.

{Saturday}
B:  Cereal (and grapes for Elijah)
L:  Left over zucchini pizza for D & E, peanut butter sandwich for Ashlyn with snack mix
     Egg & ham sandwiches (Bob and I)
S:  Grapes & apple slices
D:  Beef & broccoli with rice (used the asian salad dressing as a marinade, out of teriyaki/soy)
S:  Bob - macaroni & milk (his weird occasional snack/lunch)
     Carrot/zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting

{Sunday}
B:  Cereal & toast for kids, breakfast in bed for me!  Egg, toast, ham & cake.
L:  Picnic!  PBJs, cantalope, pretzel thins, water & juice boxes
S:  Ice cream ($11)
D:  Chili (went with chili in the crock pot instead of the mexi pasta meal I was going to try)
S:  Cake

{Monday}
B:  Cereal (seriously.... it never gets old)
L:  Cheese slices, pepperoni, pickles & chips
      Ham & cheese for Bob, last english muffin and breakfast leftovers for me.
S:  Marshmallows
D:  Chicken pasta bake, mozzarella cheese & green beans (another deviation from our menu plan, but we had all the ingredients to throw together and the kids all had seconds and Dannon even had THIRDS!)
S:  Finished off the carrot/zucchini cake.

The fridge/freezer/pantry is down to pretty slim pickins and we've got a few days to go until payday.  I had planned on doing another breakfast for dinner meal, but we've eaten eggs along the way and I don't think there are enough left for a meal for all of us.  Trust me, I'm not complaining.  I got breakfast in bed out of the deal!  I may do hardboiled eggs with the remainders and possibly potato salad or egg salad sandwiches.  We definitely have enough of the chicken pasta bake leftover for lunch, so sandwiches for dinner one evening are a definite possibility.

Another good by-product of this challenge is that not having a TON of food choices in the house is helping us to really use what we have without making much waste or throwing things out.  I like that!

Stay tuned for at least one more post on this grocery challenge subject, I'll do a wrap up/recap on Friday or shortly thereafter.