One birthday party down....

As I mentioned in my last post, my most recent challenge with our resolution was a birthday party. The birthday party was a success... but we still had to complete my son's gift... his room remodel.

As you can see, it was a total success! My son had a number of gift cards that were unused... so we used them to get the paint from Walmart, the top blanket of his bed to match the room... and some storage bins. We figured that gift-card money was already money spent and we might as well use it. Other than that, EVERYTHING was used. My husband painted the city scape on the wall. Some dear friends painted pictures to accent the walls. And we are waiting on one painting that we will get to add shortly. It was so neat to see it all come together. My son LOVES his room (as I'm sure you can imagine).

I also got a bunch of hangers free from a fellow-Mops Momma :) THANKS Bergann!

Having four kids means... I have three more birthday parties (plus my husbands) to plan with this same sort of creativity. My daughter is turning ONE at the end of April and we decided on a Luau theme... which has been super easy to find things for so far! Im very excited about this one. Plus, I dont have to have a gift for her because she's one and won't remember anyway!

On a slightly separate note, I was putting together the kids' Easter baskets today. It struck me how much I was enjoying putting my creativity to use. Normally I would have gone out and bought a couple baskets at Target or Walmart. Today I scoured my house for old but still nice gift bags. I found one that was Tinkerbell themed... perfect for my 9 year old daughter. I found a solid red one that I added superman stickers to for my oldest son. I had one bucket that I'd won from MOPS for my 2 year old son. And a blue gift bag with a boa accent (which I'd purchased at a thrift store) for my almost-one-year old. I filled plastic eggs (thank you, Salvation Army) with candies and filled their little Easter bags. Ill post a pic of these soon too. Anyway, I found myself enjoying creating these things for my children and putting to good use things I already owned. It will be a fun day, regardless!.