The Calm Before The Party Storm

Leyna’s birthday party is tomorrow! And we all know what that means… I’m about to LOSE MY MIND. 

We’re having it at our house because, why not? Who DOESN’T want 20 something people in their not-exactly-large house that’s been in a constant state of renovation for the last year and isn’t quite completely finished?

“We’ll save money this way,” I told Scott.

Then I proceeded to order half of Etsy and Amazon, and have a shopping list for 2 baskets full of food at Sams Club.

“Just relax. It’s not a big deal. She won’t remember it anyway,” people tell me. Uhm, this party? Not really for the birthday girl so much. I only have 2, maybe 3 years to have any say whatsoever in how this goes down, before she’s begging for Chuck E Cheese and licensed characters. Let’s call it like it is. It’s for me.

I‘m bracing myself for Disney Princesses, but let me be clear- I will CUT anyone who introduces her to Barbie. Give her a Bratz doll? Prepare to die.

Assuming we pull it all off AND I managed to take pictures while running the show, I’ll show it all off to you on Monday. But now, I must go. CLEAN! CRAFT! CLEAN! CRAFT! SPEND MORE MONEY!!!

I think I should stretch first.

Leyna is 13 months old, and we’re having her party one month late since December 28th is sort of a rotten day for a party.

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Living An Old Nightmare In The ‘Burbs

“Where did so-and-so move?” I asked my hip, single sister who lives in a posh little apartment near the heart of Austin.

“Oh, you know, those McMansions in the suburbs,” she joked with that undertone of distaste that I distinctly remember having myself not too many years ago…

Ugh. The tragedy of having to move to the “cookie cutter” homes in the expansive suburbs. What a sorry and uncultured existence those people with children must lead. They can’t even walk to a coffee shop, they’re surrounded by strip malls, and those poor people must always be in their cars since they’re so far away from anything fun. ~ Me, Age 25

Flash forward five years…

“Hey, those McMansions in the suburbs aren’t that bad!” I teased.

“I’m too old to care about living anywhere ‘trendy’ or close to the city. They have underperforming school districts, and we can’t afford private school, ESPECIALLY with how much a house half the size of my ‘McMansion’ costs there. And even then, that house would be, like 50 years old and probably have gold velvet wallpaper. I will take my ‘cookie cutter’ brick home on a quiet street, my HOA fees, and my strip malls. Plus, I don’t have to drive more than 10 minutes to get anywhere. Target is only 5 minutes from here, and that’s all I need,” I continued.

And then I realized I’ve fully become immersed in Suburban Culture. I am now one of them. Oh, how my 25 year old self weeps.

Oh, how my 30 year old self doesn’t care.

Life in the suburbs is good. We are blessed to live in a spacious, safe, beautiful home. We may not be able to walk to a coffee shop, but we can walk to the elementary school (an excellent one) that Kendall will attend (too soon!), a pool and 3 parks. They are luxuries I try hard not to take for granted.

Would I love to live in a downtown loft and take public transportation everywhere? Sure! Except, well, I’m not even sure that’s a reality in Dallas, and that’s just not the most practical situation for a family with young children and large dogs. Not to say people don’t do it, and don’t love it, but *for us* it’s not worth the trouble and the expense.

Scott and I often talk about what we’ll do when the kids all move out. How we’ll sell half our stuff and move into that hip downtown loft we dreamed of before we had kids. We’ll get our fun, urban existence eventually, but we’re okay with giving it up for now.

Basically, I’m living my worst nightmare from my 20s. I fought it hard, but it turns out kids really do change you and the way you live. I can think of worse fates than moving into a “boring McMansion in the cookie cutter burbs.”

Now, I realize not everyone with kids feels this way about the ‘burbs. What about you? Have you changed your views on how you live since having kids?

Kendall is 3 years and nearly 9 months and Leyna is 13 months old

 

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Turns Out, We Don’t Need Cable

Remember how I asked you all for your advice on making the big leap to give up cable? I couldn’t believe how many of you already had, how many of you had lived without it for years. I felt a little bad for those of you without it. You poor, deprived souls, living without your Bravo and HGTV. Oh, I didn’t want to have to suffer through like you had.

But, we would save $65 a month, nearly $800 a year. *sigh* So I stood idly by while my husband unplugged the cable box and drove it back to the Verizon store. And then I had a moment of silence for the loss of Teen Mom and Real Housewives of the OC.

Scott, being the frugal and handy man he is, built us a digital antenna that is now in our attic, and we get THIRTY THREE channels for free. Granted, half of them are Spanish and a third of them are religious programming and weather channels, but STILL. Free.

Among those, though, are actually some pretty decent channels. Did you know PBS plays kid’s shows Monday through Friday from 6 am through 5 pm? Not gonna lie, most days our TV just hangs on out PBS during the day. Well, that is after I get done drinking my coffee and watching Kathy Lee & Hoda (a sick addiction, I tell you).

We also get a channel called Qubo, which is kid’s programming all day, although it’s sorta like b-list, low grade animation programming, but it doesn’t seem to bother the children.

And here in Dallas, I’ve discovered NBC Nonstop, which, while not an HD channel (we can pick up the basic channels in HD with our digital antenna), it fills the void of not having HGTV and the Food Network just a little bit. You know, it’s just one of those channels that’s nice to have on while you’re folding laundry and not too invested in what’s on. They have programming about local food places, and home decorating shows.

If that’s not enough to satisfy my home decorating and cooking cravings for knowledge and ideas, I just turn to the internet. Pinterest is my new muse for both of these things.

Really, we’ve found things like the internet and digital magazines on the iPad, and, *gasp* books and toys to fill the time we used to spend watching crap TV on cable.

We still get to see all our favorite shows in some form or another. We can watch prime time shows on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in HD on our TV still. We have Netfilx hooked up through our Wii, and hopefully we’ll add Hulu Plus to that soon, too, whenever they release it for the Wii. We can hook our iPad up to the TV to watch shows we can find online.

The only thing we’re really missing at this point is a DVR, but Scott says he can make us one out of our old computer. Oh, and sports. I guess sometimes it can suck that we don’t get ESPN or TBS, but we don’t watch it enough to justify $65 a month, especially when you can still see plenty of games on the basic channels.

Honestly, seriously, we one hundred percent do not miss it. Sure, there was a bit of an adjustment period. I’d say it took a couple weeks to get used to it, but now I just can’t believe we went that long paying that much money for that much crap.

So there’s my update. We’ve been without it for 3ish months now. If you’re on the fence, I say pull the plug and give it a couple weeks. I really don’t think you’ll miss it.

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Mommy Truth: Seriously, GO TELL YOUR FATHER.

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