I looooove birthdays! Love. Them. I love celebrating people on their birthday and making them feel special. Somewhere around when kid #3 happened, Kyle and I settled on how we were going to do our kids' birthday parties. Surprise, surprise, the Wileys wanted a game plan. Ha! Here's what we have come up with for how we do Kids' Birthdays.



Every year we do the following things:

- "I am special today" plate. This plate was a wedding gift from my aunts and we love to use this for our birthdays!



- Birthday pancakes for breakfast (cooked by Daddy)

- Favorite home-cooked dinner (by Mommy)

- 2 or 3 presents from Mommy and Daddy, preferably one of them is a new book and the other is something they really want.



- A Birthday Banner hung up in our home! This has evolved through the years, but now I have a re-usable banner that I print pictures of the birthday kid from the past year and attach them to it and hang it on our mantle. I usually keep this up for about a week.



- A Birthday Cake. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I buy it. Sometimes if my sister is in town, I persuade her to do it for me (thanks Cass! smooches!). Sometimes we do cupcakes and sometime we do big cakes. Case in point: there is a cake.



Every other year we do bigger where we invite friends. On the years that they turn an odd number, it's an "on" year for the party. On evens is off. I fully intend on re-evaluating this plan once they are teens, but this is the plan for now! I still prefer to host the party, although we have at times had it other places (like LK's party last year when we were moving and our house was in shambles mid-packing).

These parties typically involve:

- A Theme






- More Friends and Family




So that's how we do kids' birthdays around here! How do you do it?