Ciao Birthday Parties - An Update!

So, it's been ages - sorry and all that jazz.

I've been swamped with my work practice (done that in October) and now back in school and slightly bored out of my mind!

Bear in mind I was cooking and prepping food for minimum 1500 people - and now, 100.

So, it's a massive change in pace and I'm back in school and trying to survive studying in Finnish!

Kids are all doing great and are all alive!

V-Man and A-Man recently had birthdays (7 and 5) and while I love throwing a birthday party for the two of them (since their birthdays are 2 weeks apart) - I decided not to this year.
Why?

• Time - I simply didn't have time to book a place, grocery shop for the party and plan.
• Money - Trying to save some as much as possible because we have no idea where we will be in the new year.
• Stuff - While we appreciate gifts from our friends for the kids - because we don't know where we will be - we didn't want to have extra things to pack or unfortunately, have to give away!

So instead of a party this year - we agreed to take the boys on their big day to Toys R Us and let them pick one toy.

Then went out for dinner of their choosing and then ice-cream.

I also baked a cake at home for us to enjoy.

This was most effective and simple.

The boys seem to have a good time and I'll be baking V-Man's birthday cake today!

At first I felt bad for not having a party because for us - it was a great way to see all of our friends in one spot (that wasn't our home) and socialize.

Then I just realized it wasn't worth the stress and time/money to do all of it.

Nothing against our friends!!

We just have been swamped with job applications everywhere, school and so on.  

The stress levels in the household have caused my cycles to go psycho and I'm finding myself having "shark week" every 2-3 weeks instead of once a month like a normal woman!

And I found that having a little less stress to be a good thing! :)  Now if only my body would agree and back off!

I've opted to go to the gym at night now once the kids are asleep - I've been having problems sleeping and found that it helps me to sleep better and clears my head from the entire day.

As opposed to just exercising after school and being mentally exhausted by the time the kids go to bed.

Until next time!  Which should be relatively soon as I have to do a lot of recipe writing for the New Year Resolutions...and I have an autism-related post to write up too!

BIMU