For Thomas' birthday this year we have decided to go way above the usual party celebrations and have gone with a circus/carnival "extravaganza". It all started while debating what to do at all. Hannah and I were perusing the Oriental Trading website for some ideas and it suddenly snowballed into this crazy themed party. Being "greenies" and frugal, we decided that many of the things we wanted to do we would make here, re-purposing items around the house, which should have also save us money.
Now this plan sounded great as we giddily clicked through the website, buying the minimum decorations and party supplies, but as I was hitting the "pay now" button I remembered why it was that I never do themed parties. No matter how cheap you try to go, they always end up costing a lot more than they should. What started off as some simple ideas has spawned into a much larger scale production than any of us had anticipated. Yet, since the child with the steel trap memory knows the plans, it's impossible to backtrack now. ;-)
So, we decided to just go with it & not look back. It has been fun coordinating with Hannah, my creative director. I love her artistic views and fantastic ideas. It's become a family project, and with all of these ideas floating around, the pull to work together has made it that much more fun.
What's funny is, the things we thought we were going to save money on ended up costing the most. For instance, we decided to make the bean bags for the various carnival style games. Hannah and I went to the fabric store anticipating a couple dollars worth of fabric. Yet silly me overestimated the amount of fabric we would need, forgot about the thread I already had on hand, and ended up spending more than what it cost to buy the exact same game, complete with board & bean bags plus our time in making it all.
Yet, as we sat there, prepping the sewing machine for the bags, Hannah looking up templates for decorating the board, Andrew cutting the squares and getting the filler ready, something so quietly happened. We spent about 2 hours just chatting. Nothing in particular. No magic secrets to the world revealed. No mushy moments of love. Just... life. Being lived in that very moment, shared in our small dining room. No epiphanies of how awesome I am afterwards from the kids. ;-) In fact, I'm positively sure the kids didn't even bat an eye at it happening. Thomas drifted in & out of the room, checking on the status of our work. He brought me 2 pieces of ripped paper to "fix together" on the sewing machine. We chuckled, he cruised back outside to help finish the second coat of paint with Steve. We continued on with our work.
I could have opted for pre-made, cheaper items, and we could have saved time and money that day. Yet the cost of losing that quiet family bonding time was so much more than the money. The value of those moments far surpassed that of dollars saved. My wallet may be a little lighter, but our hearts are fuller. To me, that just makes a lot of cents...
