{A}’s Birthday Celebration

So in an effort to catch up a little bit here, I’ll start with {A}’s birthday celebration, which was over a month ago now!

Birthdays are a big deal in our family. We really like to take the day, and acknowledge the birthday person with gratitude for their life, and the blessing they are to our home and family, the best way we know how. We try to instill in the children, that just like Christmas, birthdays are not about the gifts we get, nor do we care for them to be the focus of our celebrations. They’ve learned that birthdays are about the celebration of their life, and gifts from loved ones sometimes come along with that occasion. Special birthday packages for the children often do come from loved ones by mail, as our extended families are for the most part not local to us. We know these packages are sent as an expression of love and birthday thoughts, and are accepted with love and gratitude.

So over the years some birthday traditions have come to be that are very special to us, as the ways in which we always celebrate birthdays in our family. It goes something like this:

No work, No School:

No matter what day a birthday in our family lands on, no one works that day (us parents), and we (primarily the kids, and so us too, as their teachers) don’t have school work either. The birthday person decides ahead of time what they want to do, or where they want to go, on their birthday. Sometimes it’s a family trip from overnight to several days, sometimes it’s a day trip, or an activity,….it can be anything within reason. The point is, we spend the day all together, focusing on them, and giving thanks for their life. We inevitably talk and share about the memories we cherish regarding their life, such as when we were expecting them, and the day they were born. We let them know, each in our special ways, how much they mean to us, what an integral piece they are in our family, how blessed we feel to have them, and how much we love them.

Birthday Pancakes:

Daddy started this tradition with {A}’s 1 year birthday breakfast. What is special about the birthday pancakes is that they are made into the age of the birthday person. This year, {A}’s pancakes were extra personalized, with not only her age, but her age in a roman numeral > She LOVES roman numerals, so she was very excited about that. As if pancakes don’t make her excited enough! This time, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to eat them, or not!

For her birthday, {A} first chose to go out to western MA to her Papa’s for a few days. Since there were people we needed to visit out that way as well, we planned that for our summer vacation and went the following week . For her official birthDAY, she wanted to go bowling! She said she thought it would be extra special, since it was the little ones first time going bowling. (Aawwww!) They all had a really great time. As luck would have it, Mama and Daddy were pretty excited about that idea too, because we LOVE bowling. We actually went bowling a LOT, back in the day when we were ‘courting.’ (More ‘aawwwww’) We did 10 pin bowling, but {A} wanted to go candlepin because it would be easier for {J}, {O} and {S} to do. They were all so cute and funny, and as usual, I took LOTS of photos, and here are just a few:

The birthday girl going for a strike!

Here she is again, being as silly as she often is. (Kind of missed the shot, but it is so HER, I had to include it.)

Our left handed man, {J}.

This is {O}; She was so funny, because she would hold this stance after every roll, until the ball had disappeared. She was quite the bowler!

{S} Oops! But nice form!!

Love this shot of our 4 bowlers.

After bowling, we took {A} surprise shopping to pick out a new skateboard. She’s been big into skateboarding for quite awhile now, so we knew she’d be thrilled. After 2 stores, she finally found one that she felt suited her skill and liked the look of. She left that store beaming, bouncing through the parking lot with her new board. She was really excited to break it in.

She decided that she wanted to save her cake (which she insisted on making herself) and the special packages/gifts she had received for the next day after mass (which she was happily serving at), which sounded great to all of us, because we were all plum-tuckered out too. And it just gave the opportunity to extend her celebration to an extra day.

So the next day after late morning mass, and lunch, she opened her gifts. She received many books, a journal, some money (very old for her collection, and to spend), a very special keepsake box from her Godmother that has ‘their’ special saying on it, and some other cool things too, but here is what she opened that day and she just loves it all.

Cake:

The birthday family member also gets to choose what kind of birthday cake they want. {A} chose (and made herself), chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting. I love the series of photos, so I had to make a collage with them. lol. The last photo (bottom right), she broke out laughing because when she blew out the candles, all of the smoke came my way where I was trying to take the photo, and I was pretending to really choke over it.

All in all she was very happy with her birthday celebrations she had planned out. She said it was ‘icing on the cake’ to be scheduled to alter serve at mass that day too. She was really hoping she would be able to serve on her birthday weekend, and she got her wish. She said she really wanted to serve because , in her words, “Serving is important to me. It makes my faith grow stronger, and I really wanted to spend some time with Christ, serving Him, for my birthday.” (Wow. We love that.)

As she says every year, “This was the best birthday I ever had!”.

The end of August brings the triplets birthday, and they have all been in a flurry of excitement, planning out their special day next! You’d think it would get tricky with 3, but somehow so far every year, they’ve all discussed their ideas and agree to the same things.

{A} – We’re glad you enjoyed your birthday celebration as much as we enjoyed celebrating you. May the light that we see in you every day, continue to bring you joy every day of the coming year, ‘and many more…….’. We love you!!