Boys will be Boys

Happy Birthday to Gavin. He turned 4 on October 8th. His two requests were that he wanted a sword and a yax. So we decided boys no matter what will turn whatever is around them into swords, guns etc... Sticks have been our boys preferred way of waging war on each other with stick fights etc... We have piles of sticks sitting outside each door of our house.
How we celebrate birthdays....We don't have parties with friends until the age of seven when we feel they can really appreciate and anticipate the fun. Then from the age of seven on we will have a birthday party with friends once every three years.
So how do we celebrate...
1. A couple nights before the birthday party we let the birthday child stay up late with us and talk about what would make for a special day.
Gavin requested...a star wars cake with star wars decorations, a sword, a yax, a movie, and pizza.
2. So we decorate the dining room of our house with streamers, balloons and of course the theme of the party Star Wars!
3. We make a birthday chair that is decorated much more than the others.
4. We eat off of the themed plates and drink out of the cups for at least a couple days (a good wipe down with a paper towel makes paper plates last quite a while).
5. We can't forget the oh so important birthday cereal. We don't each much cereal around here and if we do it is definitely not the fun sugary kind. So each birthday they get to pick out a big giant box of sugar cereal the night before their birthday. This is their birthday breakfast along with a breakfast favorite like homemade cinnamon rolls, pancakes, waffles or french toast. Normally every one chooses the cinnamon rolls...they are amazingly yummy, but take more time and effort than the other choices which means we have them at birthdays and Christmas and that is all.
6. The birthday kid gets to make the decisions for the day. All day what they want to do and eat.
7. We sing happy birthday in all different voices each person yells out a different theme and then we sing it example...the spooky way, the hillbilly way, the soft way, the squeaky way, the loud way. We come up with all kinds of crazy ways and we end up somewhere around twelve different ways that we have sung happy birthday to the birthday kid.
8. The birthday kid gets to pick out their own present within a budgeted amount of money. We take them to Toys R Us, Target, Walmart and sometimes the Dollar Store and wonder the stores looking at everything. This is their favorite thing to do.
9. Date Night: We will do it every birthday for each kid because we find this part to be the most important of all. We take the birthday kid on a date. Mom and dad and only the birthday kid. This could range from going to the park and packing a picnic when money is tight or what we like being able to do because we rarely do it is taking them somewhere special like the bowling alley, ice skating, jump zone etc... Gavin wants to go bowling and eat pizza. Branden will probably take him bowling to cut down on costs and then I will get a sitter so I can meet them for dinner and dessert. At dinner we always make a list of the things we hope to see them accomplish in the next year and they tell us the things they would like to accomplish. (teaching them goal setting skills) We review their previous years goals. Branden tracks all of it on his phone and/or ipad.

I think that is it minus the fact our kids with their theme like to dress up on the day of the birthday with the theme of their decorations. Birthdays are fun and birthdays are simple ways of giving thanks for the little person God has given us.