Taxes, School, Lessons, Birthdays.

 The kids both have birthdays coming up, three days apart. In the past, I’ve used my tax returns to fund Kasin’s birthdays, but these last two years they have changed the dates to accept your tax filings and blah blah, they no longer give a guaranteed date for your refunds, etc. I bank with a smallish, local bank, so they usually take an extra 3-5 days to process money coming in for direct deposits- like my student loan kick back monies and grants. The tax prep lady told me she would expect I’d get my refund in the 3rd week of February. Which is, like… a week before the kids’ bdays. Milo’s is the 23rd and Kasin’s is the 26th. But, I’m getting almost $4,000 back. So. There’s that.

Milo is having a party at Gymnastics Inc, which is a cool indoor tumbling/gym place, there’s trampolines and a zip line and lots of climbing equipment, bikes and teeter totters and uneven bars and balance beams and mats to do tumbles, etc. It’s really fun 🙂 It’s also $125. I need to pay $45 today to reserve his spot, they penciled us in but I forgot to go by there yesterday to pay the deposit… ugh, I’m running out of money and it’s the day after payday.

Anywho, I have to go and reserve that today and then the rest is due on the day of the party. That shouldn’t be a problem. Kasin is having his birthday at Hamme Pool, which only costs $15. You pay a group rate for the kids, $2.70/head, and they count it up on the day of. I think we’ll have the party at 4 because Kasin has a soccer game at 1 the same day (we’re having kasin’s party on March 2nd since his bday is on a Tuesday) and then get a bunch of pizzas for afterwards and have pizza and chips and juice and cake. It should be cheap and easy. I think I’m just going to get him a 3DS for his bday, he can use all the same games he has for his regular DS in it, and the one I have picked out for him has Mario 3D pre-loaded on it. He’s having a Ninjago themed birthday and we have picked out a ton of Ninjago stuff from Etsy, since there isn’t a package deal at any of the party supply places that I can find. Milo is having Pocoyo!

 I’m just getting the plates and table clothes and the party boxes
Then I’m going to order a bunch of little goodies from Oriental Trading – I am just doing little rainbow goodies, little packs of crayons, rainbow notebooks, rainbow lollipops, rainbow star stickers, I’m also ordering some Pocoyo stickers on ebay for like $1 and i’ll cut them apart and put some in each box. I’m getting the invites and thank you cards on Etsy for $10 and you just print as many as you want-

Pretty cute! Ross wants to "cater" his party, since we’re going to have a lot of adults in attendance, as well. He’ll probably do like ham and cheese pull apart bread, fruit and veggie trays, and cookies. I’m going to make a cake, and I haven’t decided yet if I want to get these adorable Fondant decorations from Etsy for the cake or if I want to do the star tip hand piping instead… or these cool edible frosting sheets you can print out with a picture from the show and then you just put it on top of a sheet cake and it melts into the icing. The last choice is cheapest and easiest, so it might win out.

KASIN is having all this awesome Ninjago shit. 

$12, you buy the designs and they personalize it for you and print out as many as you want at WalMart or wherever.

There’s also a birthday banner and party bag decorations and there’s eye stickers you can put on anything you want- you can stick them to cups, treat bags, balloons, etc. so we’ll probably order some of those, too. And then we’re going to find Ninjago stickers/ tattoos and put those in the goodie bags along with candy and ninja toys- we found cheapie sets of plastic swords from Oriental Trading, and little plastic ninja figurines. He likes the idea of the water bottle wrappers and stuff, but that all seems like hyped up expensive for no reason, they’re just going to drink the water and then throw it away, so what’s the point? I’ll buy red green and blue plates and cups and bags and probably just yellow table covers. I need to go in there today and reserve the party space, too.

Let’s see, what else.

School just started back up for me this last week, it’s been exhausting. I so hate math class. HATE. i know you all are already aware of that, but still. I skipped it on friday because i had so many errands to run, and it was SO nice. I got a ton of stuff done. i had to drop off the packets I assembled for the soccer association, i got a $100 scholarship for kasin this season in exchange for volunteer work- assembling team packets. I also got to the post office and sent out Xmas packages for my mom, ross’ mom, and jesse and Jamie. (My shift isnt working very well so I know my capitals are inconsistent, sorry people.) and I got some emails out to my advisor about my internship packet, finished my bio and my updated resume for that, as well. i gassed up the car and got groceries, too. 

Kasin got his second quarter grades and got H’s in almost everything, very good as always 🙂 He’s such a great kid. 

I’m trying to get Kasin into swimming lessons, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it with the scheduling… maybe not until April, anyways. They have a super difficult and miserable application process to get into swim classes. You have to be there when they open at 7am and you have to be one of the first 12 people for the slot you want or you don’t get in. it’s ridiculous. People stake it out like a Barry Manilow concert. he’s a Level 1 "Learn To Swim" and I would really PREFER saturday classes, but they are hard to work out with his soccer schedule, so I will have to see what TIMES the other classes are, I know they are on Tues/Thurs OR Mon/Wed. But I’m betting the times are like 340-5 or something ridiculous that I won’t be able to manage because of my job. And Im betting that swimming lessons will interfere with soccer schedules on Saturdays. SOOO, maybe it’ll have to wait until April when Soccer is over for. 

There’s also the possibility of Tae Kwon Do? Swimming/TKD are much cheaper than soccer… Soccer is $100 per season! For ten weeks! ugh. It’s ridiculous, if you ask me. but he really likes it and it’s good for him, so I try to work it out with the scholarships and everything… swimming is $45 per session, and the TKD places vary, but you can buy punch cards and just go whenever it suits you, or whenever you have time in your schedule. So that’s pretty cool.

Anyways, lessons.. kid activities. Very fun 🙂 

I guess that’s all I’m doing at the moment. I don’t have time for anything, ever. I think I will run off to reserve Milo’s bday spot at Gym Inc. PHEW!
~Me