One of my daughters just turned 10 last week!! Double digits! I can't believe how fast it goes. Birthdays are such a mix of celebration, reflection, reminiscing, and looking forward to the future. I'm so amazed at the wonderful girl she has become, and can't wait to see what her bright future will bring - but I also want to slow it all down, keep her little, go back to the younger years that I feel went by way too quickly and get one more chance to rock her to sleep! I also find myself reflecting on my mothering to her over the past ten years, and vowing to cherish every minute going forward. Oh birthdays, you send me on a roller coaster!
Never the less, we have a few family traditions surrounding birthdays that I wanted to share! We love to find simple, inexpensive ways to make the birthday person feel extra special on their big day! We celebrate with gifts and parties as well, and boy do I have some fun birthday party ideas to share at another time, but these are just the small things we do on their day to amp up the "specialness" of the day a little bit! As with all things in our life, we are trying to put the focus on the experience, the love, and the special family traditions - and less on the items. These are not your perfect pinterest-worthy over the top things - these are low key but full of love!
*Please note that some of these links include affiliate links. If you make a purchase through my affiliate link I will earn a commission. This is provided at no extra cost to you.
2.) Bedroom Decorations - We decorate their door/bedroom after they go to sleep so they wake up on their birthday to a special surprise! Typically this involves hanging streamers and balloons from their door, or a happy birthday banner. For my daughter's recent 10th birthday, we added a list of 10 Things We Love about her! We also fill their bedroom floor with balloons to walk through when they wake up! We throw the extras in the living room too, and this almost always results in quite a few fun games of "keep the balloon off the ground" that our whole family gets into and has so much fun!
3.) Special breakfast - We typically just buy donuts for breakfast on the morning of their birthday, and throw in a candle for the birthday person! Occasionally we have done cinnamon rolls or "choose your favorite junk cereal" since they don't typically get to have it at home, or some other request, but it's typically just a quick easy donut run the night before!
4.) Cake - Surprise, surprise... we eat cake on their birthday! Ha. The thing that makes it special in our house, is that my husband and I bake them a cake (typically some amped up version of a box mix) and then decorate it however they request. This IS NOT a professional looking cake by any means. But, our kids love that we make it for them - and I love that it's something fun my husband and I do together, with a mix of convenience and DIY. It's just another example of putting the effort into the parts that matter, and taking the easy road on the parts that don't. My hope is always that it's the thought that counts, and they have learned to cherish the cakes that we make rather than the more expensive, professional cakes, which is such an important lesson I think.
5.) Looking at old photos/videos and talking about their birth story - We almost always end up pulling out baby photos or videos on each of our kids' birthdays, and talking about the day they were born, funny baby stories or stories of their birthdays in younger years. They love seeing and hearing about things when they were babies and I love reminiscing on my time being pregnant and birthing them, and all the special baby moments we had.
As you can see, these aren't crazy, over the top ideas. Just a few simple things, that take a few extra minutes and a very low budget to make the birthday person feel a little extra special! It is so fun having family traditions with our kids and creating memories we hope they'll cherish into the future!
Do you have special birthday traditions at your home? Anything we should add to our usual ones to amp up the excitement a little? I absolutely love getting a glimpse into how other people do it, and am sure there are better ideas out there I should be adding!
Leave me some ideas in the comments!
No Comments Yet, Leave Yours!