Today our little guy turns one. In about 30 minutes, as I write this. I can’t believe that the time has gone by so quickly. I know it is a cliche, but it truly does feel like yesterday (or at least last week) since he was a little mewling newborn. We feel so blessed to have him.
We discussed and debated over what to do for his birthday to celebrate. And we decided to have a quiet family celebration, to make it less overwhelming and more focused on him. Our older two children had elaborate birthday parties, so this is the voice of experience. We want the day to be about him rather than the guests.
Of course, we still want to celebrate, and have planned out some fun birthday things that are also frugal. Here is what we have on the agenda.
We will be picking up a birthday cake for free. Many grocery stores offer free cakes for a first birthday. Depending on the store, you can get some pretty large cakes, and you can even shop around, getting extra cakes by visiting more stores. The cakes can be customized by type of cake, the filling and the icing, and if you want to upgrade the cake to something more elaborate, you can. Click here to learn more about this.
You can’t have ice cream without cake! Instead of paying $5 or more for a half gallon of ice cream, we will be making it ourselves. Making ice cream is a fun activity all on its own, and you can’t beat fresh homemade ice cream for taste and cost. The Food Blog here at Families.com has some great homemade ice-cream recipes, including one that doesn’t require any fancy equipment.
For fun, we will be visiting a local attraction that is very kids friendly. Since we already have a membership, this will not cost us a penny. And the birthday boy can climb, explore and have fun (along with the rest of the party).
We will be taking lots of digital photos, of course. And by signing up with one of the online photo places, we will be able to get free prints. You can check out the Deals Blog here at Families.com form more information on photo printing deals.
Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.
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