Easter was April 20 this year and it turned out to be an amazing day. Last year I had no energy to celebrate Easter with the kids, which left my oldest, especially, disappointed. I had to make it up to him, to them. Plus it was the baby's first Easter. I was working with a very small budget this year as I was in the midst of planning princess's party, but I still wanted to make the day special and fun.
First off, I reused baskets I already had on hand, so I saved money there. Second, I decided not to go all out on the baskets. It's Easter after all, I don't want my kids expecting extravagant gifts. I kept things simple and lowkey but it ended up being amazing anyway.
The day started off with the kids having French toast and eggs for breakfast. Then the egg scavenger hunt began. A note was left behind with an egg that had a clue and they had to follow each clue inside each egg on the hunt to find their baskets.
The clues inside the eggs took them all over the house and the backyard and finally to their baskets, which were hidden inside the laundry room. Inside their baskets were goodies for them to enjoy.
P's basket: Gillette body spray, chips, chocolate covered peanuts, cookies and caramel and gummy candies and his favorite butterfinger candy bar.
Princess' basket: temporary tattoo, hello kitty journal, bracelets, chips, chocolate covered cookies, peanuts, caramel, hard candy, gummies, fruit pouch.
Jc's basket: temporary tattoo, coloring book, sticker book, stickers, chocolate covered cookies, caramel, peanuts and hard candy and gummies, fruit pouch.
Baby A: rubber ball, abc puzzle, faux croc sandals, stickers.
After the kids found their baskets and were allowed to enjoy a few treats, we had brunch. I made breaded tilapia, tuna pasta salad, rice, lentils and banana bread and cheesecake for dessert. It was truly an amazing day.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Struck with the sickness
My princess has been sick and so it has been a roller coaster. I mentioned in the previous post that she woke up sick on the day of her party and came this close to missing the actual event. Well the Thursday before her party (actually the Friday), she woke me up out of sleep, crying. She was riddled with stomach pain and I was at my wits end trying to figure out what could possibly be the matter. That was around 12:45 that morning. She finally was able to go back to sleep around 2am. That day, Friday, we took her to the clinic, where she was checked over and prescribed antibiotics. She was supposed to be on three kinds of meds for 3 days. Doctor was not sure what was the matter but we ruled out appendicitis and other more serious ailments. Could be a bug, could be something she ate. Could be. She felt better, so we got our meds and went on our merry way home.
Saturday she was fine. But Sunday morning at around 4 am, she came down with a high temperature. She stayed that was, feverish, on Monday. She felt fine on Tuesday, so I sent her to school. Big mistake. She came down with fever again that Wednesday and got even sicker on Thursday. By Friday I decided to take her to the children's hospital. I needed to know what was wrong and why she was not getting better. Plus Thursday night, her temperature spiked to 102F.
We spent all day at the hospital, for about 11 am until we left with the meds at 7:30 pm. She had blood tests and two rounds of X-rays. Come to find out, she has a sinus infection. Did you know sinus infection causes fever, tummy aches and headaches (which princess complained of having on and off the whole time she was sick)? I had no idea. Now she is feeling much better, a day later ( hospital visit was yesterday). She is on antibiotics, again, for 10 days this time and ibuprofen for 5 days for the pain and fever. The panadol I was giving her was just covering up the fever, not helping at all.
She has lost quite a bit of weight as she was sick and weak (although she was eating just not enough to keep her weight up). So now we're working her getting back to full health. She can't wait to have a piece of her birthday cake and a few pieces of candy from the piñata.
Saturday she was fine. But Sunday morning at around 4 am, she came down with a high temperature. She stayed that was, feverish, on Monday. She felt fine on Tuesday, so I sent her to school. Big mistake. She came down with fever again that Wednesday and got even sicker on Thursday. By Friday I decided to take her to the children's hospital. I needed to know what was wrong and why she was not getting better. Plus Thursday night, her temperature spiked to 102F.
We spent all day at the hospital, for about 11 am until we left with the meds at 7:30 pm. She had blood tests and two rounds of X-rays. Come to find out, she has a sinus infection. Did you know sinus infection causes fever, tummy aches and headaches (which princess complained of having on and off the whole time she was sick)? I had no idea. Now she is feeling much better, a day later ( hospital visit was yesterday). She is on antibiotics, again, for 10 days this time and ibuprofen for 5 days for the pain and fever. The panadol I was giving her was just covering up the fever, not helping at all.
She has lost quite a bit of weight as she was sick and weak (although she was eating just not enough to keep her weight up). So now we're working her getting back to full health. She can't wait to have a piece of her birthday cake and a few pieces of candy from the piñata.
Princess's Monster High Themed Gymnastics Party
We had Princess's party this past Sunday on May 4 at her gymnastics academy (oh yes, did I fail to also mention that my princess is taking gymnastics classes?) Anyway, her party was held at Jaguares gymnastics. Her actual birthday was on April 26 and we kept that day lowkey with just cupcakes and a few small gifts.... We'll, one small gift from us. The following day, she had a cake and a big gift from my inlaws.
