Birthday - Birthday 🥳🎂

Birthdays have always been a BIG deal. I know it sounds…weird? But I love birthdays!! And truly - getting older hasn’t bothered me (for the most part 🙃). Ben hasn’t really ever been “in” to them but since our birthdays are so close (I call him “old man” for 9 days 😜😜), he’s been great about letting me throw him / us random parties to celebrate. It’s been a great way for us to celebrate together - work together, and just enjoy the celebration. 

It’s not about presents though 🎁 - The older we get the less “stuff” we seem to want (garage sale anyone???), and it becomes more about having money to throw in our “saving for something” jar, quality time… or tattoos 😜 But that’s not all we do for birthdays… with Sophie’s birthday so close to Christmas we decided to try something different for her (we don’t want her to open one sock for each - and yes, it’s a long story but, depressing!). We’ve started doing “projects” for her birthday. Since this last birthday we have been piecing together a reading tent 📚⛺️ for her, and I see so many fun family projects going forward!! We’ve done special meals, movie trips, out of town plays, and gatherings.

So what started my enjoyment of birthdays? Well probably growing up - typical birthdays growing up we’d get to pick all the things - and even…picking to eat out!! I remember them seeming almost magical and while I know that seems weird, we did things together to work well on a single income that getting to pick what you REALLY wanted was such a rush 😜 Especially when I ended up in public school in another VERY SMALL town - having food brought IN, was amazing. Most of the time we’d have donuts for breakfast, some fast food for lunch, (this was all before really understanding what was in our foods - and while celebrating is good we do try to not load up so much on artificial garbage) and have a favorite meal in the evening, and yes - I ALWAYS picked something “fancy” and slightly complicated to make… because I was a peach about things 😜 Don’t worry - I still pick something for Ben to make (usually grill) and then… he does the clean up! 😉

I think some of the favorite birthdays since Ben and I have been married are the ones I’ve been able to pull off with a celebration for him. Like his 22nd birthday - Surprise party!! We had people park about a block away and he had NO idea 😉😉 It was great! We sat around for several hours after most of the people had left just enjoying our time and talking about all things Ben. I don’t think I’ve been able to pull a fast one on him since, but really that’s more because I cannot keep a secret from him… We also threw a “The Best of 30 Years” costume party for our 30th birthday. We decorated with things from our year of birth (VHS vases) and so many snacks that we’ve loved over the years (Like Surge! 💚 and before you ask….it was grosser then I remembered) and we dressed up from Ben’s favorite movie - Napoleon Dynamite, while our friends and family dressed up as their favorite thing from the past 30 years. We had a costume contest and had waaaaaay to much old school sugar! 

So this year we’ve done things completely different…. We didn’t do much of anything. We had some unusually odd sick days. I know, fun right? First Soph then, oddly, me! Thankfully Ben hasn’t caught it yet so he was good grilling steaks and asparagus for his own birthday (I don’t even try - he really is just that good) and I’m thinking for mine (it’s today by the way 😜) that we’ll do burgers and all the fixings, but the BIG question? 

What kind of cake should I have? 🎂