Search results for New Year's

My daughter, Lainey, will be finishing preschool in June and heading to kindergarten in the fall. This is the first time I'm starting to feel nostalgic. It really is true what they say about being a parent: the days are slow, but the years are fast. Where have these five years gone?

I'm not usually sentimental, but I must confess that when I see people display monthly photos of their babies during their first year at their first birthdays, I wish I had done that. I think I was just too busy and overwhelmed (and sleep deprived) to even think about it.

Laura from Live Smile Celebrate has come up with a blog series called "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" based on the celebrity series in US Magazine.

She tagged me and four other party gals to write the same post and after doing so, tag some other party friends. What a cool idea! So here are 25 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About Me...

Melissa Newell from My Party Passion and our budget party contributor, threw her son the Ultimate Nerf Party.  Not an easy theme to do, but Melissa found inspiration in unusual places. Read her whole story below:

I don’t know about you, but it’s easy breezy chicken peazey to find girl themes for birthdays, however, much more challenging to find a boy -- preteen no less -- theme.

I've been wanting to know how to make an actual wooden photo booth for a while now, so when I saw that Jeannette from J. at Your Service created a tutorial on how she made hers for her adorable Nate's 2nd Birthday Lil' Monsters Party, I knew this was something I wanted to share.

Take it away, Jeannette...

Long story short... My daughter loves piano, so my husband found a used keyboard on Craigslist. We picked it up in Manhattan Beach (about 40 minutes from our house) and there's a HomeGoods nearby. My husband, being the kind, generous, and patient man that he is, hung out with my four-year-old, while I got to shop.

It turns out that HomeGoods is owned by the same people as TJ Maxx, where I went a few weeks ago, so it was no surprise that they had many of the same items, but much much more. The store is heaven if you love parties, entertaining, and decorating. I felt infinitely creative just walking through the door.

I saw Brenda F's Backyard Carnival Party and almost flipped. The attention to detail was amazing. Then I discovered she pulled the whole thing off on a budget of $464 for 70 people. That's about $6.50 per person.