Now for the party, I planned it down to the last little detail as best I could with the time and budget that I had. Seeing as her birthday is literally less than a month after her big brother's. I was working with a tight timeline and an even tighter budget.... Two parties a month apart with four kids ain't easy.
Princess wanted a Monster high party and she wanted it at the gym. I wasn't really sure we could afford that but I was going to make sure she got the party she wanted. Being pregnant last year, I had no energy for party planning and vowed this would be the year for birthdays. So I got my pen and pare out and got to planning.
As it turned out, the gym did host parties and it was actually affordable, I booked the venue and went from there. I got my color scheme together, red, black, teal, some pink. I got the piñata, ordered the cake, the favor bags, the favors, decor, treats, food, etc. this party was so easy to plan, set up and decorate. Since it was at the gym, I did minimal decorating. It took maybe half an hour to set up. And the food prep was super simple.
The kids has the time of their lives. It was quite possibly one of the best parties I planned, and we came this close to it bring one of the worst. Day of the party and my princess woke up sick with a fever and headache. Luckily she felt well enough to go to the party and she had the best time.
We had 23 or so kids and 20 or so adults, around 43 people total. Just the right amount of party goers to make the day special. Plus, it was a GORGEOUS day, just beautiful, sunny and hot. The party was two hours and pretty laid back. I barely had to do much at all. Here's the party breakdown.
Food: sandwiches, chips, fruit cups, chocolate covered marshmallows and strawberries, iced tea.
Cake
Decor: red tablecloth, Monster high toys and dolls, red forks, black plates and cups, red and black and teal balloons, red and black streamers, Monster high birthday banner.
Favors: Monster high cloth drawstring bags filled with bracelets, vampire teeth, jelly candy, cookies, chocolate for the girls. For the boys, red pencil cases filled with the same goodies minus the bracelets, they got temporary tattoos.
Activity: gymnastics (mini bars, trampoline, etc).
Piñata: chocolates, jelly candies, peanuts
Invitation: Monster High
Outfit: my mother in law made princess an outfit similar to the character Clawdeen wolf from MH.
I have a ton of photos from the day and will post them soon.
Now for the party, I planned it down to the last little detail as best I could with the time and budget that I had. Seeing as her birthday is literally less than a month after her big brother's. I was working with a tight timeline and an even tighter budget.... Two parties a month apart with four kids ain't easy.
Princess wanted a Monster high party and she wanted it at the gym. I wasn't really sure we could afford that but I was going to make sure she got the party she wanted. Being pregnant last year, I had no energy for party planning and vowed this would be the year for birthdays. So I got my pen and pare out and got to planning.
As it turned out, the gym did host parties and it was actually affordable, I booked the venue and went from there. I got my color scheme together, red, black, teal, some pink. I got the piñata, ordered the cake, the favor bags, the favors, decor, treats, food, etc. this party was so easy to plan, set up and decorate. Since it was at the gym, I did minimal decorating. It took maybe half an hour to set up. And the food prep was super simple.
The kids has the time of their lives. It was quite possibly one of the best parties I planned, and we came this close to it bring one of the worst. Day of the party and my princess woke up sick with a fever and headache. Luckily she felt well enough to go to the party and she had the best time.
We had 23 or so kids and 20 or so adults, around 43 people total. Just the right amount of party goers to make the day special. Plus, it was a GORGEOUS day, just beautiful, sunny and hot. The party was two hours and pretty laid back. I barely had to do much at all. Here's the party breakdown.
Food: sandwiches, chips, fruit cups, chocolate covered marshmallows and strawberries, iced tea.
Cake
Decor: red tablecloth, Monster high toys and dolls, red forks, black plates and cups, red and black and teal balloons, red and black streamers, Monster high birthday banner.
Favors: Monster high cloth drawstring bags filled with bracelets, vampire teeth, jelly candy, cookies, chocolate for the girls. For the boys, red pencil cases filled with the same goodies minus the bracelets, they got temporary tattoos.
Activity: gymnastics (mini bars, trampoline, etc).
Piñata: chocolates, jelly candies, peanuts
Invitation: Monster High
Outfit: my mother in law made princess an outfit similar to the character Clawdeen wolf from MH.
I have a ton of photos from the day and will post them soon.
Where in the world have I been......
Good question. I'm typing this blog post on borrowed iPad at the moment as I have been electronically unavailable these last few months. My last post was quite a while ago, ages ago it seems. As it's now The month of May, it's been about five l o n g months since I've made any sort of post or update to mt blog. I have missed this place sorely. I tried my hand at vlogging, which is the video equivalent of blogging on youtube. I figured having both arenas to post my thoughts and we'll, life updates could only be a good thing. But my video blogging days have yet to come full circle.
