One a Month

In our family, we have a birthday every month from February-July.  Jesse was in February, and in March it was Gabriel's turn.  Then comes Elizabeth in April, Jimmy in May, me in June and Jo in July.  

Part of the 'resolutions' that I have made concerning our family is that we will be sure to celebrate everyone on their birthday.  Jimmy and I have been trying to reduce the 'gifty-ness' of Christmas, and so to compensate for that, we have decided to do more for each child's birthday.  We figure it means more that way anyway.  Each child can be specially recognized on their special day with a special day and their presents.

We can't always have a party on the actual day of the birthday, so in order to be sure that everyone can gather around and celebrate at least a bit on the actual day, we have started a new tradition of doing a special breakfast.  This worked even better for me since I had given up sweets for lent, and Gabriel's birthday falls right in that time frame.

Our weeks are often very busy, so we planned ahead and Elizabeth made a huge stack of pancakes on Tuesday.  She did a wonderful job on them!  They were perfectly formed and evenly sized with just the right amount of brown on them.  Beautiful!  We took those and wrapped them up with wax paper between them and put them in the fridge.  Then, Wednesday night, I whipped up a batch of whipping cream and put that in the fridge, too.

Thursday morning, I got up early and heated a stack of pancakes in the oven, leaving one cold to put on the top.  I cut a hole in the top one to put the number '3' candle in, and then stacked it on top of the warm pancakes, stuck the candle in and decorated the whole thing with the whipped cream.

Then everyone came downstairs and in their pj's we sang happy birthday, Gabriel blew out the candles and we had cake!  Pancakes, to be exact.  It was so much fun!

Next, we opened presents.  Well, actually, we opened present, singular because what I ordered for him online had not gotten here yet.

He was very particular about not ripping the paper, and finally he had to get some help from his big sister.

Yay!  A train puzzle!  He and Jo wasted no time in putting it together on the floor while I dropped Jimmy off at work.  It was a great start to a special day!

Then, when his other present FINALLY got here about 5 days late, he got to open that one, too!  I have a picture of it, but I can't upload it for some reason, but it's the cutest little guitar.  It's actually a musical instrument and not a toy, really.  It has metal strings and a very nice body that is white with different colored and sized polka dots all over it.  He absolutely LOVES it.  Elizabeth has a ukulele that we brought back with us from Hawaii, but that was more of a toy with the plastic strings that broke quickly and wouldn't stay in tune and he wore that one completely out, so we decided to go ahead and get him one of a little better quality.  He carries it everywhere and likes to take it in the car and strum it while he listens to and sings his favorite songs on the radio.  So cute!

So, we have not yet had an actual birthday party for him with a traditional cake and friends over and whatnot, but we did celebrate, and hopefully we can pull something together soon...before Elizabeth's birthday!