Hearts for Home: Birthday Traditions

Look who just turned 11! (How on earth is that possible?)

My oldest child, Joey, turned 11 last week Thursday.

Birthdays always "turn my heart towards home!"

They make me all "mushy" inside thinking about how fast the time flies by-even when one is on bedrest!

(Sorry if the picture is blurry-all I had was my cell phone to use last week.  The regular camera had gotten taken to our business.)

Last year after he turned 10 I felt like I was having a mid-life crisis....

where had those ten years gone and how could I possibly teach him everything he needs to know in the next eight years before he leaves for college?......

Thankfully my sweet hubby helped put everything back in perspective: we do our best one day at a time and remember that God's in control.

Birthday Traditions

My family really didn't celebrate birthdays or holidays as a kids growing up.

My mother still lives by some pretty untraditional ideas.

The first birthday tradition I "stole" from my friend Wendy K.-that is the birthday person gets to pick the menu for the entire day: breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Usually the kids always pick a sugar cereal that we only buy as a birthday present for breakfast.  I have found that I have to limit them to one big bowl each per day-so that maybe the box will last two days!

Joey's lunch menu got changed because our dentist fit us in at the last minute to adjust his retainer before he leaves to visit my late first husband's family for the next three weeks.  He got to have the extra special privilege of eating out on his birthday since we were all famished by the time we got out of the dentist office.  There was just no way that we were going to last for the thirty-five minute drive home plus cooking time for homemade macaroni and cheese.  The babies had already been playing in the waiting room for an hour.....some days you just have to waive the white flag of surrender.

For his supper he picked baked beans and salsa chicken-the chicken we used was our homegrown chicken.  As we ate it I couldn't help, but think about how even more wonderful it would be when we were eating our own canned salsa as well-hopefully next year!

Joey asked for homemade cookie cake, but in 91' weather without air conditioning in the kitchen and nine months pregnant, I just couldn't make that.  So, I did some brainstorming and realized that for the first time in seven years he hadn't put strawberries, his favorite fruit, on the menu.  So we compromised with "strawberry shortcake" for dessert.  I took the easy way out and bought the mini-cakes at the bakery and both big kids helped cut up, sugar and smash the strawberries.  All of us except for the birthday boy topped ours with whip cream-he just ate four helpings of plain cake and strawberries by himself.  (I guess he decided to give us a glimpse of how much he'll be able to pack away as a growing teenage boy.)  The strawberry shortcake got served in Homer Laughlin Fiesta Ware china that my mother-in-law and daughter Jessie got last Thanksgiving from their outlet store.  The outlet store has dollar paper grab bags and my mother-in-law has gotten really good at feeling the bags to figure out what's inside: bowls, coffee cups, etc.  She usually buys some bags for the kids to open whenever she stops at the store.  Last Thanksgiving Debbie and Jessie "scored" six of these two handed custard bowls-and they were all matching yellow.  Doesn't the strawberry shortcake look lovely?

Jason, Joey and Jessie enjoying their dessert:

(Jessie had been helping the babies "cool off" in the toddler pool in between supper and dessert time.)

Anna just eating the whip cream and strawberries.  Sweet sister that she is she left the cake for Joey to eat as one of his four helpings:

Katie eating her dessert (sorry I couldn't figure out how to flip this cell phone picture in the post):

Our last birthday tradition is only three years old.  Since we homeschool year round I came up with the tradition of "game day" for birthdays.  I usually leave a list for the kids to pick from when they get up in the morning.  For instance we've played Scrabble as our spelling class, charades as drama, baseball as gym, stretched uno to be math for a second grader-the sky's the limit.

Unfortunately because of all my on again/off again contractions I didn't think ahead to get a sitter to help entertain the two toddlers-they really don't cooperate well with board games right now.  (At least by Jessie's birthday in October my mother-in-law and Jason's grandmother should be here to help out with game day-yeah!)  So, Joey got to pick a movie off of netflix to watch during the afternoon heat and talked to most of the long distance family members before 6pm that night.  Then thankfully Katie and Anna went down early for bed.  While I was getting the babies down Joey and Jessie played a few games on the Wii and then the four of us played Blokus-awesome game!  Think board game version of tetris-and I won both rounds!

The birthday presents and cards are opened when everyone is present-so that means the birthday person has to wait for daddy to be home from work.

So, this is how my family "keeps our hearts at home" for birthdays....what does your family do?

Check out all the other "Hearts for Home" links!:)Cherished Hearts at Home