Birthdays at our House

This week I am going to share a little about birthday celebrations in our home...

We love celebrations and birthdays are no exception. I absolutely love the planning, making and executing of these parties. My favorite part has to be working with each of my daughters to make their party a celebration of who they are at that moment. They help me create the invitations and decorations, help bake and frost the cake and set up on the day of the party. It is a whole process that we do together. That is why I love these parties. I am able to use my strengths to help them have a day that really celebrates them. I will share more about what we do for their parties in the next few days, but today I am going to share a few traditions/ideas we have for our girls’ actual birthdays.

The first being we do not have their party on their actual day. That day is a day to celebrate just as a family. I decorate their door the night before so they wake up to streamers and balloons as they open their door. I also decorate the table for breakfast...breakfast just happens to be my girls’ favorite meal. While the decorations/theme may change from year to year, there are a few constants at each birthday morning celebration.

A few years back I came across this adorable glass cupcake called "The Hidden Cupcake." It can be found here: http://www.thehiddencupcake.com/

(I found mine at TJMaxx or Marshall's for a fraction of the cost, but it is fun to read the stories and ideas on their website).

At this time we do not hide the cupcake we use it to write what we love about the birthday girl. I set it out for each of my family's birthdays. A few days prior to a birthday, the rest of the family writes a few things that they love about the birthday boy/girl on small pieces of paper. I set the cupcake on the table and it is the first thing that gets opened on their birthday. I love the idea of telling each other what we love about each other, and I love that it has become one of my girls’ favorite part of their day.

One other tradition we have is we let our girls choose what is for dinner. They may choose something at home, but more often than not it is Chuck E. Cheese. Whatever it is...we do it just as a family. I love that part as well. It makes for a relaxed day for all of us...

We also have our girls open their presents from us on their actual day. We usually give 1 larger gift and maybe 1-2 smaller gifts. We are trying very hard to be aware of the number of gifts we give. Our girls are so very blessed and need very little, but we also still want them to receive gifts…we just don’t want the celebration to be all about the gifts. That is basically my whole philosophy on birthdays…to celebrate the person and their special day.