Admittedly I was initially afraid of putting myself out there in the youtube world. But I realize now, it's not such a bad thing. Once i get my computer fixed and a decent camera, I will be vlogging in the future and linking my videos here as well. I look forward to that day. For now though, I am computer-less and feeling disconnected. I finally checked my email for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I had five months worth of unanswered emails, about 4000 or so....yeah!
So little by little I am trying to get back to the internet world, but it's not easy without the right tools. My oh so dumb smart phone recently deleted all my pictures and videos I had Benin saving, waiting to download to my computer once I got it fixed. Précis video and pictures of the baby's first Christmas, youtube video ideas and random cuteness if my kids being themselves. I wanted to bawl. But it's like I never learn. This sort of thing has happened to me before. I gave list precious pictures that I took; pics that were list fri. A crashed computer or a lost camera. I hope to learn my lesson thus time. I need to start backing up my photos because those are memories I can never get back gone forever. Sad!
So, what has been going on with us? You may be wondering.... Baby A is now 8 months old and as babies do, is growing like a weed. I had two birthday parties, one for my older son P and one for Princess, who both respectively turned 14 and 7. P asked for a party, although much more lowkey than his previous birthdays. He is 14 years old after all, and had not had a party since his 10th birthday. He asked for a Minecraft themed party but after much thought, decided against decorations. He did allow me to make a birthday banner and asked for the cake to be Minecraft themed, which was a Creeper cake (since I knew nothing about Minecraft, I had to search images online). Besides that, he also wanted it to be a paintball party, so he gave me a list of people to invite, a few friends and cousins around his age, and I searched online for paintball places to host our group. It was about 10 kids and 10 or so adults. I'll have to check my list for the exact count but it was a good number, perfect amount of people for a teen party.
We booked the underground paintball in San Pedro for an hour and a half and as I couldn't go, I heard everyone had a blast. I stayed home with the baby and little kids and set up for the party at home. We ordered pizza, something for everyone: veggie, cheese and pepperoni. And we had iced tea, chips (cheese it party mix, sun chips,chips party mix...all my sons favorite) and cake. We also had ice cream in cones.
It was a great party and my son had a blast. And one of the best parts, he received cash gifts from his guests. What teenager doesn't like getting money as a gift. It was amazing and I wish I could post a few pictures here. I'll have to make an update blog of just pictures of all the things I have failed to blog about. So as nit to make this post five pages long, the next post will be info on my daughters party, which was last Sunday.
Admittedly I was initially afraid of putting myself out there in the youtube world. But I realize now, it's not such a bad thing. Once i get my computer fixed and a decent camera, I will be vlogging in the future and linking my videos here as well. I look forward to that day. For now though, I am computer-less and feeling disconnected. I finally checked my email for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I had five months worth of unanswered emails, about 4000 or so....yeah!
So little by little I am trying to get back to the internet world, but it's not easy without the right tools. My oh so dumb smart phone recently deleted all my pictures and videos I had Benin saving, waiting to download to my computer once I got it fixed. Précis video and pictures of the baby's first Christmas, youtube video ideas and random cuteness if my kids being themselves. I wanted to bawl. But it's like I never learn. This sort of thing has happened to me before. I gave list precious pictures that I took; pics that were list fri. A crashed computer or a lost camera. I hope to learn my lesson thus time. I need to start backing up my photos because those are memories I can never get back gone forever. Sad!
So, what has been going on with us? You may be wondering.... Baby A is now 8 months old and as babies do, is growing like a weed. I had two birthday parties, one for my older son P and one for Princess, who both respectively turned 14 and 7. P asked for a party, although much more lowkey than his previous birthdays. He is 14 years old after all, and had not had a party since his 10th birthday. He asked for a Minecraft themed party but after much thought, decided against decorations. He did allow me to make a birthday banner and asked for the cake to be Minecraft themed, which was a Creeper cake (since I knew nothing about Minecraft, I had to search images online). Besides that, he also wanted it to be a paintball party, so he gave me a list of people to invite, a few friends and cousins around his age, and I searched online for paintball places to host our group. It was about 10 kids and 10 or so adults. I'll have to check my list for the exact count but it was a good number, perfect amount of people for a teen party.
We booked the underground paintball in San Pedro for an hour and a half and as I couldn't go, I heard everyone had a blast. I stayed home with the baby and little kids and set up for the party at home. We ordered pizza, something for everyone: veggie, cheese and pepperoni. And we had iced tea, chips (cheese it party mix, sun chips,chips party mix...all my sons favorite) and cake. We also had ice cream in cones.
It was a great party and my son had a blast. And one of the best parts, he received cash gifts from his guests. What teenager doesn't like getting money as a gift. It was amazing and I wish I could post a few pictures here. I'll have to make an update blog of just pictures of all the things I have failed to blog about. So as nit to make this post five pages long, the next post will be info on my daughters party, which was last Sunday.
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