We have four birthdays all in one week of August. I am the 19th, the twins are the 25th and Jack is the 26th. It’s a lot of celebrating to get done in a short amount of time. I have spent two birthdays in the hospital due to pregnancy and truth be told, between school starting, other kids birthday parties (a lot of kids are born in August!) and our own birthdays, the whole month just gets filled quite quickly. I don’t even really focus on celebrating myself because it’s more about the kids but we did start a few things over last few years to make birthday’s a little more special. We don’t believe that it has to be huge gestures to make them memorable, and I would rather have a few small things that we do consistently each year than big things which happen inconsistently. As a parent it is very easy to get stuck in “trying to keep up” or compare what you are doing to what others are. Our kids have friends who throw wonderful birthday parties and it’s such a blessing that they have these friendships and opportunities to do some grand things, but it can make one feel like they must also have a spectacular extravaganza or be spending a lot of money. I’d like to instill in our kids that it isn’t about what we do and how much money we spend but that we can celebrate them and who God has made them to be. Here are 3 things we do to make birthdays special.
- Fun breakfast! It used to be that my husband would run up very early in the morning to go get donuts which is fun, but a few years ago we decided to be more intentional with our fun breakfast. So last year I made a cake or cupcakes the day before birthdays to have cake for breakfast. What is great about a fun breakfast is that it can be a cake or you could do cinnamon rolls or French toast casserole. There are many delicious breakfast options to choose from for your birthday breakfast. This year I made sourdough vanilla cake from Farmhouse on Boone both weekends and it was so good.
- Decorate! In our old house we had a great window that was right by our table where we could decorate it with dry erase markers. Our new house does not have a similar window but it is two stories. We got balloons and noise makers and told the birthday kids they had to come downstairs last. That way when they got to the bottom we all had balloons to throw up and noise makers to blow. On the table is the presents from us that they get to open at breakfast. I feel like its fun to be celebrated starting off the day rather than wrapping it up because often you can wonder what it will be all day and sometimes that feels discouraging.
- The last thing we do, which we actually saw on a family show from our subscription to Yippee, but it is to bless our child and go around the table saying one thing we love about them. This was really fun to do because I got to hear Elisha say that she loves how Jack tickles her, or how Eva loves that Jack builds great forts. We got to see the smiles on the twins faces when we talked about what we love about them.
We still had a small birthday party with grandparents over the weekend but my prayer is that by focusing on ways to celebrate our kids each year they will have memories to hold on to over the years. What are some of the ways you celebrate your kids on their birthdays? Let me know in the comments below.
