I just love birthdays! What a special time to enjoy looking back, looking forward, and savoring today. We have a few traditions that have developed over the years. 1. We give the kids
a choice on their birthday to either A: have a big blowout birthday party with all their friends, B: take a weekend trip with on their own with one parent, or C: take a weekend trip with the entire family. This
starts around age 4, but is
really enjoyed at age 5+. The kids talk about it all year and usually change there minds often and dream big. Our youngest daughter invites and disinvites other family members to her birthday
celebration (including her twin)throughout the year depending if she likes their behavior or not.
2. Each of the kids enjoy
making something for the birthday kiddo. Gifts range from drawings to sock puppets, but each one is filled with love and thoughtfulness. The exchanging of these gifts is
usually a very special and often touching time.
3. The birthday fairies come to decorate. Either the day before or while they sleep the other kiddos (with help) decorate the room of the birthday kiddo. We
keep a decoration box that the kiddos usually pick from, but when parents are unprepared a roll of toliet paper and construction paper chains work well.
4. Birthday Princesses/Prince wear their crowns. The girls have special birthday tiaras that they wear on their special day.
Since one of the girls has a twin brother we have a special crown for him as well. :)
5. Leave the icing off. When serving birthday cake we leave the icing off and serve each slice with a scoop of icing and a dash of sprinkles.
That way each kiddos has the fun of decorating their slice and no arguments over who gets what piece. Everyone wins, not to mention one less job for mommy on the special day.
6. Sleep where you want. The birthday kiddo gets to choose where they sleep after the big day. They are usually accompanied by at least one sibling and talking is usually not kept to a minimum. We made the mistake of doing this the night before the birthday but after one grumpy birthday boy we decided this was a better way to end a special day.
We just celebrated our 30th kiddo birthday last week. I can't wait to see what the birthdays look like after 30 more, according to my calculation that should be in about 4.5 years.
A fancy tea party can be a lot of fun without a lot of work or cost. I enjoyed visiting other blogs with great tea party ideas before I got started. One of my favorite ideas from Melissa is wrapping paper in the center of the table. This added a nice level of fancy along with making clean-up a cinch. Brightly colored paper would have been lovely too, but the girls choose this elegant white design. Since I needed a little more width I added of paper from the kid's easel on each side. Tape it and all fears of damaging the table were eased. Next we added a few sand candles the kids had made(never to be lit) and cut out multicolored tea cups. Each place setting was fit for a princess. I layered one large piece of paper, a 12X12 scrapbook page, and one while 9X11 printed with their initial. The girls helped me cut out the purple envelopes that we used to enclose princess stickers. A trip to the dollar store added a tiara, wand, princess pen, party horn, and tea set to each placesetting. The last envelope is filled with glitter. A quick wave over the girl's head added a little tea party sparkle! Each place-setting was about $3. The place-setting doubled as the craft set-up and party favor display as well as a stunning display. :)
Once the girls finished their snacks they headed outside to play. Once we added make-up in the mix the girls transformed from the sweet princesses to .... well.... uh...something else. :) 
Since this was a party that the kids worked hard to earn, I asked if it was worth it....overwhelming YES!
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