Dear Subscriber,

I hope you had a safe and fun Fourth of July! We celebrated in the traditional manner, flying the flag proudly on the front porch, going to grandma's house, and shooting off all the fireworks it was legal to have. :-)

But the United States was not the only one with a birthday last week. On June 29th, our little girls, Ainsley and Sierra, turned the big T-W-O! My mom flew in to celebrate with them on their birthday, and then we had a big party for all the Albuquerque relations on Saturday.

That birthday party is actually my topic for this week's newsletter. Alison put together a remarkably fun party for a large group (including a number of little kiddos), and did so at a super-low expense. I thought you'd like to see exactly how she did it, so I'm going to take you behind-the-scenes. Hopefully, this sneak peak will give you some inspiration for the next shin-dig you need to put together on a reasonable budget.

Since we have 2 girls, and we were celebrating their 2nd birthday, we decided to go with a "Deuces are Wild" theme, and everything was about the Old West and poker. Admittedly, this was partially due to our good fortune in having a real live saloon complete with antiques from the Old West as one of the rooms in our house (unfortunately we cannot take credit for having built that, but it's still very cool), but as you will see that was not a vital part of the decorations. Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/signs.jpg

The first item we made (I say we, but let's face it, Alison did 90% of everything and her sister did the other 10% :-) was the invitations. For $10, we bought a pack of natural-colored (yellowish, old-looking) paper. Then we designed a set of "Wanted" posters featuring Ainsley and Sierra which doubled as invitations. Then we simply folded, taped, and stamped them, and out they went. Then we made some more witty designs minus the invitation text and put them up all over the house. We considered burning the edges to get that "authentic" feel, and you can do that if you really want to go all-out, but it was just going to take too long so we abandonded that part of the plan. It turned out great anyway though! Total Cost: $10 Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/wanted.jpg

Next, we bought a set of gold & silver star decorations. We hung them up from almost every available spot, and it really gave the place a festive atmosphere. Total cost: $3.95

Then it was time for the outdoor decorations. We have a "super-yard" that we use to keep the girls safely contained in a public place or safely out of non-childproofed areas inside the house. We took the super-yard outside, made a swirl shape out of it, and covered it over with a plastic table-cloth to create a fort: Fort Want-A-Lot. To go along with the fort, we got several huge cardboard boxes, covered them with a big brown blanket, and voila, we had Little Man's Cave! These two attractions were the favorites of all the little kids, and they would run from one to the other, back and forth, for half an hour at a time. Total Cost: $3.90 Photos: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/fort.jpg & www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/cave.jpg

In addition to the fort and the cave, we also had a Shooting Range outdoors, which was fun for child and adult alike. Using a scrap piece of cardboard and drawing a bulls-eye target with markers, we put up the range on a metal gate at the end of a stretch of sidewalk in our back yard. $7.95 bought us 25 squirt guns, and we were in business. Total Cost: $7.95 Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/shootingrange.jpg

Indoors, the action revolved around the food. We wanted some nice, Old West tin plates for everyone to eat on (this one *was* my idea :-), but we couldn't find any. What we did find worked really well though. There was a listing on eBay for a set of old Army mess kits, spanning from World War II to the 1960's. They were $45 for 20 kits (including shipping), which was great. Even better, they made the perfect containers for the mounds of left-overs we made everyone take home! To go with our classic Southwestern meal (enchiladas, steak, potatos, and queso, all brought by relatives), Alison made a wagon out of cardboard & construction paper that we had around the house. Then she took a couple of stuffed animals and put them in the driver & shotgun seats, and filled the back of the stage coach with a stack of 64 "twin"kies (from the Day Old Bread Store), and she had used a marker to write "gold" on the wrappers, so it really did look like a wagon filled with gold bars. Total cost: $50.99 Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/restaurant.jpg

In the saloon, we had a wide selection of bottled waters, sodas, and fruit drinks (all things we already had on hand), and filled the sink with ice so that whoever was "tending bar" could fix up folks' drinks for them. We also bought a set of plastic shot glasses with cactus designs, just for fun. Then Ali took another piece of cardboard & a sheet of paper and made a beverage menu that people could make their selections from. :-) Total Cost: $4.95 Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/saloon.jpg

We put together a party favors bag for each of the children who came to the party as well. Each bag had a metal harmonica ($2.95 each), some patriotic stickers, some plastic gold coins, a bandana, and a pack of "$100 bill" playing cards. Total Cost: $38.95 Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/partyfavors.jpg

Finally, to ensure that the proper mood was set, we popped our favorite Western of all time into the DVD player, "Lonesome Dove." It is a six-hour movie, so it just ran in the background for the entire party (though I admit I watched almost all of it for the 15th time) and kept everyone in the proper mood. :-) Total Cost: $0

It was a heck of a party, everyone had a great time, and the decorations were awesome. The total cost we laid out for the entire event: $120.19. For a double-birthday party entertaining more than twenty people, that's what I call a bargain. Photo: www.NossGalenBaby.com/images/deuces.jpg

All it takes is a little creativity, a little effort, and anyone can do the same thing we did (or better!). The result is a higly-memorable event (our family is going to be talking about this one for some time), with a minimal expense. Now that's cause for celebration!

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Have a wonderful end of the week!

Sincerely,
Paul

Paul & Alison Martin
Noss Galen Baby LLC
www.NossGalenBaby.com

Copyright, Noss Galen Baby LLC 2005